Sports Envoy
Sports Envoy Program

Region: Europe

Anthony “Buckets” Blakes

Harlem Globetrotters Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2017  –  Lithuania
  • 2017  –  Estonia

Buckets Blakes was born and raised in Phoenix and still lives in the Valley of the Sun, and his first exposure to basketball was watching the Phoenix Suns at the age of five. To make his own hoop, he would cut a hole in the top of his dad’s hat, flip it over and shoot a tennis ball through it.

Years of practice from that point forward made him one of the most accurate shooters around (hence the name “Buckets”). He can fill it up in many different ways, like when he broke the Guinness World Records® record for the most basketball underhanded half-court shots in one minute, dropping six– one more than the previous record. He actually made those six shots in just 46 seconds.

On World Trick Shot Day (Dec.6, 2016), Buckets nailed the highest shot ever recorded in North America. From the top of the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio, Buckets made a 583-foot basketball shot to a hoop located below.

His parents are his heroes, because they always involved Buckets and his nine siblings in positive things. He made them proud by earning his bachelor’s degree in psychology in January of 2012 by taking online courses. Despite the demands of entertaining people all over the world year-round, Buckets made the Dean’s List three times while completing his courses.

One of his favorite childhood basketball memories was when he finally stole the basketball from his older cousin, who taught him how to dribble. “He was one of the best basketball players in the state, and he would never just give me the ball; I had to try and steal it every time, ”explains Buckets.“ When I finally stole it from him, my confidence soared, and my fate in the game of basketball was sealed.”

Buckets was not only an outstanding basketball player growing up, but he also lettered in track and football in high school. As his basketball talents grew, his high school coach, Michael Ellsworth, showed him that hard work pays off, both on and off the court.

He took that work ethic to Arizona Western College, and then to the University of Wyoming, where he was team captain and MVP his junior and senior seasons, leading the team in rebounding, assists and steals as a junior. As a senior, Buckets was one of only two Mountain West Conference players to finish in the top 15 in scoring, rebounding and assists.

Buckets enjoys working with and mentoring kids, so here lies the opportunities he’s had to present the Globetrotters’ various community outreach programs all over the world as an Ambassador of Goodwill™. He sees himself running his own gym someday and helping kids build character and self-esteem through sports mentoring. He encourages youngsters to, “Be the best ‘you’ that you can be, because it’s very difficult to try and be someone else.”

Tamika Raymond

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2010  –  Malawi
  • 2011  –  Tanzania
  • 2012  –  China
  • 2013  –  Ukraine
  • 2013  –  Nigeria
  • 2014  –  Sri Lanka

Tamika Maria Raymond is an Assistant Coach for the women’s basketball team at the University of Kansas. Prior to serving in that role, Raymond played professional basketball in the WNBA for six seasons. During the 2002 WNBA Draft, the Minnesota Lynx selected Raymond with the sixth overall pick. She played her last season in the WNBA with the Connecticut Sun.

Prior to playing in the WNBA, Raymond attended the University of Connecticut, where she majored in interpersonal communications. She played for the school’s women’s basketball teams, which won Division I National Championship teams in 2000 and 2002. She completed her four-year collegiate career with averages of 10.6 points per game and 5.8 rebounds per game. She finished as UConn’s all-time leader in field goal percentage at 70.3 percent.

Raymond had a stellar high school basketball career in Dayton, OH. She was named the 1997 and 1998 Ohio Player of the Year and was selected to the 1997-98 Associated Press girls Division I All-Ohio high school basketball team. She was named “Ohio’s Miss Basketball” by the Associated Press.

Craig Esherick

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2019  –  Azerbaijan

Craig Esherick is an Associate Professor in the Sport Management program at George Mason University, where the 2020 Fall Semester will be his thirteenth year. He is the Associate Director of the Center for Sport Management, the Academic Program Coordinator for the Sport Management program and also the Internship Coordinator.

Professor Esherick was a scholarship basketball player at Georgetown University while earning an undergraduate finance degree from the business school.

He attended the Georgetown University Law Center and was a graduate assistant basketball coach for two of those years. After graduating from law school and passing the DC Bar Exam, Professor Esherick became a full-time assistant coach at Georgetown for the men’s basketball team. His tenure as an assistant lasted 17 and a half years and included a stint as the assistant basketball coach for the USA Olympic Team that won a bronze medal in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He became the head basketball coach in 1999 at Georgetown University and held that position long enough to win 103 games. He worked briefly for AOL’s new online radio venture from 2004 until 2005, where he commented on-air about college basketball news and wrote articles for the AOL Sports website. Craig took a job with a startup television network in New York in May of 2005; that network, CSTV, has now become CBS College Sports. Esherick came to Mason from NYU, where he taught in their Graduate Sports Management program for two years.

Craig has written or edited several books, articles and book reviews on a variety of topics in the sports industry. These works can be found in the History of Sport Encyclopedia, Sports Management and Marketing Encyclopedia, Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, History and Sport, Leadership in Sport, Cultures of Peace, The Journal of Sport for Development and the International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing. Esherick’s book titles include the third, fourth and fifth editions of Media Relations in Sport, Case Studies in Sport Diplomacy and Fundamentals of Sport Management.

Esherick has served on several Arlington and Fairfax County, Virginia boards and committees. He has worked with the US Department of State on many grants and sport diplomacy projects from 2009 to 2019. Craig provides expert commentary for news outlets, television and radio during college basketball season, primarily working for the Mid Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), Learfield and the Stadium/Sinclair network.

Chineze Nwagbo

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2019  –  Kosovo
  • 2019  –  Azerbaijan
  • 2019  –  Albania
  • 2019  –  Tanzania
  • 2023  –  Malaysia

Chineze Nwagbo started her basketball career at Duval Senior High School in Lanham, Maryland, where she is recognized as a four-year varsity letter recipient and two-time team captain. Her honors include two back-to-back State Championship Titles, All-American Honorable Mention, All-County First Team, All-Gazette, USA Today’s Most Improved and Most Important Player to Scout in Maryland, amongst a plethora of other accolades.

Chinny was a standout basketball player at Syracuse, where she earned her B.S. in Biology. Shortly after graduating, Chinny embarked on a career playing professionally for 11 years in Spain, Chile, Brazil, Poland, Portugal, & Israel, winning 4 MVP titles and appearances in championship games. The highlight of her career was when she represented her parent’s native country of Nigeria in the 2006 World Championship Games.

After retiring in 2016, Chinny began a series of ventures with the NBA. In China, she helped develop the grassroots implementation of an NBA-based basketball curriculum. She has done work for Jr. NBA programs, the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders developmental camps, and has been brought on to work with the Atlanta Hawks, NY Knicks, Washington Wizards, and the National Basketball Players Association as a youth development coach and mentor.

She has served as an Envoy for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Sports Diplomacy program, which was designed to use the transformative power of sports to create social change in global communities around the world by bridging divides, creating cultural understanding, supporting women’s empowerment (& gender equality), advocating safe environments for kids with disabilities to play, and championing the importance of creating a more equitable and peaceful society.

As an Envoy, Chinny has traveled to various parts of the world, building relations with various U.S. Embassies, Sports Federations, Sultans, Chargé d’ Affaires, administrators, coaches, and elite players. She has also dedicated her time as a motivational speaker to various youth programs and amazing nonprofits geared toward providing resources for under-represented & underserved youth worldwide. In her spare time, she has appeared on New Channel 8’s SportsTalk show as a guest sports analyst and hopes to play an instrumental role in the game’s growth, primarily serving as a role model for
young girls.

In 2020, Chinny joined PeacePlayers International, an organization utilizing the
transformative power of sports to bridge divides in historically conflicted
communities worldwide. There she served as the Director of Youth Programs & Development for Baltimore city providing unserved and underrepresented young people of color with afterschool programming geared towards connecting the community, providing equitable experiences and tools to mitigate conflict.

All these experiences have led Chinny to the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) where she is the Director of Player Programs and Engagement dedicated to creating programs and resources to ensure Professional Athletes succeed far beyond the playing field!

Rachael Flatt

Figure Skating

Served as envoy

  • 2014  –  Russia

Rachael Flatt is a former American competitive figure skater. Flatt began skating at 4 years old. Competing in ladies’ singles, Flatt won the US Novice national title at the age of 12 (2005). She is the 2008 World Junior champion, a winner of four silver medals on the Grand Prix series, and the 2010 U.S. National Champion. In the same year, she was nominated to represent the US at the 2010 Winter Olympics and placed 7th.

Flatt completed the first step in qualifying for nationals by winning the 2014 Central Pacific Regionals. She placed first in both the short and the long with an overall score of 139.48. This was her first step in attempting to make her second Olympic team. On January 12, 2014, she placed 18th at the U.S. Championships and announced her retirement from competitive skating.

Evan Lysacek

Figure Skating

Served as envoy

  • 2012  –  Sweden
  • 2012  –  Belarus
  • 2014  –  Russia
  • 2020  –  Japan
  • 2020  –  Malaysia
  • 2020  –  Singapore

Following his figure skating Gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Lysacek was chosen as the 2010 United States Olympic Committee’s SportsMan of the Year, and the winner of the James E. Sullivan Award as the top U.S. amateur athlete of 2010. On January 22, 2016, he was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame. Evan Lysacek is the last American male figure skater to win an individual Olympic medal. He was a Sports Envoy in Belarus and Sweden in 2012 and Russia in 2014.

“With these adults, with young kids, with people who have nothing to do with skating whatsoever… our common language is sports and it transcends differences in language and differences in culture.” “I really feel like they absorbed the on-ice skills that I was trying to teach,” he said. “But also, I think they absorbed the message from what we were talking about a little bit and how that can help them if they continue skating, whatever skating will mean in their life, but it will also help them in everything that they do.”

Ibtihaj Muhammad

Fencing

Served as envoy

  • 2013  –  United Kingdom
  • 2013  –  Russia
  • 2021  –  Global
  • 2022  –  Morocco

Ibtihaj Muhammad is an entrepreneur, activist, speaker and Olympic medalist in fencing. A 2016 Olympic bronze medalist, 5-time Senior World medalist and World Champion, in 2016, Ibtihaj became the first American woman to compete in the Olympics in hijab. Ibtihaj was a 3-time All American at Duke University where she graduated with a dual major in International Relations and African Studies. In 2014, Ibtihaj launched her own clothing company, Louella, which aims to bring modest, fashionable and affordable clothing to the United States market. In 2017, Mattel announced their first hijabi Barbie, modeled in Ibtihaj’s likeness, as part of Barbie’s “Shero” line of dolls. The Barbie became available for purchase in July 2018. Ibtihaj released her debut memoir in July 2018, PROUD: My Fight for an Unlikely American Dream. Ibtihaj released her third book, children’s picture book, The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab & Family, that became a New York Times’ Best-Seller.

Ibtihaj is a sports ambassador with the U.S. Department of State’s Empowering Women and Girls through Sport Initiative, and works closely with organizations like Athletes for Impact and the Special Olympics. Named to Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential list, Ibtihaj is an important figure in a larger global discussion on equality and the importance of sport. Her voice continues to unite both the sports and non-sports world.

Taj McWilliams-Franklin

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2014  –  China
  • 2017  –  Kazakhstan
  • 2023  –  Serbia

During her senior year of high school, Taj McWilliams-Franklin gave birth to a daughter, Michele. Sixteen months after the birth of Michele, McWilliams-Franklin welcomed a second daughter, Schera, into the world. As such, she now had to find a basketball family that would accept her expanding family.

St. Edward’s University, an NAIA school in Austin, Texas, the city where her mother lived, would serve as McWilliams-Franklin’s new college basketball home, offering her a partial scholarship that she supplemented with loans. To sustain her basketball career while surviving her academic and everyday obligations, McWilliams-Franklin gave Schera up for adoption. Despite these stresses, McWilliams-Franklin excelled on the court, attracting the attention of Division I programs. Yet, appreciative of the opportunity, McWilliams-Franklin stuck with St. Edward’s. She was named 1993 NAIA Player of the Year her senior season.

In need of money to finish school and support her family, McWilliams-Franklin headed overseas. She played in Wolfenbüttel, Germany (1993-94), Contern, Luxembourg (1994-95) and Galilee, Israel (1995-96), all with Michele in tow. Hooping in far-flung locales did not strain her love for the game, instead confirming that basketball was the career she wanted.

While McWilliams-Franklin combined her commitments — to the game and to her daughter — her unconventional arrangement did not earn widespread approval, including from Michele’s biological father. He sued for custody, successfully raising questions about McWilliams-Franklin’s “fitness as a mother.” The parental rights he won did not last long, however, with McWilliams-Franklin regaining custody from Michele’s father after his one-month fatherhood experiment failed.

Soon thereafter, it seemed McWilliams-Franklin’s perseverance would pay off. A professional women’s basketball league, the ABL, was established in the U.S. in 1996. After participating in a combine for prospective players, she was selected by the Richmond Rage in the inaugural ABL Draft with the 40th overall pick. In Richmond, McWilliams provided a powerful post presence, complimenting star point guard Dawn Staley and versatile forward Adrienne Goodson to form a talented threesome that led the Rage to the ABL championship series, where they fell to the Columbus Quest.

This successful season did not secure the Rage a permanent place in the Richmond sporting landscape. The team was relocated to Philadelphia, giving McWilliams-Franklin another new basketball home. After an underwhelming 1997-98 season, the Rage folded early in the 1998-99 season. McWilliams-Franklin, thus, traveled overseas, this time to Greece. McWilliams-Franklin took another shot at making a roster in the WNBA by attending the 1999 combine. Despite her documented success in the ABL, however, she remained available until the third round, when the Orlando Miracle, an expansion team, selected her with the 32nd pick. In a fitting match, one of women’s basketball’s ultimate underdogs would join an unquestionably underdog expansion team.

Led by McWilliams-Franklin, the Miracle overachieved during their debut season after opening their inaugural season with two-straight road losses. The Miracle finally scored a win with McWilliams-Franklin converting a game-winning bucket with 21.7 seconds remaining. McWilliams-Franklin was named an Eastern Conference All-Star reserve along with teammates Nykesha Sales and Shannon Johnson. The Miracle finished 15-17 for the 1999 season. In 2000, Orlando would establish itself as a legitimate playoff contender driven by an ever-determined McWilliams-Franklin.

As the fulcrum of the Orlando offense, she turned in one of the most productive offensive seasons of her career, averaging nearly 14 points per game on better than 52 percent shooting. Fans showed appreciation for McWilliams-Franklin’s play, voting her in as an All-Star starter — an honor that confirmed the underdog had become one of women’s basketball’s elites. The Miracle also would earn a playoff berth and meet the Cleveland Rockers in the first round. The lower-seeded Miracle stole Game 1, powered by a perfect McWilliams-Franklin, who made all seven of her field goal attempts. Yet, the road woes that had bedeviled Orlando all season stalled a deeper playoff run. The Miracle dropped Games 2 and 3 of the three-game Eastern Conference Semifinals.

For McWilliams-Franklin, overall on-court success was accompanied by off-court stability. While playing abroad in Italy during the WNBA offseason, McWilliams-Franklin met Reggie Franklin, an Army sergeant. In December 2000, they were married, and three years later, they gave birth to a third daughter, Maia. With Reggie willing to serve as the primary parent, McWilliams-Franklin appeared to have found the balance needed to fulfill her hooping dreams and familial desires.

All the more, the precariousness of women’s professional basketball presented her with additional difficulties. After the 2002 season, the Orlando Miracle would become the Connecticut Sun, making Uncasville, Connecticut, McWilliams’ new basketball home.

McWilliams-Franklin would spend four seasons as a Connecticut Sun, a time that would cement the underdog’s reputation as a winning player. In 2004, Connecticut advanced all the way to the WNBA Finals, where they fell 2-1 to the Seattle Storm. In 2005, the Sun were even better, with the fantastic foursome of McWilliams-Franklin, Sales, Lindsay Whalen and Katie Douglas pushing to a league-best 26-8 record.

McWilliams-Franklin also collected individual honors in 2005, securing her third All-Star selection and being named to the All-WNBA Second Team. However, the ultimate achievement — a championship — eluded McWilliams-Franklin and the Sun. They again came up short, losing the WNBA Finals 3-1 to the Sacramento Monarchs.

The 2006 season followed a similar script. At 26-8, the Sun again had the WNBA’s best record. McWilliams-Franklin again earned All-Star and All-WNBA Second Team honors. Yet, more disappointingly, Connecticut fell to the Detroit Shock in the Eastern Conference Finals.

So, for all the success that McWilliams-Franklin had attained, she still remained an underdog because her teams were unable to break through and earn a title. To continue her quest for a championship, she would have to journey elsewhere.

Ahead of the 2007 season, McWilliams-Franklin requested a trade to the Los Angeles Sparks, with the opportunity to live and play in L.A. best meeting the needs of her family at that time. Although she had turned in another All-Star season, another cross-country journey was in her future. The next offseason, she was traded to the Washington Mystics. Then, at the 2008 trade deadline, the Detroit Shock sought McWilliams-Franklin’s services for the playoff run.

In the Motor City, all this movement would pay off, with McWilliams-Franklin proving the perfect booster for the Shock. After adding McWilliams-Franklin, Detroit finished the season 12-3 and, most importantly, won the WNBA title.

The Shock envisioned serving McWilliams-Franklin as a role player, supporting stars Katie Smith and Deanna Nolan. Soon after her arrival in Detroit, she told the Ocala Star-Banner:

For the past couple years, I’ve been on young teams where I’ve been expected to be the leader for a lot of young players. It’s been a nice change to be on a team where I’m just one of the veterans — where I have so many great players surrounding me.

However, during Detroit’s playoff run, McWilliams-Franklin exceeded her role. Then almost 38 years old, McWilliams-Franklin proved she still possessed the clutch gene.

In Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, McWilliams-Franklin added 19 points and eight rebounds, pushing the Shock past the Liberty and sending them back to the WNBA Finals. In Game 3 of the Finals, she spurred the Shock to their championship-clinching victory, going on a personal 4-0 scoring run with approximately four minutes remaining to give the Shock an insurmountable double-digit lead.

In 2007, McWilliams-Franklin reconnected with Schera, re-establishing a relationship with the then-Shawnee State University basketball player.

Seemingly, McWilliams-Franklin might have decided to retire after the 2008 season, completing her unexpected, underdog career with a championship. Yet, as she asserted soon after beginning her professional career abroad, McWilliams-Franklin was determined to play as long as possible.

As an indication of her obsession with the game, McWilliams-Franklin continued to play abroad throughout her WNBA career, suiting up in Italy, South Korea and Russia. After another WNBA season in Detroit and single season with the New York Liberty, Cheryl Reeve, who had been an assistant coach with the Shock, lured McWilliams-Franklin to the Minnesota Lynx.

Ahead of the 2011 WNBA season, a rather unremarkable Minnesota team added two very different yet equally important talents — a seemingly guaranteed superstar in the much-heralded rookie Maya Moore and the 40-year-old, over-achieving basketball lifer in McWilliams-Franklin. Combined with Seimone Augustus, Lindsay Whalen and Rebekkah Brunson, the Lynx coalesced into a championship contender.

In full ‘“Mama Taj” mode, McWilliams-Franklin provided sturdy, veteran leadership for an organization with a losing reputation. Her experienced play also proved pivotal. With McWilliams-Franklin manning the back line, the Lynx captured the 2011 WNBA title and appeared poised to add a second in 2012, until a GOAT and her pack of underdogs — the Tamika Catchings-led Indiana Fever — ruined the repeat.

Somewhat ironically, McWilliams-Franklin, the longtime underdog, decided to call it quits right after she was no longer the underdog, but a member of the top dog squad that suffered an upset. McWilliams-Franklin retired from the WNBA at age 41 after the 2012 season. She would play one more season abroad, joining Clube Amigos do Basquet in Spain in 2013-14. In total, her professional basketball career, which spanned over 30 years, was a testament to perseverance.

Swin Cash

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2012  –  United Kingdom

Swin Cash started her basketball career as a forward at UConn. As a sophomore, she won her first career national title averaging 9.9 points and 5.3 rebounds and earning All-Big East Third Team honors. As a senior, Cash averaged 14.9 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 2.2 assists. She also earned 2002 Final Four Most Outstanding Player honors after leading the Huskies to an undefeated 39-0 season and second national title in three years.

Drafted into the WBNA by Detroit in 2002, Cash went on to spend 15 seasons with teams such as the Seattle Storm, the Chicago Sky, the Atlanta Dream, and the New York Liberty. During her WBNA career, Cash accumulated three WNBA Championships (2003, 2006, 2010). She averaged 10.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game.

Internationally, Cash won a gold medal with Team USA at the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece, a second gold medal with Team USA in the FIBA World Championships for Women in the Czech Republic in 2010, and a third Olympic gold medal at the 2012 Summer Games in London. Cash also played in Russia and the Czech Republic.

Outside of basketball, in 2005, Cash launched Cash for Kids, a charitable organization that raises money for children in need.

Sheri Sam

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2018  –  Armenia
  • 2018  –  Georgia

Sheri Sam (born May 05, 1974) is a guard for the Orlando Miracle. She played college basketball at Vanderbilt.