In March 2022, many Senegalese were desirous to return home as they stood outside the gates of the Senegalese International Airport. John F. Kennedy together with his beloved African son who desired to spread the gospel of the NBA even further. His name was Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo.

Before the 2-meter-tall resident of the Republic of Congo boarded the needed first-class seat in Dakar, took every photo, signed every autograph and participated in every finger wave within the video: “No, no, no…” he was asked with a smile and and not using a hint of irritation. While Mutombo will be the most intimidating shot blocker in NBA history, his biggest impact was as a mild giant and humanitarian off the court. The famous basketball player selflessly made his native Africa and the world a greater place before he died on Monday on the age of 58 after an extended battle with brain cancer.

“I’ve come to realize that I don’t live alone in this world,” Mutombo told Andscape in 2022 in Dakar while attending Basketball Africa League games. “I live in a world surrounded by individuals with different cultures, different languages, people from different places and different islands. I’m not in search of who’s Congolese and who’s African.

“I just look for the people who are out there. I come to this point to say, what kind of investment are we making to ensure that the next generation has all the tools they need to move on to the next chapter of their lives?”

Mutombo got here to Washington in 1987 with hopes of becoming a health care provider at Georgetown University. Under the tutelage of legendary Georgetown coach John Thompson, Mutombo developed surgical shot-blocking skills in college and during 19 seasons within the NBA. The eight-time NBA All-Star ranks second in NBA history in blocked shots (3,289), behind only African American Hakeem Olajuwon. The four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year also retired his No. 55 jersey with the Denver Nuggets and Atlanta Hawks.

Nuggets fans will always remember the sight of Mutombo, eyes closed and smiling, holding the ball above his head while lying flat on the ground after upsetting the top-seeded Seattle SuperSonics in the primary round of the 1994 NBA playoffs. NBA fans will always remember Mutombo’s iconic finger wagging as he blocked shot after shot. Young NBA fans could also be best conversant in Mutombo blocking all the pieces on this hilarious GEICO business.

For NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Mutombo was also about more than basketball.

“Dikembe Mutombo was simply larger than life,” Silver said in a press release. “On the court, he was one of the very best shot-blockers and defenders in NBA history. From the ground, he put his heart and soul into helping others.

For example, Mutombo was also twice a recipient of the NBA Citizenship Award. J. Walter Kennedy for “exceptional service and commitment to the community.” And if there was one person Mutombo loved and is credited with opening doors to assist Africa and the world, it was the late NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern’s assistance, ideas and resources have been instrumental in Mutombo’s humanitarian and basketball efforts in Africa.

After the Nuggets chosen Mutombo fourth overall within the 1991 NBA draft, Stern pulled him aside and said he wanted them to make a journey to Africa together. It wasn’t long before the 2 built a father-son relationship. Mutombo, Stern and other NBA players met with the late anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1993 as part of a tour of Africa. Stern has at all times had a global vision for the NBA and chosen Mutombo because the league’s first global ambassador in 2009.

In 2022, Mutombo told me the story of how Stern helped him in a shocking way after his father died within the DRC. Mutombo said his family desired to hold his father’s funeral within the DRC, however it was difficult because there was an ongoing civil war. Mutombo was told it was unsafe for him to attend such an event at the moment. But Mutombo said Stern was astonishingly in a position to use his deep African and global connections to broker a ceasefire for a couple of hours to permit the funeral to happen and allow his brother to take a personal boat there. Mutombo adamantly stated several times that it was a real story.

“I believed Stern then because he had the ability and knowledge to make things happen,” Mutombo said of Stern in an interview with Andscape in 2022. “He was a really smart man who desired to rule the continent. I’m very happy that our commissioner Adam Silver and deputy commissioner Mark Tatum are (following) thoroughly (in Stern’s footsteps). They are committed to David’s promise that the continent will shine.”

In 1996, Mutombo covered the expenses of the Congolese women’s basketball team’s trip to the Atlanta Olympics and bought their uniforms. In 1997, he founded the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, “whose mission is to improve the health, education and quality of life of the people of Congo.” In 2009, Mutombo opened a $29 million hospital near Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, where 7.5 million people live in poverty and more than 1 million already receive care. The hospital, named after Mutombo’s mother, has treated more than 200,000 patients, in line with Georgetown.

Mutombo has promoted basketball world wide through the Basketball Without Borders program, which incorporates camps in Africa, participated within the NBA Africa Game in 2015, and was present at the sport in 2017. In 2020, the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation began construction of an elementary school within the DRC and through Mutombo Kawa, sourced beans from African coffee plantations, which through the Women in Coffee Initiative heralded opportunities for girls in need.

“My dad is my hero because he simply cared. “I remain the purest heart I have ever known” – Mutombo’s son, Ryan, he said on Instagram. “Sometimes I thought of my dad as superhuman. The child in me would sigh to hear that something like this never happened. My dad was an ordinary man who wouldn’t go far back to honor the world, its people, and its creator. He loved others with every fiber of his being. That’s what made him so approachable. That’s what made it real.”

Mutombo is the largest reason BAL exists today.

Mutombo was very emotional in the course of the 2017 NBA All-Star Weekend in Charlotte when Silver announced the arrival of BAL. Mutombo told Andscape that he was the primary one to get Silver to create BAL. BAL will begin its fourth season in 2025 under the leadership of its president and Mutombo’s close friend, Amadou Falla. Before Mutombo fell sick, he usually attended BAL matches and even danced enthusiastically with the Senegalese team and fans after the 2022 match.

BAL is already paying dividends, as this yr the Raptors drafted center Ulrich Chomche from Cameroon, the Jazz acquired rookie Babacar Sane from Senegal on an Exhibit 10 contract, and the announced Duke University men’s basketball program signed center Khaman Maluach from South Sudan.

“We did it because players like Dikembe pointed out the opportunities that exist not only in basketball but in the sports industry across the continent,” Silver told Andscape in 2017. “He and I have been there together at least four times since I was commissioner. And thanks to conversations with FIBA ​​and local sports ministers, we realize that there is a huge opportunity to further develop this discipline (in Africa).”

In 2017, Mutombo told Andscape: “We were trying to find a way to grow the game on the continent. Now the commissioner has made it happen for the league. No more walking around and playing the (exhibition) game. This is great.”

Olajuwon is undoubtedly the very best basketball player to ever come from Africa. Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid and Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo are two African NBA stars hot on Olajuwon’s heels. Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri and Fall will proceed to open doors for more Africans to learn the sport and find their way into the NBA.

But relating to being the godfather of African basketball, there isn’t any doubt who the large is: Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo.

“I’m sorry. It’s hard,” Ujiri he said, fighting back tears Monday at Raptors Media Day. “But I actually have to say this guy made us who we’re. This guy is a big. An amazing person. Who are we without Dikembe Mutombo? Impossible. It really is not. I went with him to his hometown of Dikembe Mutombo. I went to his hospital. You do not know how much this guy means to the world.

Embiid said Monday at Sixers Media Day: “It’s a sad day, especially for us Africans and really for the whole world, because beyond what he achieved on the basketball court, I think he was even better off the court.”