Lavelle “Yang” Grant named first Rams “pLAymaker” of 2026 at Watts Empowerment Center

The Los Angeles Rams have selected Lavelle “Yang” Grant of the Watts Empowerment Center as the team’s first “pLAymaker” of 2026, a recognition aimed at spotlighting local leadership that reaches young people at the center of their communities’ daily struggles. The Rams announced the honor through the team’s official website, framing it as part of a broader effort to celebrate youth-focused service in Los Angeles.

Grant’s organization, the Watts Empowerment Center, is rooted in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. In the team’s announcement, the Rams emphasized the demographic reality the center is built to serve, citing an average population age of 21 and noting that more than half of residents drop out of school, with only 2.9% making it to college. The figures were presented as context for why the center’s youth programming matters, positioning its mission as an intervention where traditional pathways to higher education can be hardest to access.

The Rams’ “pLAymaker” initiative connects the franchise brand to community impact, and the team’s wording made clear that the award is intended to recognize sustained work rather than one-off recognition. By naming the Watts Empowerment Center’s leader as the first honoree for the year, the Rams placed Grant’s work at the front of their 2026 community narrative, linking an on-field identity to off-field outcomes.

For Grant and his organization, the recognition underscores an approach that relies on local credibility and a direct understanding of what young people need. The Rams’ announcement specifically described the center as serving the youth demographic “in their community that needs it the most.” That framing suggests the honor is less about sports performance and more about long-term development, support systems, and the creation of opportunities that can compete with the pull of failing institutions.

The team’s statistics also elevate the stakes of those efforts. When a community’s average age is extremely young and educational attainment is described in the single digits, programming aimed at students and teenagers can become a central lever for change. In that context, the Watts Empowerment Center’s work is presented by the Rams as a mechanism to expand the odds for young residents, including those who may otherwise never reach the point of considering college as a realistic next step.

As the “pLAymaker” label moves into 2026, Grant’s selection offers a look at how the Rams plan to structure their community recognition. The franchise did not frame the award as a sports milestone, but rather as a way to measure who is helping “make the next play” possible in the lives of youth across Los Angeles. The immediate thing to watch is how the Rams continue naming additional “pLAymaker” honorees and whether the team pairs the recognition with new community activations tied to the award recipients’ causes.