‘There’s no way somebody makes it out of this’: NBA superstar Bam Adebayo survived poverty in an NC trailer park — now he's an Olympic gold medalist

Adebayo’s inspiring journey started in an unlikely place: a single-wide trailer in rural North Carolina.

“If you go to my hometown, you would be like, ‘There's no way somebody makes it out of this,’” Adebayo told Playmaker in an interview, adding that even he was convinced he would never break out of the vicious cycle of poverty he grew up in.

Breaking free of that cycle requires a change in mindset, and for Adebayo, his family and education played a key role. Here’s how his experiences not only shaped his path to success but fueled his drive to win gold for his country.

Inspired by his mother

Adebayo credited his mom, Marilyn Blount, for shielding him from much of the pain of rural poverty.

As a single mother working as a cashier at the Acre Station Meat Farm, Blount reportedly earned just $12,000 a year. Nevertheless, she ensured Bam had what he needed to focus on his education and basketball career.

“She is one of those people who (is) going to find a way,” he says. “She's going to make a way — even if she has nothing to work with — she's going make a way for me to have clothes on my back (and) food on the table.

“I didn't really realize I was poor until I was probably like 16 because my mom had done such a great job of comforting me and making me feel like I had enough but also telling me like we don't have a lot.”

Adebayo admitted that some of that comfort may have slipped into complacency at times. His “small mindset” left him unprepared for the early liftoff in his college basketball career.

“It was definitely a shock to me because I didn't want to grow as a person,” he said. “I was like, I'm cool with the friends that I have. I don't need any more friends. These are my friends until the day I die.”

Our surroundings and social connections can have a significant impact on our future income, according to studies published in the journal Nature in 2022. Researchers analyzed 21 billion Facebook connections and established a link between childhood friendships with high-income families and an average 20% bump in future earnings. In other words, your social circle can help determine social mobility later in life.

Growth mindset

Adebayo said a grueling schedule of studying for college while traveling the country for basketball games forced him to shift his thinking.

“College was a wake-up for me,” he said.

Epiphanies like Adebayo’s lead to what’s called a “growth mindset.” Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck and her colleagues established through a series of experiments that students with this mentality — a belief that skills can be attained and improved — often took challenges and failures as learning experiences to advance their skills and careers. This eventually led to better outcomes than those with a “fixed mindset.”