Ricky Grace began his work in communities throughout WA while still playing with the Wildcats and it has only continued to grow since as he remains committed to the cause.

Grace's career in the NBL after arriving at the Perth Wildcats in 1990 was legendary as he played in four championships, won a record six club MVP Awards and represented Australia at the Sydney Olympics, but he's work off the court is just as impressive.

Grace began his work helping the youngsters of WA when he was still with the Wildcats in local communities in the off-season and he had already started up Role Models WA over a decade ago.

That has now developed into Role Models and Leaders Australia, which has grown to help kids in 18 different regions across WA and into the Northern Territory as it helps the youngsters by providing leadership, role models and guidance largely through sport and education.

It has been established with support from the Department of Education and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) Sporting Chance Program, the schools and the communities.

One of the most exciting aspects of the work Grace is doing with the help of his strong staff is in the development of the Girls Basketball Academies, which now has set-ups at Clontarf in Perth as well as Broome, Bunbury, Kalgoorlie, Darwin, Jabiru and Alice Springs.

Grace isn’t one to reflect back on his glory days as a basketball legend, he's all about what he is doing now and helping kids is something he is totally committed to.

"When I was playing I always was thinking what I wanted to do after I played. I never really lived in the moment like a lot of people I guess do, I was always thinking ahead. I was probably one of the few players who got my master's degree while I was playing and I always did something that I thought would be helping me," Grace said.

"I always wanted to work with kids, I'm a big kid myself still, and I also think that getting a good education is very important. If there's one thing that I can use my profile to have a positive impact with, then that's where I wanted to use it.

"I want to have a positive impact on kids, especially at the ages of 13 to 17 when they are still kids but their bodies are starting to become adults. You can really do a lot of damage in those years to the rest of your life, so that's where I have tried to focus most of my programs towards."

Grace doesn’t want to limit any of the work he does to a certain race or age group, and while so far it has encompassed a lot of Indigenous kids, he's looking to expand it all the time to help as many communities as possible.

"The need is so great and we've only tipped the iceberg on the amount of girls we've been able to help. There's still so many other people who need help and I would like for my program to also be about non-Indigenous people as well," Grace said.

"Most of the academies that we run are for Indigenous and non-Indigenous and that's something that I am really proud of. I don’t want to be a reverse racist. It has just eventuated this way where a lot of the programs are Indigenous, but there are also a few things I'd like to do with the non-Indigenous culture too."

Grace has been encouraged by the way the Indigenous communities he's worked in have embraced him. While he works with boys as well, he did notice a void with programs for girls compared to boys so he decided to do something about it.

"I didn’t plan on doing the girl's academies, it came about because I just decided to stop at Clontarf Aboriginal College one day. I walked in and met with the principal, we met and he was an unbelievable man, a real go getter," he said.

"He convinced me that the girls really needed this program because the boys had beautiful classrooms, a ping pong table, a kitchen, big screen TV, heating and air conditioning while the girls were sitting out on the grass.

"There was a huge inequality there so the next day I started to help them raise the awareness of the needs of the Indigenous girls against the amount of support the boys get. We've been very successful at it since and have been able to raise school attendance to keep them engaged."

He has found that basketball has been a great way to have an impact on the girls to motivate them to attend school and take it seriously, and to work towards becoming strong members of society.

"Sport and music are two of the biggest things that bring you together whether you are black, white, blue or purple. It's either sport or music that pretty much everybody enjoys and with the Indigenous people it's both. It's the same with me being African American so we have those common denominators," Grace said.

"I would say that here in WA Australian football definitely rules, but they definitely enjoy their basketball too. That's the boys and the girls. The boys' No. 1 sport is probably footy and the girls' is probably basketball. We go out and use those two avenues to connect to the kids, but we have expanded our program to where we incorporate different role models.

"People just throw that word around now and call everyone a role model, but I think one is the everyday person who gets up to go to work and sets a good example. For me it's more about showing these kids different aspects of life.

"Sometimes they look at me and might think it's impossible. Even if you don’t play in the NBA or in the NBL or the Olympics you can still be successful. We try to bring in just normal role models like a DJ, a teacher or someone from their community who is working in the mines or something."

Grace started his work over 10 years ago and quickly fell in love with it just like he did with the city of Perth 20 years ago.

He still lives here despite his three kids being back in Texas, who he goes back to visit as much as possible, and he's just keen to give something back to Western Australia after how much it did for him during his remarkable career with the Wildcats.

"I was actually doing this before I retired. As early as the late 90s I used to donate a week of my time after the season and go out to the Northern Territory. There was a guy who was the chaplain of one of the Melbourne teams named Jack van Groningen and he asked if I would help him out," he said.

"That was sort of my way of giving back and I really enjoyed it. That's when I decided to start Role Models WA and going out to remote communities. I did that for the last three or four years before I retired, which made it a bit easier to stop playing because I knew that I had something to do.

"As soon as I retired, we grew from servicing three communities to 18 in four different regions - the Pilbara, Gascoyne, Kimberley and Goldfields. It has been very busy since I retired."

Success is something that's hard to measure and having a positive impact on a youngster can lead to various outcomes, but as long as the kids achieve a good level of education and can move towards becoming successful in the best way that suits them, Grace will be happy.

"Successful for us might be a big house, flash car and lots of money, but success for another person might be a close-knit family, live life healthy and taking care of the environment. For me, it's been a huge learning curve working with the Indigenous people and to understand them. It has then been a tremendous honour to be accepted into their culture the way that it seems I have," he said.

"To still give my message to them that I think education is very important regardless of where you want to be in life you still need to be able to write, read, add and subtract at a fairly decent level. I've really enjoyed it and it has taught me a lot about their culture and it has been an honour to be accepted into their community."

For more information on the Academies or Role Models and Leaders programs please call 1300 833 904.