Sports Envoy
Sports Envoy Program

Region: Indonesia

Crystal Langhorne

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2023  –  Indonesia

Crystal Langhorne is the Director of Force4Change, the Seattle Storm’s social justice platform. Crystal’s passion for social justice is the driving force that helps her create impact in the community. Prior to working at the Storm’s front office, Crystal was a player in the WNBA for 13 years and won two championships with Seattle. She also won a NCAA championship with the University of Maryland women’s basketball team. She holds a degree in Communication from UMD and her DEI certification from Cornell University.

Eddie Lewis

Soccer

Served as envoy

  • 2015  –  Indonesia

Eddie Lewis is a retired professional left-side midfielder soccer player. Before playing professionally, Lewis played for UCLA Bruins and in 1995, scored 11 goals and 10 assists, finishing his Bruin career with 30 goals and 28 assists. Lewis started his soccer career with San Jose in MLS before moving to England in 2000. He stayed in English soccer until he returned to MLS with the LA Galaxy in 2008.

He played professionally for 14 years playing as a left midfielder for club and for the US in the World Cup. He played in 11 of 18 qualifying games for the 2006 World Cup, scoring 2 goals and registering 2 assists.

Sue Wicks

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2009  –  Philippines
  • 2010  –  Indonesia
  • 2011  –  Dominican Republic
  • 2013  –  Malaysia
  • 2016  –  Cambodia
  • 2017  –  Jordan

Sue Wicks was a first-round selection by the New York Liberty in the WNBA’s inaugural draft in 1997. Wicks went on to play six seasons with the Liberty, earning an All-Star selection in 2000. She also was the recipient of the Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award in 2000. Wicks finished her WNBA career in eighth place all-time in blocked shots.

Wicks played collegiately at Rutgers University, where she was a three-time All-American and the 1988 National Player of the Year. She was inducted into Rutgers’ Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in June 2013.

Edna Campbell

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2011  –  Democratic Republic of Congo
  • 2012  –  Indonesia
  • 2014  –  Sri Lanka

Edna Campbell (born November 26, 1968 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is a retired women’s basketball player who played in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). The 5′ 8″ guard was a star player for the Sacramento Monarchs and has also played for three other teams, but is well known for continuing to play despite suffering breast cancer.
Campbell’s college career began at the University of Maryland, College Park, but achieved her most notable success at the University of Texas’ women’s team, known as the Lady Longhorns, where she was named the Southwest Conference’s Newcomer of the Year in 1990. She graduated in 1991 after the Lady Longhorns compiled a 48-14 won/loss record while she was there.
Campbell played for the Colorado Xplosion in the American Basketball League (ABL).
Edna Campbell was the 10th overall draft pick, selected by the Phoenix Mercury during the 1999 WNBA Draft. She was left unprotected in the expansion draft the following year, and was chosen by the Seattle Storm. She became the new franchise’s go-to option, but the team finished with a cellar-dwelling 6-26 record.
The next year, the Storm drafted its first superstar, Lauren Jackson, and Campbell was traded to the Sacramento Monarchs for Katy Steding and a draft pick. During the second of her four seasons in Sacramento, Campbell was diagnosed with breast cancer. She received treatment and was welcomed back before the fans of her two most recent teams in the Monarchs’ final game against Seattle during the 2002 season.
Campbell continued to play despite the cancer, and has become a symbol to some survivors of the disease. She became the WNBA’s national spokesperson for its anti-cancer efforts with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. She received the league’s Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award in 2003.
Campbell signed a free agent contract with the San Antonio Silver Stars in 2005. She played with the Silver Stars for that one season, before announcing her retirement from the WNBA on February 28, 2006.
During the 2006 WNBA season, which honored 9 years of existence, Edna Campbell’s return from breast cancer was nominated by fans as Most Inspirational and one of the top four WNBA Anniversary decade moments.
Shortly after retiring from basketball, Edna was hired as a television commentator for the San Antonio Silver Stars games during the 2006 WNBA season. In addition, Campbell has worked in Real Estate. Edna Campbell became a nurse in 2008, and also began coaching high school girls.

Sam Perkins

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2005  –  Algeria
  • 2008  –  Kyrgyzstan
  • 2008  –  Kazakhstan
  • 2009  –  Qatar
  • 2010  –  Indonesia
  • 2011  –  South Sudan
  • 2012  –  United Kingdom
  • 2022  –  Albania

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Perkins attended Samuel J. Tilden High School. He later attended and graduated from Shaker High School in Latham, New York. He was named large-school player of the year (high school) by the New York State Sportswriters Association in 1980 and was also named to the 35 Greatest Boys McDonald’s All Americans team.

Perkins attended college at the University of North Carolina and played basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels from 1980 to 1984. He was named ACC Rookie of the Year in 1981 and starred alongside future NBA Hall of Famers James Worthy and Michael Jordan on the Tar Heels’ 1982 NCAA championship team. A three-time All-American, Perkins was the 1984 USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year. Perkins finished his collegiate basketball career as the Tar Heels’ all-time leader in rebounds and blocked shots and as the second-highest scorer in team history. He graduated from UNC in 1984.

Perkins was a co-captain of the gold-medal-winning 1984 U.S. men’s Olympic basketball team.

Chosen by the Dallas Mavericks as the fourth overall pick in the 1984 NBA draft, Perkins went on to play as a power forward and center in the NBA from 1984 to 2001. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team in 1985. Perkins played for the Dallas Mavericks, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Seattle SuperSonics, and the Indiana Pacers, respectively. He scored a career-high 45 points on April 12, 1990. Perkins tied an NBA record on January 15, 1997 by making eight three-pointers without a miss. He appeared in three NBA Finals: The 1991 NBA Finals (with the Lakers), the 1996 NBA Finals (with the SuperSonics), and the 2000 NBA Finals (with the Pacers). In Game One of the 1991 NBA Finals, Perkins made a game-winning three-point shot to defeat the Chicago Bulls. He was known by the nicknames “Sleepy Sam”, “Big Smooth”, and “The Big Easy”.

Since his retirement in 2001, Perkins has been actively involved in a variety of charitable endeavors, including Special Olympics, Nothing But Nets in conjunction with the United Nations, Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Brothers, Carolina for Kibera, NBA Cares, Basketball Without Borders and Habitat for Humanity.

In 2002, Perkins was named to the ACC 50th Anniversary men’s basketball team as one of the fifty greatest players in Atlantic Coast Conference history.

In 2008, Perkins was named vice president of player relations for the Indiana Pacers. That September, he was inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.

In October 2011, Perkins traveled to South Sudan as a SportsUnited Sports Envoy for the U.S. Department of State, where he worked with Hall of Fame NBA center Dikembe Mutombo to lead a series of basketball clinics and team building exercises with youths, the South Sudanese Wheelchair Basketball Team, and 36 coaches.

Perkins was named to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.

Rick Mahorn

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2012  –  Indonesia

Derrick Allen Mahorn, born September 21, 1958, in Hartford, CT, played college basketball at Hampton University. In 1980, he graduated from Hampton with a degree in Business Administration. From there, he was drafted 35th overall by the Washington Bullets in the 1980 NBA Draft. He went on to play five seasons for Washington before being traded to the Detroit Pistons.

Mahorn began playing for the Pistons at the start of the 1985-86 season and is most well-known for his years in Detroit. He and the “Bad Boys” took home the 1989 NBA Championship. As dubbed by Piston announcer George Blaha, Mahorn was the “Baddest Bad Boy of them all.” After being picked up by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the 1989 NBA Expansion Draft, Pistons’ General Manager, Jack McCloskey, tried in vain to trade to get him back. The Wolves wouldn’t have it, and Detroit lost one of its most beloved sports figures. Mahorn, however, did not last long in Minnesota, eventually finding his way to the Philadelphia 76ers and teaming with superstar Charles Barkley to form the top-rebounding duo of “Thump N’ Bump.” Rick later played for the New Jersey Nets before returning to the Pistons in 1996-97 season. He retired in 1999 as a Philadelphia 76er.

In the 1999-2000 season, he joined the CBA as head coach of the Rockford Lightening. He coached the team to the 2000 American Conference Title. He rejoined the NBA the following season as an assistant coach of the Atlanta Hawks. In 2005, he rejoined former teammate, Bill Laimbeer’s coaching staff as an assistant coach of the Detroit Shock. He helped coach the Shock to two WNBA Championships in 2006 and 2008. On June 15, 2009, during the WNBA season, Bill Laimbeer stepped down as coach and Mahorn was officially named head coach of the Shock.

Tiffany Roberts-Sahaydak

Soccer

Served as envoy

  • 2006  –  Uganda
  • 2007  –  Philippines
  • 2010  –  Thailand
  • 2011  –  Brazil
  • 2014  –  Brazil
  • 2015  –  Indonesia
  • 2017  –  Belarus
  • 2017  –  Albania
  • 2019  –  Egypt

An Olympic gold medalist, World Cup champion and two-time NCAA champion, Tiffany Roberts Sahaydak was named head women’s soccer coach at UCF in May 2013.

A three-time American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, Roberts Sahaydak has wasted no time in putting her stamp on UCF’s successful program. Under her guidance, the Knights have earned four NCAA Tournament bids and four American Athletic Conference championships while boasting 11 conference Player of the Year awards and 38 all-league and tournament selections.

In her first season (2013), she led UCF to a school-record unbeaten streak (18 matches), an NSCAA national standing through much of the year and the program’s first undefeated conference season since 1999. In addition, UCF made history as the first program to win an American Athletic Conference Championship.

Roberts Sahaydak came to Orlando after serving six seasons at VCU alongside her co-head coach, husband and current UCF associate head coach Tim Sahaydak.

Roberts Sahaydak spent a decade with the U.S. National Team from 1994-2004, earning 112 caps (with 60 starts). Her career was highlighted by three women’s World Cups – among them, the unforgettable 1999 championship – and a gold medal with the 1996 Olympic team.

After retiring from the USWNT, she has served as an ambassador for U.S. Soccer with the U.S. Department of State Sports Envoy Program since 2007, promoting the power and benefit of sport internationally. With the program, she has visited Indonesia, Uganda, the Philippines, Thailand, Namibia, Brazil and France. In 2014, she was appointed to President Barack Obama’s Presidential Delegation to the Federative Republic of Brazil at the opening of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. She is a native of San Ramon, Calif., and was selected as the 1994 California High School Player of the Year.

She was a three-time Parade High School All-American, a three-time NSCAA All-American and was the two-time National Girl’s High School Player of the Year. She debuted for the Stars and Stripes in 1994 when she was only 16 as one of the youngest players ever to suit up for the National Team. She played in her first FIFA Women’s World Cup a month after her 18th birthday and won Olympic gold before she was out of her teens (USSoccer.com).

As a collegian, Roberts Sahaydak was a standout midfielder for North Carolina (1995-98) as a three-time All-ACC First Team selection. She led the Tar Heels to two NCAA titles (1996, 1997) during her tenure, was voted the 1998 ACC Tournament MVP and finished third in voting for collegiate soccer’s highest honor, the Hermann Trophy.

She still ranks among the top five for career starts in UNC’s record book.She was a two-time captain for the Carolina Courage in the first fully professional U.S. women’s league (Women’s United Soccer Association). She helped the Courage win the 2002 title after finishing last in the team’s inaugural campaign one year prior.

Roberts Sahaydak took over VCU’s program in 2007 and led the Rams to three conference championship game appearances. She was voted as the 2011 Colonial Athletic Association Co-Head Coach of the Year, along with her husband Tim. The duo mentored two CAA Defenders of the Year, one CAA Rookie of the Year and 20 all-conference players, including six first-team honorees.The Sahaydaks reside in Orlando with their two daughters, Layla and Evie.

“It’s been a life changing experience being involved in the Sports Diplomacy Envoys. I have had the good fortune of participating in programs all over the globe, and I’ve worked together with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. I am constantly reminded that sport can bring us closer together. We can celebrate our differences and our common interests. Every time we start to play a game we start to connect and the world seems to get a bit smaller.”