A Basketball Tournament Born of Tragedy Moves to Pasadena City College for Its 12th Year

Fifteen years ago, a coach lost a player to a bullet in Altadena. On Saturday, the tournament he built in that player’s name will tip off at a college gymnasium for the first time.

The 12th Annual Brandon Jackson Memorial Scholarship and Basketball Classic moves to Pasadena City College’s Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium on May 16, the first time the event has been held beyond its original home at John Muir High School. The daylong tournament and scholarship ceremony, run by the nonprofit Empower U, has awarded more than $177,000 to 93 underserved students since 2011, according to the organization.

Brandon Jackson was an 18-year-old Altadena resident and a junior at John Muir High School — a fullback and linebacker on the Mustangs football team and a recipient of the school’s Mustangs Achievement Award — when he was shot and killed on the 300 block of West Palm Street on February 12, 2011, while leaving a party. He was taken to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, where he died.

David Williams, Jackson’s AAU basketball coach, created the scholarship and basketball classic later that year.

“It started out as myself being a grieving coach and mentor for Brandon Jackson,” Williams, now the executive director of Empower U, told Pasadena Now in a 2025 interview. “I initially just wanted to honor him for young man that had overcome so many obstacles to finally achieve the opportunity to be able to attend college.”

Jackson, known to those who mourned him as “Franchise,” had scored a touchdown in the Mustangs’ Turkey Tussle victory over Pasadena and was involved in Mustangs on the Move and Outward Bound, youth programs at the school. At least 400 people attended his funeral at First Presbyterian Church in Altadena.

What began as one coach’s response to violence has grown into what Empower U describes as a grassroots pipeline to higher education. The event has been held annually since 2011, with the exception of a three-year hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic. Past scholarship recipients have attended UCLA, Howard University, Pepperdine, Morehouse, UC Riverside, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Cal State L.A., and Tuskegee, according to prior news coverage.

Williams has said the program has relied on community donations rather than major grants.

“All of the money that we’ve raised have come through personal relationships, knocking on doors, reaching out to folks in the community,” Williams said in a 2025 interview with the Los Angeles Sentinel. “This is just small to medium-sized contributions that we’ve been getting over the years.”

Williams, who also coached AAU basketball and volunteered as a basketball coach for the Brotherhood Crusade, formed Empower U as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in November 2024, establishing a board and operations committee to oversee and expand the program. The organization targets high-achieving, low-income college hopefuls in the Pasadena and Altadena area, primarily students of color with barriers to higher education, according to the organization’s press release.

At last year’s event — the 11th, held at John Muir on May 3, 2025 — Empower U also provided support to two families affected by the Eaton Fire. CBS Los Angeles covered the ceremony, reporting that some scholarship recipients had lost homes in the January 2025 blaze.

On Saturday, Williams will pause the games at 2 p.m. for a “Scholarship Time-out” to present checks to the 2026 Brandon Jackson Scholars.

The 12th Annual Brandon Jackson Memorial Scholarship and Basketball Classic takes place Saturday, May 16, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium, Pasadena City College, 1570 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Tickets are $15 at the door. Teams can register at empowerutoexcel.org. For information, text Jean Grant at (213) 327-4412.

Jackson would have been 33 this year. Ninety-three students are heading to college in his name.