Gillette and Lay-Up Youth Basketball Advance Coach Development to Support the Next Generation

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 3, 2026--

Gillette, the world’s leading expert in men’s grooming, announced the second year of its partnership with Lay-Up Youth Basketball (Lay-Up), a Toronto-based charity that harnesses the power of basketball to develop skills and confidence in young people from Toronto’s Neighbourhood Improvement Areas. Together, Gillette and Lay-Up are focused on helping more boys access positive role models and mentorship opportunities, with Lay-Up’s youth coaches helping make that possible. In this next phase, the partnership adds new coach development elements to further support youth coaches.

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The partnership responds to a broader need across Canada for positive role models for boys, a need that coaches are uniquely positioned to help meet. Across Canada, nearly 40% of people said boys lack access to positive role models, and 91% agree that having a role model has a long-term impact on boys 1. In fact, 80% of Canadians agree that local sports coaches can serve as positive role models for boys 1.

“Coaches can be some of the most important role models in a young person’s life, not just for sport skills, but for confidence, connection, and belonging,” said Jennifer Seiler, Senior Vice President, Grooming Canada at P&G. “At Gillette, we’re committed to helping the men of today and tomorrow look, feel, and be their best. As we continue our work with Lay-Up, we’re deepening our support around the practical skills coaches say they need most, from communication and leadership to confidence building and youth engagement, so more coaches feel equipped to lead on and off the court.”

EXPANDING YOUTH COACH DEVELOPMENT

Gillette’s support powers Lay-Up’s Crossover Pathway, a paid workforce development program that prepares young leaders through training, certifications, and employment. Coaches in Crossover are developed to educate, empower, and inspire the next generation on and off the court.

The partnership is enabling Lay-Up to add skills-building sessions and on-court learning experiences, focused on the areas coaches most want to strengthen. The skills-building sessions featured an expert-led workshop focused on communication and leadership skills, plus practical strategies to keep youth engaged and support boys’ development on and off the court. On-court learning experiences drew on Gillette’s partnership with the Toronto Raptors with a skills and leadership session led by the team’s Assistant Coach, Jama Mahlalela, and a conversation with Toronto Raptors player Gradey Dick on leadership, mindset, and the role of coaches as role models.

“Coaches tell us they want practical, real-world tools to coach the whole person, not only the technical side of basketball,” said Micaella Riche, Executive Director, Lay-Up Youth Basketball. “While our programming serves an even split of boys and girls, this partnership with Gillette allows us to intentionally address the often-overlooked needs of boys. By building on our Crossover Pathway, this collaboration adds targeted training and experiences that equip our coaches with tools to support all young people, on and off the court.”

“As a coach, you can be someone young people look up to, and that’s a big responsibility,” said Prince Dankyi, Regional Manager at Lay-Up. “Thank you to Gillette for supporting training that helps us strengthen our skills, so we can grow as coaches and show up as positive role models for the boys we work with.”

GILLETTE IS THE OFFICIAL SHAVE AND BEARD CARE PARTNER OF THE NBA IN CANADA AND THE TORONTO RAPTORS

Gillette continues to highlight role models with its most recent campaign, The Best Your Game Can Get, which celebrates Gillette’s designation as the official shave and beard care partner of the NBA in Canada and the Toronto Raptors.

“The Best Your Game Can Get” illustrates the younger generation taking the lead with GilletteLabs, showing the world that the best a man can get keeps getting better. This message is brought to life with Gillette ambassador and Toronto Raptors player, Gradey Dick, who shares Gillette’s belief in the power of role models to inspire the next generation of men.

“Role models matter, especially in sport,” said Gradey Dick. “That’s why I’m proud to work with Gillette to help develop the coaches who show up for young people every day. With the right support and guidance, you build confidence and consistency. Being your best isn’t only about performance, it’s also about how you show up, how you treat people, and how you help lift others.”

For more than 120 years, Gillette has been committed to helping men look, feel, and be their best. Please visit Gillette.ca for more information about Gillette and its products.

1 These are the findings of a study/survey conducted by Gillette Canada from February 5 th to February 7 th, 2025, among a representative sample of 1501 online Canadians who are members of the Angus Reid Forum. The survey was conducted in English and French. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

About Gillette

For more than 120 years, Gillette has delivered precision technology and product performance, serving millions of consumers worldwide across shaving and grooming categories. For more information, visit Gillette.ca.

About Procter & Gamble

P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Always®, Ambi Pur®, Ariel®, Bounty®, Charmin®, Crest®, Dawn®, Downy®, Fairy®, Febreze®, Gain®, Gillette®, Head & Shoulders®, Lenor®, Olay®, Oral-B®, Pampers®, Pantene®, SK-II®, Tide®, Vicks®, and Whisper®. The P&G community includes operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide. Please visit https://www.pg.com for the latest news and information about P&G and its brands. For other P&G news, visit us at https://www.pg.com/news.

About Lay-Up Youth Basketball

Lay-Up is a charitable organization delivering cost-free, community-based basketball programming in Toronto's Neighbourhood Improvement Areas. Using an evidence-based development program, basketball coaches implement a culture-forward approach to support children and youth. On-court and off-court experiences are designed to build skills and confidence.

Toronto Raptors Assistant Coach, Jama Mahlalela, leads an on-court skills and leadership session with Lay-Up youth coaches during expanded coach training supported by Gillette in Toronto.

Toronto Raptors Assistant Coach, Jama Mahlalela, leads an on-court skills and leadership session with Lay-Up youth coaches as part of expanded coach training hosted by Gillette in Toronto.

Toronto Raptors player and Gillette ambassador Gradey Dick speaks with Lay-Up youth coaches during an on-court learning session hosted by Gillette in Toronto.

Toronto Raptors player and Gillette ambassador Gradey Dick joins Lay-Up Youth Basketball for a Gillette hosted session in Toronto.

PARIS (AP) — French prosecutors raided the offices of Elon Musk’s social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into a range of alleged offences, including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes.

The investigation was opened in January last year by the prosecutors’ cybercrime unit, the Paris prosecutors' office said in a statement. It's looking into alleged “complicity” in possessing and spreading pornographic images of minors, sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity and manipulation of an automated data processing system as part of an organized group, among other charges.

Prosecutors also asked Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino to attend “voluntary interviews” on April 20. Employees of X have also been summoned that same week to be heard as witnesses, the statement said. Yaccarino was CEO from May 2023 until July 2025.

A spokesperson for X did not respond to a request for comment.

In a message posted on X, the Paris prosecutors’ office announced the ongoing searches at the company's offices in France and said it was leaving the platform while calling on followers to join it on other social media.

“At this stage, the conduct of the investigation is based on a constructive approach, with the aim of ultimately ensuring that the X platform complies with French law, as it operates on the national territory,” the prosecutors' statement said.

European Union police agency Europol ’’is supporting the French authorities in this,″ Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth told The Associated Press, without elaborating.

The investigation was first opened following reports by a French lawmaker alleging that biased algorithms on X were likely to have distorted the functioning of an automated data processing system.

It was later expanded after Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok generated posts that allegedly denied the Holocaust and spread sexually explicit deepfakes, the statement said. Holocaust denial is a crime in France.

Grok wrote in a widely shared post in French that gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp were designed for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus” rather than for mass murder — language long associated with Holocaust denial.

Musk's artificial intelligence company built xAI and it is integrated into his X platform.

In later posts on its X account, the chatbot acknowledged that its earlier reply was wrong, said it had been deleted and pointed to historical evidence that Zyklon B in Auschwitz gas chambers was used to kill more than 1 million people.

Grok has a history of making antisemitic comments. Musk’s company took down posts from the chatbot that appeared to praise Adolf Hitler after complaints.

X is also under pressure from the EU. The 27-nation bloc's executive arm opened an investigation last month after Grok spewed nonconsensual sexualized deepfake images on the platform.

Brussels has already hit X with a 120-million euro (then-$140 million) fine for shortcomings under the bloc's sweeping digital regulations, including blue checkmarks that broke the rules on “deceptive design practices” that risked exposing users to scams and manipulation.

FILE - The opening page of X is displayed on a computer and phone, Oct. 16, 2023, in Sydney. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)