Execs hit golf course to raise $210,000 for Bucks' Pat Connaughton's foundation: Slideshow

About 250 Milwaukee-area business and community leaders teamed up with Milwaukee Bucks star Pat Connaughton on Monday to raise about $210,000 to help Connaughton's foundation fund new basketball courts and camps for youths in southeastern Wisconsin and other areas of the country.

The golf event and dinner was held at The Club at Lac La Belle in Oconomowoc.

Connaughton is also founder of Three Leaf Partners, an active Milwaukee-area real estate development firm. His foundation is one of the more active of Bucks players in southeastern Wisconsin, renovating five basketball courts at nonprofits or community centers, including four in Milwaukee. Its most recent project was completing a new court at the Silver Spring Neighborhood Center in Milwaukee.

He was a 2022 Milwaukee Business Journal 40 Under 40 winner.

"As a kid, obviously I dreamed of playing in the NBA. I dreamed of getting drafted in baseball. I dreamed of being in the dunk contest. I dreamed of being an NBA champion," Connaughton told TMJ4 recently. "And as I was able to kind of check some of those off over time, I wanted to give back to the people and places that helped make me who I am, because I wouldn't be where I am today without them.

"So if anything, it's more about kids being able to see that somebody who plays in the NBA, plays for the Bucks is taking the time to pour back into this community. And I think it really kind of inspires them."

The event included a lively silent and live auction that featured two courtside seats at a Bucks game and a practice facility tour with Connaughton raising $6,000.

Milwaukee-area business and community leaders at the golf event and dinner included philanthropist Ted Kellner; Paul Stewart, CEO of PS Capital Partners; Buddy Julius of The Firm LLC; Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski; Milwaukee Bucks president Peter Feigin; Jim Villa of NAIOP Wisconsin; Bill Arpe of Fiduciary Real Estate Development; Rob Haugen of Michels Corp.; and Jerry Jendusa of EMTEQ.