Following the tragic death of a Celtics fan back in June, his family got a little creative with his funeral ceremony.
The thought behind the funeral of Renard Matthews is nice, although it might not be the kind of funeral services you might be used to.
Matthews was an 18-year-old resident of New Orleans who was tragically killed in a shooting back on June 26. Despite being from New Orleans, Matthews was apparently a huge fan of the Boston Celtics, and his favorite things to do were to play video games and eat junk food. As a big fan of the NBA, one of his favorite video games to play was NBA2K.
For Matthews’ funeral ceremony, his family decided not to go with the traditional casket route, instead opting to stage his body to depict his favorite setting — playing the basketball video game while having junk food and soda at his side.
An SB Nation article covered the story of the funeral, and it includes a photo of Matthews’ funeral set up. While the thought behind it is genuine and sentimental, it might some strange to a lot of people. Matthews’ corpse is propped up in a spinning chair while wearing a Celtics jersey, more specifically the No. 11 Kyrie Irving black alternate jersey. On his feet are Kyrie Irving socks and Nike slides. A pair of sunglasses cover his eyes and a PlayStation controller rests in his hands.
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Sitting on a table at his side is a bag of Doritos, a bottle of Barq’s root beer, and a television remote. Playing on the screen was an NBA2K simulated game between the Celtics and the Golden State Warriors, and behind Matthews were rows of chairs for the ceremony.
It was a creative and thoughtful way to honor Matthews’ life, and a reflection of the passion of Celtics fans everywhere (one of the reasons they ranked 63rd in our 2017 Fandom250).