Personal Life
Arenas was born in Tampa, Florida. His paternal grandfather is originally from Cuba. He was raised in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles where he played basketball at Ulysses S. Grant High School. His #25 was retired by the school. One of his cousins is Javier Arenas, a professional football player who plays cornerback for the Kansas City Chiefs. Another cousin, Armando Murillo, is also a defensive back for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. On January 5, 2007, Arenas threw a million dollar 25th birthday party for himself which was dubbed "Arenas Express". The party, which was hosted by hip hop mogul P Diddy, was attended by many celebrities and drew national media attention. Arenas is a friend of rapper The Game and was listed in the booklet for The Game's second album Doctor's Advocate. He collects a synthetic basketball from each team played, as well as players' jerseys, of which he has more than 200, most of which are autographed. He supported PETA's anti-fur mission by posing shirtless for their "Ink, Not Mink" campaign. Arenas is an avid Halo player—his Gamertag is Agent Arenas—and officially sponsored Final Boss, a professional Halo 3 team. In 2007, Arenas was chosen as the front cover model for video game NBA Live 08 sporting his "good luck" Wizards alternative jersey. "This is a dream come true," he said. "I'm a huge gamer and have been playing NBA LIVE since 1995. I never imagined that I would see my face on the cover of an EA Sports videogame."
Arenas donated $100 for every point he scored in each home game during the 2006–07 season to local D.C. area schools, while Wizards team owner Abe Pollin matched that contribution for each away game. He also mentors a D.C. boy who lost his family in a fire at age 10. Arenas takes him shopping, bowling, got him a job as a ball boy for the Wizards, and acts as a brotherly figure towards him.
Arenas has had his own shoe, the Adidas Gil Zero, as well as his own line of Adidas TS Lightswitch shoes. Arenas wears size 14 1⁄2 shoes. Following the gun incident in 2009, Adidas dropped their sponsorship of Arenas. Instead of signing another endorsement deal, he turned to his vast collection of shoes. For nearly every game of the season, Arenas wore a different pair of shoes, wearing a total of 77 different pairs.
Read more about this topic: Gilbert Arenas
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