Sports Envoy Program
Basketball
Alysha Angelica Clark is an American-Israeli professional basketball player for the Washington Mystics of the Women’s National Basketball Association. She was drafted in the second round of the 2010 WNBA draft by the San Antonio Silver Stars.
Basketball
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.
Basketball
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!
Basketball
Jennifer Azzi is a former collegiate and professional basketball player, a former basketball coach, and an Olympic and FIBA World Champion. Azzi was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009.
With achievements ranging from seven hall of fame inductions, an Olympic Gold Medal, Stanford National Championship, Two World Championships, the Naismith Award, Wade Trophy, a successful WNBA career, and coaching the University of San Francisco Women’s Basketball team to its first NCAA tournament appearance in 20 years, Jennifer Azzi’s achievements have firmly established her as one of the most accomplished figures in sports.
Off the court, Jennifer is a well-regarded speaker, author and community supporter, and serves as an ambassador for the sport both locally and internationally. Locally, through her very successful Azzi Camps, she teaches lessons both on and off the court. Through her role as an NBA Academies Global Director and Jr. NBA Ambassador, Azzi has traveled thousands of miles representing the NBA to countries such as Africa, Denmark, Australia, Mexico, Canada, India and China. In addition, Azzi conducted the first-ever NBA clinic held at the White House, with President Obama. Most recently, her community involvement has been seen through the NBA Cares program, partnering with the Golden State Warriors and other notable Bay Area figures to positively serve area youth.
Basketball
Matthew Bonner also known as the Red Rocket is a retired NBA player who was drafted by the Chicago Bulls as their 45th overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft before being traded to the Toronto Raptors. Aside from the Toronto Raptors, Bonner played for the San Antonio Spurs and Sicilia Messina of the Italian league.
Bonner played overseas in Sicily for a year to hone his skills before joining the Raptors roster. He averaged 19.2 points and 9.3 rebounds at the end of year. In 2004-05, he played all 82 regular season games and averaged 7.2 points per game. He is the only Raptors rookie to play all 82 games in a season.
After being traded to the San Antonio Spurs, Bonner won his first NBA Championship in 2006. He recorded his career-highs of 25 points and 17 rebounds in 2007. During the 2013 NBA Three Point Shootout during All-Star Weekend, he recorded a score of 19 knocking out Ryan Anderson and Stephen Curry and advanced to the final round. On June 15, 2014, Bonner won his second NBA Championship after the Spurs defeated Miami Heat 4-1.
Bonner and his brother Luke run a nonprofit organization called “Rock On Foundation” where they support community involvement in arts and athletics.
Basketball
Jim Cleamons, who was born in Lincolnton, NC and moved to Ohio before high school, played nine NBA seasons and later became a NBA assistant coach and head coach, most famously assisting legendary head coach Phil Jackson during three-peats with the Chicago Bulls from 1991 to 1993 and with the Los Angeles Lakers from 2000 to 2002.
A standout at Columbus, Ohio’s Linden-McKinley High after moving from Lincolnton, Cleamons was a four-year starter at Ohio State from 1967 to 1971, beginning his career on the Buckeyes’ freshman team before three years on the varsity.
Playing for legendary coach Fred Taylor, Cleamons scored 1,335 career points in 72 varsity games and capped his career as the Buckeyes’ captain and an All-Big Ten selection in 1971 when the team finished 20-6 and lost in the Elite Eight to Western Kentucky.
A first-round pick of the Los Angeles Lakers in 1971, Cleamons played on a 1972 NBA championship team before helping the Cleveland Cavaliers to their first-ever playoff appearance in 1976 while also earning All-NBA defense honor in 1976. Cleamons later capped a nine-year NBA career that lasted 652 games with the New York Knicks and Washington Bullets (now Wizards).
In 1982, Cleamons began a 34-year coaching career that took him to college at Furman (1982-83), Ohio State (1983-87) and Youngstown State (1987-89) and eventually the pros with the Chicago Bulls (1989-96), Dallas Mavericks (1996-97), Los Angeles Lakers (1999-2004), New Orleans Hornets (2004-06), Los Angeles Lakers (2006-11), Milwaukee Bucks (2013-14) and New York Knicks (2014-16) of the NBA, the Chicago Condors (1998-99) of the American Basketball League and the Zhejiang Guangsha (2011-12) of the Chinese Basketball Association.
Cleamons’ time with Youngstown State and the Mavericks was as a head coach.
Basketball
DeCovan Kadell “Dee” Brown (born November 29, 1968, in Jacksonville, Florida) is a retired American professional basketball player who spent twelve seasons (1990–2002) in the NBA, playing for the Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, and Orlando Magic.
A 6’1″ (1.85 m) guard from Jacksonville University, Brown was selected by the Celtics with the 19th pick of the 1990 NBA Draft. He was a member of the NBA All-Rookie Team in his first year, when he played in all 82 games and averaged 8.7 points per game. One of the highlights of his career occurred in 1991, when he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest with a “no-look” slam dunk. He was a starter for Boston during the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons and posted his best scoring numbers, averaging more than 15 points per game each of those years. After seven and a half seasons with the Celtics, he was traded to the Raptors along with Chauncey Billups in 1998. Overall, during his career, he scored 6,758 total points.
Brown later served roles in the Women’s National Basketball Association first as a head coach for the Orlando Miracle and then as the head coach for the San Antonio Silver Stars. In 2005 he won a one-year contract as a studio analyst for ESPN as the winner of the reality show Dream Job, defeating former Houston Rocket Matt Bullard. He went on to host a ESPN show called City Slam!
In 2005, Brown established EDGE Basketball, LLC with himself as CEO. The outfit specializes in training players from middle school up to the professional ranks. On July 29, 2009, Brown was named as the head coach of the Springfield Armor, a team in the NBA Developmental League. He is also concurrently the team’s Director of Basketball Operations.
Track & Field Paralympics
· Dalai Lama’s Unsung Hero of Compassion
· Thirteen-time Paralympic Medalist
· World Champion in skiing and track
· Most medals of any male monoskier in Paralympic history
· Doctor of Humane Letters, Middlebury College
· First Ambassador International Paralympic Committee
· Founder One Revolution Foundation
· First nearly unassisted paraplegic to summit Mt Kilimanjaro
· Paralympic Hall of Fame
· US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame
· People Magazine “50 Most Beautiful People”
· Skiing Magazine “25 Greatest Skiers in North America”
· NPR: The Best Graduation Speeches, Ever (Middlebury College ’11)
· NBC Paralympic Commentator (Opening, Closing, Track and Skiing)
Soccer
Alex Morgan is the current face and captain of the US Women’s National Soccer Team. A blur on the pitch, Alex overwhelms
defenders with her graceful yet attacking style, scoring big goals and bringing fans to their feet. Alex is a proven winner at all levels. Businesswoman, author, social media phenom, marketing icon – she is all this and more, proof that Alex’s ability to inspire and excite fans stretches far beyond the pitch.
“Although we spent lots of time on the field playing, more importantly we spent a good amount talking about issues that girls and women face on a daily basis.”