Roddy Gayle Jr. received a birthday present Thursday that will be displayed in the Gayle household forever.
On Thursday — his 23rd birthday — Roddy Gayle Jr. was given a key to the city of Niagara Falls. He was honored in a ceremony at city hall in front of a room full of family and friends.
“(It is) definitely the best,” Gayle said. “Usually, I don’t even ask for birthday presents. So it has to be the best. To experience this with my family and my loved ones, to be able to put on for my community, kind of be somebody people look up to. I think it’s always been a dream of mine.”
What means more than the proclamation and the key to Gayle, though, is the impact it can have on the community.
“I hope they understand that throughout everything that we’ve been through in Niagara Falls, you can make it out,” his father, Roddy Gayle Sr., said. “Just stick to the script. It’s not that hard. And Roddy always seems to want to give back. He wants to do a basketball camp. He wants to do an AAU team under his name. … This is what he loves, no matter what.”
In fact, whenever he does retire, Roddy Gayle Jr. wants to move back to the Falls and help out the next generation. He wants to help cultivate the basketball talents in the city and help give kids an opportunity to make something of themselves.
One of the organizers of Thursday’s event was former Niagara Falls High School boys basketball head coach Sal Constantino. He organized the event as a tribute to the work that Gayle put in as a product of Niagara Falls.
Gayle is the first person to be given a key to the city since KISS band member Gene Simmons was in town in 2024. He is believed to be the first athlete to be given a key to the city since Jonny Flynn received the award in 2009.
“If you know little Roddy, then you know why the city should be so proud of him,” Constantino said. “You ever meet him or if you know him, you know what a great young man. … It felt like he was deserving and his parents are great. His parents have done nothing but raise him the right way to be the man that he is.”
During Niagara Falls Mayor Rob Restaino’s speech honoring Gayle, he put particular emphasis on the toughness that Gayle showed during his college career, trading the scarlet and grey for blue and maize. He praised the fact that Gayle is always trying to give back to his community and is serving as an inspiration to kids growing up in the city.
“That’s always the hope, right? Which is why I invite Roddy to come back because it’s one thing to see pictures or video or film,” Restaino said. “It’s another thing to have him back here live and in person, inspiring people to realize that, yeah, the road’s not easy. But it takes dedication, commitment, family support, all of those things that went to making Roddy on the cusp of getting himself an NBA contract.”
During his college basketball career at Ohio State and Michigan, he played in 146 games, averaging 8.8 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game. This past season with the Wolverines, he played in 39 games, averaging 7.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game.
Gayle helped the Wolverines win the program’s first national championship since 1986 when he scored four points while adding four rebounds, two assists and two blocks. He is the first Niagara Falls native to become a collegiate champion as a player at any level since Rashad Evans won a wrestling national championship in 2000 at SUNY Niagara.
The way he plays the game is taking pride in where he is from and playing “The Falls Way”.
“I think just my grit, that’s the defensive-minded toughness,” Gayle Jr. said. “I think that it’s kind of what New York guards, especially Niagara Falls guards, are known for. So to be able to wear that pride of 716 Falls Way on my shoulder, my back and being able to kind of provide that for the team and just to do whatever it takes to be successful in winning.”
After the 2026 NBA Draft, Gayle signed with the Detroit Pistons for the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. During the 2026 NBA Summer League, Gayle Jr averaged 5.5 points, 2.3 rebounds and 0.8 assists per game.
During the summer showcase, Gayle said coaches were complimentary of his game and that he played with grit and togetherness.
“It was crazy, just having your name next to the NBA logo,” Gayle Jr. said. “It’s something that you do on NBA 2K. It’s something that you never really would imagine. … My family was out there as well. My parents were out there. So I was living in the moment with them and being able to spend so much time around them. I know that they were with me every step of the way.”
During the first two games of the summer league, Gayle scored a combined 20 points on 8-for-8 shooting from the field. Late in the second game, Gayle suffered an ankle injury that kept him out of the team’s third game before he returned to play the Pistons’ last two games, scoring two points on 0-for-5 shooting.
It was an injury that he said is still not healed, although he is 90% recovered. It is also responsible for causing his form to dip in the final two games of the summer league.
If he does sign with an NBA team and appear in a game, he will be the first player from Niagara Falls to play in an NBA game since Jonny Flynn in 2012. In the coming days, he is hoping to hear back from the Pistons or another NBA team with a contract offer. He is also considering going back to Michigan for another season.