Sports Envoy
Sports Envoy Program

Region: South & Central Asia

Fatima “TNT” Lister

Harlem Globetrotters Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2019  –  Uzbekistan

Harlem Globetrotter TNT Lister joined a very elite group in the fall of 2011, becoming the first woman to don the red, white, and blue since 1993 – and her success opened the door for other female players to join the team in recent years.

TNT’s basketball journey started in the seventh grade. “I played my first basketball game at recess, and I fell in love with the game that day,” she says. She also excelled in volleyball and track and field during her teenage years – setting Colorado state records in both the long jump and triple jump – but she didn’t love those sports like she loved basketball. She was an all-conference selection in basketball in each of her four years in high school.

TNT began her college career at New Mexico before transferring to Temple, where she was lucky enough to be coached by Hall of Famer Dawn Staley. TNT says, “Coach Staley was not only a role model for me through her amazing basketball credentials, but she showed me balance – balance between being a player, taking care of family and giving back to the community. I admired her so much for her unique combination of kindness, toughness and ability to make the team feel like a family.”

The Globetrotters are like a family too, and TNT is honored to be a part of it. “Honestly, this means everything to me,” she says. “This team incorporates everything I love about basketball. Not only to play it, but to entertain, and to give back to the community. I’ve always dreamed of leaving a positive mark in basketball history, and this is the perfect opportunity to do so.”

When she thinks about 90-plus years of Globetrotters history, TNT says the player she would have enjoyed playing with most is the late Marques Haynes, because of how much she admires his dribbling skills.

When she’s not burning up the floor of all 50 states across the U.S. with her own ball handling – or shooting hoops with President Barack Obama, like she did during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll in 2012 – TNT likes to watch movies (Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington and Angela Bassett are her favorite actors), as well as skate and play pool, and she really loves to draw and paint. The Globetrotters star has brought her blistering basketball skills to shows like “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” “The Queen Latifah Show,” and “The Arsenio Hall Show.”

“The best part about being a female Globetrotter is being able to inspire girls and young women to follow their dreams,” says TNT. This holds especially true for her new daughter, Kali Rose. TNT went back to play for the world famous team only five months after having her baby. Adding, “I’m so proud to come back and do my thing and be able to tell my girl, ‘Hey, you can still chase your career when you become a mom.’”

“One of the most challenging parts of being a female Globetrotter is proving that you belong on the court with the men. I love a challenge, though,” she says. Ask any of her Globetrotter teammates, and they will tell you that TNT definitely belongs. The guys on the team embraced her from day one. “I walked in with two brothers, and now I have about 30,” says TNT with a smile.

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.

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.

Ruthie Bolton

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2008  –  Saudi Arabia
  • 2013  –  Kazakhstan
  • 2014  –  Moldova
  • 2015  –  Bangladesh
  • 2018  –  Armenia
  • 2018  –  Georgia
  • 2019  –  Kosovo
  • 2019  –  Albania

Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and WNBA All-Star.

Scored over 2,000 career points, is fourth of the WNBA’s all-time 3-pointer list, and is the only player in the history of the Sacramento Monarchs to have her number retired.

First WNBA Player of the Week in July of 1997, a member of the 1999 First Team All WNBA, and a two-time WNBA All-Star in 1999 and 2001
The 1991 USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year.

Played with the 1995-96 US Women’s National Team that compiled a perfect 60-0 record.

In four seasons at Auburn, she led her team to a combined record of 199-13, which included three Southeastern Conference Championships (1987-1989), four NCAA Tournament appearances and two runner-up finishes in 1988 and 1989.

She was named to the 1988 NCAA Women’s Final Four All-Tournament Team.

A 1st Lieutenant in the United States Army.

2011 Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductee.

Katie Smith

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2011  –  India

Katie Smith was born on June 4, 1974, in Logan, Ohio. She began playing basketball in the fifth grade. Smith attended The Ohio State University from 1992-1996, where she excelled on the basketball court. As a freshman, she led the Buckeyes to the NCAA championship game and was named Sports Illustrated and Big Ten Freshman of the Year, and Kodak All-American first team. She finished her Ohio State career as the leading scorer in Big Ten women’s basketball history and was the first woman to have her basketball jersey number retired at Ohio State.
In her first season of professional basketball Smith led the Columbus Quest to the American Basketball League (ABL) title. Smith repeated as ABL champion with the Quest in 1998, the league’s last season. Smith joined the Minnesota Lynx of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) for the 1999 season. The six-time WNBA All-Star lead the league in scoring in 2001 and became the first American Professional Woman to score 4,000 points. She was traded to the Detroit Shock in 2005 and earned two WNBA titles with the team in 2006 and 2008, earning Finals MVP honors in 2008. She is a two-time All-WNBA first team member (2001, 2003), two-time All-WNBA second team member (2000, 2002) and was named to the WNBA All-Decade team in 2006. In 2010, Smith signed a free agent contract with the Washington Mystics.
Smith has also achieved basketball success in international competition. She is a three-time Olympic gold medalist for USA (2000, 2004 and 2008) and two-time World Champion (1998 and 2002). She was named USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year in 2008.
Throughout her career Smith has been an active member of the community as she served as spokesperson for the United Way Race Relations Department in Ohio, was an Olympic torchbearer in Columbus, Ohio, for the 2002 Salt Lake Games, and was honored by the Columbus Touchdown Club as the Ohio State Female Athlete of the Century.

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.

Debbie Black

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2013  –  Kazakhstan
  • 2018  –  Benin

Debbie Black begins her second season as the Mocs’ assistant coach. She came to UTC as Director of Operations for Jim Foster. With his departure, she was promoted to assistant in Katie Burrows’ first season.

UTC head coach Jim Foster and Black have an extensive association. She first played for the Hall of Fame coach at St. Joseph’s leading the Hawks to four straight NCAA Tournament appearances before graduating in 1984.

Her first assistant coaching position was for Foster at Vanderbilt during the 1999-2000 season. Following her retirement from the WNBA in 2005, she returned to assist Foster at Ohio State for eight seasons. The Buckeyes advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2009 and 2011.

She spent the last four seasons at Eastern Illinois in the Ohio Valley Conference. She led the Panthers to the OVC Tournament twice and finished tied for second in the West in the 2013-14 campaign.

She represented Team USA at the Williams Jones Cup competition in Taipei, Taiwan. The team had a 7-1 record and won the gold medal after defeating Japan 56-54 in the final. She played eight seasons with the Tasmanian Islanders of the WNBL in Australia and helped them to national titles in 1991 and 1995.

In the ABL she was an All-Star selection for the Colorado Xplosion and the 1997 Defensive Player of the Year. While playing for the Atlanta Glory in December 1996, she became one of just a handful of players to record a quadruple double (10p, 14r, 12a, 10s).

In 1999, Black was drafted by the Utah Starzz of the WNBA in the second round. She played for the Miami Sol from 2000-2002 and earned the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year Award at the age of 35. In 2003 she was acquired by the Connecticut Sun in the dispersal draft and was there until her retirement in 2005.

Black was hired in May 2013, and served four years as the Panthers’ head coach, compiling a 34-80 record. Her best season was her first, leading Eastern Illinois to a 12-16 record. She replaced Lee Buchanan, who coached for one season before taking the head coaching job of the LaGrange Panthers.

Bridget Pettis

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2013  –  Kazakhstan

Bridget Pettis is a former WNBA and college basketball player who is currently the assistant coach of Chicago Sky. She was a guard for eight seasons on Phoenix Mercury and Indiana Fever but before being drafted into the WNBA, Pettis played for the University of Florida.

Memorably, she completed 8 three-point shots against the George Bulldogs in 1993 which has remained the University of Florida’s single game record since. During her first two seasons with Phoenix Mercury, she averaged over 14 points per game which contributed to her career overall of 1,408 points.

In 2013, Pettis, Frank, and Eddie Johnson started a club team called Team 2j Thunder before she was hired as an assistant coach for the LA Sparks. A year later, Pettis became the assistant coach for the Dallas Wings but announced her retirement from the Wings organization in 2017.

Becky Bonner

Basketball

Served as envoy

  • 2008  –  Kazakhstan
  • 2008  –  Kyrgyzstan
  • 2013  –  Ukraine
  • 2014  –  Sri Lanka
  • 2015  –  Saudi Arabia

Becky Bonner enters her first season as Director of Basketball Operations for the University of Louisville women’s basketball program. Bonner joined Walz after spending the last season as the Assistant Director of Operations at the University of Maryland.

At Maryland, Bonner worked with marketing and promotions, as well as facilitating the day-to-day operations of the team, which included supervising the team’s managers.

Bonner joined the Maryland staff after a successful stint playing professional basketball in Sweden and after a four-year career in collegiate basketball.

Bonner began her collegiate playing career at Stanford University, helping the Cardinal win the 2002 Pac-10 Championship. She transferred to Boston University after her sophomore year and started in all 30 games of the 2003-04 season. She earned third team All-America East Conference honors, after averaging 14.1 points and 4.4 rebounds per game her junior year. She set the single-season school record with 72 three-pointers, while shooting 42.9 percent from behind the arc.

In her two seasons with the Terriers, Bonner connected on 113 three-pointers, which ranks fourth in the career annuals and ranks second all-time with a 37.3 career three-point shooting percentage.

After graduation from Boston University in 2005, Bonner spent the summer working for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats minor league baseball team before being contracted to play with Sweden’s Norrkoping.

Bonner is a native of Concord, N.H. She was a third team Parade All-American at Concord High School and was selected her home state’s Gatorade Player of the Year. In her junior year, she averaged a triple-double with 28.4 points, 16.0 rebounds and 10.0 assists per game while earning All-American honors from Street & Smith’s that year.

Bonner earned a degree in communications from Boston University. She is the younger sister of Matt Bonner who is a member of the 2007 NBA Champions, the San Antonio Spurs. Her younger brother, Luke, will be a junior at UMass where he is a member of the basketball team.

Julie Chu

Ice Hockey

Served as envoy

  • 2014  –  Belarus
  • 2014  –  Kazakhstan

Julie Chu has had a tremendous career coming from an unlikely
background that would lead her to 14 years playing on the US
National Team, collegiately at Harvard, 4 Olympic Games, 5 World
Championships, 3 Clarkson Cup Championships and off the ice
coaching at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Union College.
A native of Fairfield, CT, Julie’s life on the ice didn’t begin in the faceoff circle but with toe picks and figure skates. Julie’s brother Richard played hockey and with the blessing of her parents (Wah and
Miriam), Julie made the move from figure skating to hockey.
What a move it ended up becoming. Julie was able to make huge
strides locally in Connecticut first playing co-ed and then on to playing
with girls. She was able to win US National Championships with the
Connecticut Polar Bears, played prep hockey at Choate Rosemary
Hall and was recruited to play at Harvard. Prior to playing at
Harvard, she deferred enrollment for the opportunity to play on the
US National Team ahead of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Games.
Since then, Julie went from being one of the youngest players to now
being the oldest having participated in Salt Lake, Torino, Vancouver
and Sochi for Team USA. On the ice, she has always been the
ultimate professional doing whatever the team has needed from her
including making a position switch from forward to defense if that was
what the team needed to try and win. Her unselfish play has been a
guiding light for younger players to see and know that they are only
as good as the team around them doing whatever it takes to try and
get a W.

While at Harvard, Julie was outstanding and during her career there
she set the All-Time NCAA Scoring & Assist record, led her team to
multiple Frozen Fours and won the Patty Kazmaier Award as the best
collegiate hockey player. During her international career, Julie has won the most World Championships for a US player, she is tied with the second most amount of US Winter Olympic medals and at the conclusion of theSochi 2014 Winter Olympics was elected by the members of the entire US Olympic Team to carry the flag during Closing Ceremonies.

Professionally, Julie has won 3 Clarkson Cups (pro women’s hockey)
with Minnesota and Montreal which is the most for a US player and is
still playing today for Montreal in the CWHL.