Sports Envoy
Sports Envoy Program

Region: Africa

Shay Murphy

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2024  –  Seychelles

Shay Murphy a Los Angeles native, attended USC to study Sociology and Communications and minored in Entertainer Industry. She was drafted by the WNBA in the 2nd round and started playing for the Minnesota Lynx in 2007. She won the 2014 championship with the Phoenix Mercury. In the tail end of her career, she played basketball overseas and won championships for the Euro League and Euro Cup. She has played in countries such Greece, Spain, Russia, Turkey, France, and Montenegro. She became the first African American woman to coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, as a coaching associate.

Natosha Cummings-Price

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2024  –  Seychelles

Natosha Cummings-Price is a native of Muskogee, Oklahoma and decent of the Cherokee Nation. She is the Head Women’s Basketball Coach for Erie Community College and the CEO of Beautiful Basketball LLC. In 2019, she was awarded the honor as the Head Women’s Basketball Coach for the Cameroon International Basketball Team and secured the team’s position in the 2019 Afro Basket. Ms. Cummings-Price has directed International Basketball Camps in the US, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Benin. Ms. Cummings-Price has over 30 years of basketball coaching experience.

Jason Collins

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2024  –  China
  • 2016  –  Angola
  • 2015  –  Brazil

Jason Collins is a retired American professional basketball player of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Collins attended Stanford University, where he was an All-American in the 2000-2001 season. He was also named to the All Pac-10 First Team and awarded the NABC Pete Newell “Big Man of the Year” Award. He finished his college career ranked first in Stanford history for field goal percentage and third in blocked shots. Upon graduating with a B.A. from Stanford, Collins was selected in the first round of the 2001 NBA Draft with the 18th overall pick. Now a 13-year veteran, Collins has played center for six teams including New Jersey, Memphis, Minnesota, Atlanta, Boston, Washington and, most recently, the Brooklyn Nets (formerly the New Jersey Nets). Doc Rivers, who coached Collins during his time with the Boston Celtics, said of Collins: “He’s the best. He literally is one of the best guys I’ve ever had in the locker room, player or coach.” In his 13 years in the league, Collins’ teams earned 10 trips to the playoffs including 2 NBA Finals appearances.

After the 2012-13 NBA season concluded, Collins publicly came out as gay in a cover story for Sports Illustrated, becoming the first male active player in any of the four major American professional sports to announce that he is gay. President Obama expressed his gratitude to Collins for his courageous announcement and said he “couldn’t be prouder” of Collins, recognizing this as a point of progress for the LGBT community, and one more step in America’s goal to treat everyone fairly and with respect. Collins has traveled the country with the mission of empowering people to live their lives as their true selves, and has become an active member of numerous charities, foundations and organizations. In 2013, GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, honored Collins with the Courage Award at the GLSEN Respect Awards. In 2014, Logo TV honored Collins with its inaugural Trailblazer Award. Also in 2014, the Matthew Shepard Foundation honored Collins with its Making a Difference Award at its annual Honors Gala.

In April 2014, Collins was featured on the cover of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” He served on the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition, which works to motivate Americans to adopt a healthy lifestyle via physical activity and nutrition. Collins resides in Los Angeles, California.

Amobi Okugo

Soccer

Served as envoy

  • 2024  –  Niger

Amobi Okugo is a former professional soccer player turned multi hyphenate athlete entrepreneur who has been recognized as a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient.

Amobi Okugo was drafted in the first round of the 2010 MLS super draft after a standout All American freshman year at UCLA and has since played over 200 competitive games for teams including Philadelphia, Orlando, Kansas City, Portland, and Austin. Amobi Okugo was a high school gatorade all american and youth USMNT mainstay from u-14 – u-23 competing in the 2012 Olympic qualifying cycle amongst other international tournaments.

He is the founder of Athlete CEO, a platform that helps athletes turn into enterprises through education, content + business strategy, and brand incubation.

Amobi is a founder or partner with multiple other ventures including Serve Consulting.

Amobi Okugo also founded The Ok U Go Foundation to help provide resources and opportunities to children from low income backgrounds through athletic, educational, and social programs.

Billy Garrett

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2024  –  Zimbabwe

Billy Garrett is a sickle cell warrior, advocate, author, and professional basketball player. Billy has played professionally all over the world for the last 6 years. Billy has had stops in both Europe and the NBA, becoming the first person to play in the NBA with sickle cell disease.

Billy has recently released a book entitled Ode To The Warrior in which he shares the ups and downs along his journey of becoming a professional athlete with sickle cell. His goal is to inspire others through the game of basketball.

Essence Carson

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2024  –  Zimbabwe

A Paterson, NJ native, Rosa Parks School of Fine and Performing Arts/Eastside High graduate and member of the Rutgers University Athletic Hall of Fame, Essence Carson is a 13-year WNBA veteran, All-Star, World Champion, musician, philanthropist, TEDx speaker, and music industry professional. Essence has held several positions within the music business ranging from Director of Label Operations & Distribution at a budding boutique record label, to the Senior Manager of Label Relations and A&R Operations at the world-renowned Motown Records & Black Forum Records. Prior to her arrival at Motown, she started her career in the music industry at Priority Records and Caroline Records (now Virgin Music) of the Capitol Music Group. No stranger to initiating change as an active WNBA player, Essence has stood on the front lines championing equality and equity. Also deeply rooted in the community, she has been the ambassador of Health Equity Initiative (501c3) for over a decade. Continuously looking to change lives through Entertainment and Literary Arts, Essence has also contributed to the Watts Community Core “Unity Gain Crew” of Los Angeles, California.

Macca Malik

Breaking

Served as envoy

  • 2024  –  Nigeria

Macca Malik aka B-Girl Macca has worked hard to represent women at the forefront of Hip Hop dance culture on a high level through internationally recognized competition. She is a proven top female competitor in the Breaking scene winning many battles. She continues to travel the world teaching workshops, competing, and judging competitions. She has also teamed up to co-found GIRL ILLA Tactics, a multi-modal production & creative curation venture as a way to amplify and build leadership within the global B-girl Community and to bring awareness of the Bgirl scene to outside support in a healthy way. GIT then expanded into GIT Productions, a production house and collective centering Black, Indigenous and African Diasporic identified voices through high quality productions, calls to art & action, curated happenings and space/place making. As she continues to let her artistic life unfold, she has reached a major milestone by becoming the first-ever Sponsored B-Girl by Monster Energy. Macca serves as a Elite Athlete Representative for Breaking For Gold USA which is the US Breaking division to help catapult US Breakers to the 2024 Olympics and beyond. She is also the creator and host of her very own show called “The Battle Manifesto”.

Crystal Dunn

Soccer

Served as envoy

  • 2023  –  Cote d'Ivoire

The No.1 pick in the 2014 NWSL College Draft out of the University of North Carolina, Crystal Dunn is a NWSL MVP, 3-Time NWSL Champion, and FIFA World Cup Champion. Versatile and ruthless, Dunn became the youngest player to win the NWSL MVP (at age 23) in the same season she won the NWSL Golden Boot and led her team to a championship.

Dunn is a flat-out winner. As a senior in high school, Dunn won five separate Player of the Year awards including the New York Gatorade Player of the Year award. Along with winning the 2012 NCAA Championship with UNC, Dunn was named the country’s best collegiate player as the winner of the prestigious Hermann Trophy. Additionally, she was named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Defender and Player of the Year. And it wasn’t just collegiate awards in 2012. Dunn helped lead the U-20s to a world title at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Japan.

As a professional, Dunn is a star in the NWSL for the Portland Thorns and on the USWNT. Dunn is one of only nine USWNT players ever with 100+ caps, making 104 appearances to date and tallying 24 goals and 17 assists. She was instrumental in helping the US win the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, starting and playing 90 minutes of six of the team’s seven matches.

Dunn most recently co-founded the NWSL’s Black Women’s Player Collective. She resides with her husband, Pierre, and her one-year-old son Marcel, and their three chickens and two cats in Portland, Oregon.

Lisa Leslie

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2023  –  Cote d'Ivoire

When the “face” of your sport is a Wilhelmina model, you know you’re off to a good start. Lisa Leslie is undoubtedly the most-recognized player of both the WNBA and Team USA, who brought considerably more than a stunning visage and statuesque body to the court. Throughout her storied career Leslie was the absolute most dominant player in the women’s game.


Leslie carried the gold-winning Team USA in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. With the 2008 gold medal, she became the first team sport athlete to win four consecutive Olympic Gold Medals. In 2001, Leslie was the first WNBA
player to win the regular season MVP, the All-Star Game MVP and the playoff MVP in the same season. That same year she also led the Los Angeles Sparks to their first WNBA Championship. In 2002, she became the WNBA all-time
leading scorer, was named MVP of the regular season for the second year in a row in leading the Sparks to their first their first back-to-back championship, and shocked the world with the first slam-dunk in WNBA history.
Leslie would go on to win her third MVP trophy of the WNBA in 2006. Leslie is the first woman to slam-dunk in a professional game. Leslie was inducted into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and the
Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2015.

Leslie became a commentator for ESPN in 2004, and has since been an in-studio sports analyst for ABC, Turner, Fox Sports Net, Fox Florida, and NBC. She is currently a co-host of CBS Sports’ “We Need To Talk”, and the
reigning Coach of the Year of the BIG3. Lisa also starred in the Lionsgate film “Uncle Drew” alongside NBA superstar Kyrie Irving and NBA legends Shaquille O’Neal and Reggie Miller, released in June 2018.

Leslie authored her own book “Don’t Let the Lipstick Fool You” in 2008, and in 2010 became the first WNBA player turned Co-Owner of the Los Angeles Sparks. In 2012, she both received her Masters in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and launched the Lisa Leslie Basketball & Leadership Academy.

Leslie resides with her husband, Michael Lockwood, and two kids Lauren Jolie and Michael Joseph, in Boca Raton, Florida.

Sylvia Fowles

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2023  –  Ethiopia

Sylvia Fowles, or “Mama Syl,” as she is endeared by many, is a WNBA MVP, 2x WNBA Champion and Finals MVP, 4x Defensive Player of the Year, 8x WNBA All Star, 4x Olympic Gold Medalist, and icon; she owns the record for the first goaltending call in the WNBA and First Dunk by a woman in international competition, as well as a lengthy list of athletic accolades. But post-2022 retirement, she continues to pour into extracurricular passions and philanthropy.

Sylvia Fowles is one of the game’s All-Time Great centers, well known for her warmth and heart. Loved and respected by all, she is a study in opposites – a balance of intensity on the court with an easygoing and fun-loving personality off of it. She is an avid outdoorswoman and plant lover, as well as a mortuary scientist who can sew, cook, draw, and play the saxophone. A true renaissance woman, she works hard to support the youth and families in the communities she loves—a mark of her giving heart and lasting legacy.