Sports
Dikembe Mutombo, Hall of Famer and global basketball ambassador, was ‘larger than life’

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.
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
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.”
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images
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.”
Sports
“Callin of his parents is ugly crazy”: Jalen hurts the vascular of the sharp truth for the reporter of the “desperate”, who asked how to be as handsome as the playmaker of the Eagles

Jalen Hurts shoots in any respect cylinders, leading Philadelphia Eagles to the Showdown LXI Super Bowl against Kansas City Chiefs. Both teams landed in Nowy Orlean for the match on February 9 at Caesars Superdome, where they participated in the media about the match for the championship.
On Monday, February 3, the playmaker stood at a press conference at a press conference, during which the discussion unexpectedly rotated from football to its appearance. Hurts had his eyes closed on his performance for his Gridiron performance from the time of calling to the NFL in 2020.
However, so many fans consider him seeing to see, announcing him with one of the most vital candy in the league. So much was visible when one reporter asked him to lose his wisdom to improve his aesthetics to satisfy his girlfriend.

“How can I get more handsome?” The journalist asked. “My girlfriend says you are the most handsome quarterback in this league. Any advice? For example, something to do with my hair? I am desperate. All.”
The room began to giggle.
It hurts, apparently humored by the query, he replied: “I don’t know if I can help you with this. It sounds like a bottom thing. ”
Bro just called him ugly AF on his face 💀
– Andrewfafo (@andrewfafo) February 4, 2025
Although his answer was short, social media users couldn’t resist the transformation of the clip into one other one of many viral posts on the Internet. Read one amongst the litany of reactions It was found“Callin of his parents is ugly crazy.”
Another commentator wrote similarly: “Bro simply called him ugly AF on his face.” User X thought “Disintegrate With her “she was the most solid advice. Another viewer managed to provide you with what could be a vital suggestion. This person comical Tweet“I mean that he could say that you feel good as you are, build confidence, get a routine, etc., but damn.”
The 25-year-old makes women weak on their knees for the most part of the last two years, specifically after consent at $ 255 million, a five-year extension agreement with eagles and obtaining the cover of the Essence magazine.
Jalen hurts, he cut off the goat pic.twitter.com/y10ii1kn4h
– Dees St. La’rons (@yourditarrie_) March 7, 2024
But this is a star look, which fans often disappeared shortly when the two -time playmaker Pro Bowl modified his appearance in September. To the horror of some, he shaved with his characteristic goat, leaving the ladies in disbelief. One of the fans wrote: “He has an identity crisis”, and several other others begged him to grow.
And he did it to once more disruption of their lustful Haj, offering his long -time girl, Bryonna “Bry” Burrows. The couple met at the University of Alabama and managed to maintain their relationship in wrapping until the last fall.
Sports
Jalen Hurts’s Super Bowl Lix Victory Study in immunity, perseverance

Star Black playmakers aren’t any longer an exception – they’re the rule. Throughout your complete football season, this series will discover the importance and influence of black QB from bottom -up to NFL.
New Orlean – in the weeks preceding the Sunday Super Bowl between Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, my challenge was to find out which essentially the most convincing plot: Kansas City, winning the three subsequent Super Bowl championships or watching the playmaker Eagles Jalen finally break through.
I sat down at Hurts, a young player who went back from a serious failure to check to often summer and infrequently critical response of Philadelphia fans. In the conversations of quarterback, they routinely take room for nearly every elite calling signal at NFL.
However, the whole lot he does is win, just like the Sunday explosion of the leaders 40-22. His 46-jard passing pass to Devonta Smith in the third quarter gave Philadelphi 34-0. Putting almost aside from three things Kansas City and provided painful championships, which were solidly his.
Hurts, Super Bowl Lix MVP, ran through 72 jardy and placing and accomplished 17 out of twenty-two passes out of 221 yards and two application. He became the fifth playmaker in the history of NFL with many appliances and a speeding application in Super Bowl, joining Ken Anderson, Brett Favre, Joe Montana and Patrick Mahomes.
But when Hurts tells anyone who’s to listen, he is just not a numerical guy. He wins the guy.
“I don’t play statistics,” he said after they led Philadelphia to the NFC championships. “I don’t play a game for numbers, no statistical approval from anyone else. Victory and success is defined by this particular person; All this is in relation to this person and what I define as a victory. And so my goal No. 1 is always to go out and win. Winning is the standard. “
Hurts was championship on Sunday in leading Philadelphia to the second Super Bowl championship.
Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Nowy Orlean was a super stage for Hurts to win your first NFL championship.
The recent Orlean, devastated by Hurricane, made up and returned stronger than ever. Like the town, Hurts is a study of immunity and perseverance. This applies to each player who reached this stage, but Hurts experienced more public ups and downs than most elite players.
As a first-year student on the University of Alabama, Hurts led Crimson Tide to the 12-0 record in the 2016 regular season. Alabama reached the match for the national championship and lost to Clemson and the playmaker of Deshaun Watson. Alabama won the national championship a yr later, but Hurts didn’t lead the team. During the break of the national title game with Georgia leading 13-0, coach Alabama, Nick Saban, hurt in favor of the primary yr Tua Tavailoa, who led Alabama to victory 26-23 in Daming.
After Sunday’s win, Hurts said that every of those events continues to be a source of his motivation.
“I am the same child who came to the game in the national championships and lost, the same kid who was equipped, he had to transfer that I had to go through this unprecedented journey and this child always kept the most important and was always the most important and was always the most important and was always in accordance with his vision and what he saw, “said Hurts.
This super bowl championships belonged to Hurts.
“He was the second place of Deshaun Watson in the championships when he played incredibly,” said Quincy Avery playing guru. “He is the same guy whose team won these national championships, but he was not playing this match. I think that this dramatically changes what people think about Jalen, hurts as a quarterback. But this will not alleviate his advantage. “
Usually, the very best observations about wounds come from teammates or people like Avery who worked with the playmaker. Avery, who works with many playmakers of the very best quality, met with Hurts when he was 16 years old. He didn’t start working with wounds until he moved from Alabama to Oklahoma. They talked a couple of bench during a break in Alabama, but in the context of what hurts to do higher.
“He talked about how the coach (Saban) did not really talk to him about this or any of these things, but he said he didn’t need it,” Avery said. “He didn’t need this conversation because he knew he needed to do something higher to be on the pitch, so his only task was to attack it.
“I think there are so many people in this situation, if they fight and become a bench, they want to look at every person other than themselves. He turned to the inside, and the only thing he thought about was: “How can I improve in order that it would not occur to me?” “

Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Hurts didn’t approach being a bench in Philadelphia, although for an elite playmaker at the extent, he was criticized in the town of brotherly love. After the Sunday performance in the Hurts championship, he almost silenced his critics.
Impressive for everybody who knows that it hurts, it seems unaware of criticism.
“He is one of those guys who do not allow adversity to reach him,” said Eagles Mekhi Becton offensive liner. “He is one of those guys who water flows down his back, no matter what is happening. This is very inspiring, makes you want to go even harder because you know that he is not crazy or spoiled the situation. “
Hurts led Eagles to the Super Bowl Lvia against Kansas City in 2023 and the Eagles lost. Last season, Philadelphia began strongly, after which disappeared at the tip of the yr, and the critics appeared again. This yr there was a drama in the center of the season, when there have been reports of the strain between the injuries and the recipient of AJ Brown.
Hurts didn’t react, but they still turned in the dominant performances when the Eagles were rolling towards Play -ff. His teammates approached him. “I would say the whole year, just as people talked about him, like everything, everyone said that he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t do it. But (he) still does it – said Becton. “When you see the way it comes out and dominates in every game, we only need to do it.”
Hurts doesn’t have a flash playmaker Baltimore Ravens Lamar Jackson or playmaker Buffalo Bills Josh Allen, this yr’s MVP. But Avery said Hurts has one of the crucial unique features he saw in the elite playmaker.
“He is the best player in NFL in doing things that do not require talent,” said Avery. “This is due to hard work, preparing for gathering guys. Everything you can do, which does not require talent, mastered it. He is also a great talent. For me it makes him special. “
Hurts was on Sunday on Sunday. Running if needed, going with the indicating performance and possibly he does what he does best: lead.
“He is a thermostat,” Avery said. “Changes the temperature in the room. It makes everyone reach their level of perfection. I think that sometimes he can rub people in the wrong way, but the people who are rubbed in the wrong way do not want to be great as if he wanted to be great. “
On Sunday, Bants was great. He climbed to the highest of a steep mountain and may finally receive unlimited recognition, which is only for its reach.
This is just not enough for him.
Sports
Antonio Gates, Jared Allen, Eric Allen and Sterling Sharpe form the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Antonio Gates, Jared Allen, Eric Allen and Sterling Sharpe were voted for Pro Football Hall of Fame in the smallest induction class inside 20 years after changes in the rules out of season, which is to make it difficult to make the introduction.
Sharpe got as a candidate of seniors in a vote announced on Thursday evening at the NFL Honors and will join Shannon’s younger brother as the first siblings introduced to the room. Two -time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning failed this yr’s older brother Peyton in Canton, Ohio.
Shannon gave the message on to Sterling and will probably be together without end in the hall after the introduction ceremony on August 2.
“I don’t think it really happened,” said Sterling Sharpe. “This is one of those situations in which the closer is approaching the same colorful jacket he has, and standing in the same place that he has become and was able to find out about traveling, to get there, I think I think standing. But now it hasn’t hit home yet. “
While a small class is a change in comparison with previous years, when at the least seven people have been introduced in each of the previous 12 classes, it will not be unprecedented.
In the 2005 class there have been only 4 aspects and there have been 18 other years with three or 4 induced from the firstclass 17 in 1963.
“You appreciate it almost more,” said Jared Allen. “Nothing comes easily. When I found out that it was only four, it became more unique. The emphasis is on what it means to be Hall of Famer. We apparently fit it. For me it was a sigh with relief. “
The recent rules were established this yr after the pursuit of Hall of Famers to make the hall more exclusive, which led on to the smaller class. Candidates from modern times were voted from 15 to seven in the last stage, as a substitute of five lately.
49 voters could vote for five out of seven, and each reached 80% or ends in the top three entering the room. In the past years, five finalists have received a voice up or down, and all five got here to the last 17 years.

Candidates from the senior, trainers and colleagues category were then placed in a bunch by which voters selected three. Candidates also needed 80% support with the best finisher robotically, even when it fails.
A spokesman for Hall of Fame, Rich Desrosiers, said that no decision was made or to maintain this method in 2026, but said that one yr could possibly be too early to attract all conclusions.
Gates was elected in the second yr of qualification. He only played basketball in college, then transformed into one of the most vital ends of the NFL after the chargers appointed.
“The possibility of saying, he says about how (chargers) they believed in me,” Gates said. “I’m glad that everything paid off.”
He became All-PRO in its second season in 2004. He was again Pro in the next two seasons and had a 16-year profession in Chargers. Gates ended with 955 fishing to 11,841 yards and the NFL record for tight ends with 116 filming. It ranks seventh in the TD breakthrough.

Jared Allen was a four-time All-PRO, who ended his profession with 136 sacks, including the leading in League 22 in 2011 for Minnesota. He also led the league in sacks with 15 1/2 for Kansas City in 2007 and achieved two -digit numbers in seven seasons. His last game was a loss of Super Bowl for Karolina against Denver in the 2015 season.
Eric Allen performed for 14 seasons as the highest defender in the NFL and never had to maneuver in a protected place. Allen’s profession lasted in the game “Fog Bowl” in 1988, when he played in Philadelphia as a debutant in the game “Tuck Rule” in the 2001 season for Oakland in his last match.
Allen ended with 54 intercourse, including eight returned to the use. He was the first ALL-PRO team in 1989 and had two other seasons as a range of the second team.
He got here from 19 years of qualification.
“Life rarely plays as you like,” said Eric Allen. “There are always some curves and turns. But time always reveals the truth. … It’s been time before people see the complexity of my situation. “
Sharpe had a brief but productive profession for Green Bay Packers in 1988-94. His best season took place in 1992, when he became the sixth player who won the receiving a triple crown, setting the NFL record with 108 fishing on 1461 yards and 13 application.
He performed his own album with 112 fishing in 1993 and led the NFL with 18 seizures in the last season, 1994, before his neck injury shortened his profession.

Sharpe was three-time All-PRO and had 595 fishing on 8 134 yards and 65 tds. During the seven -year profession in the parties and fishing, he took only Jerry Rice.
Sharpe brothers will join the three Father-Syn tandems in the hall: Tim and Wellington Mara; Art Rooney Sr. and Dan Rooney; and ED and Steve Sabol.
Four other candidates from modern times who reached the last stage, but weren’t in the state of Willie Anderson, Torry Holt, Luke Kuechly and Adam Vinatieri. These 4 will robotically advance to the last 15 to vote next yr.
The other eight finalists who were cut before are Manning, Jahri Evans, Steve Smith Sr., Terrell Suggs, Fred Taylor, Reggie Wayne, Darren Woodson and Marshal Yanda.
Seniors who weren’t in a position to Maxa Bughan and Jim Tyrer, and Mike Holmgren weren’t a coach and Ralph Hay as a collaborator.
(Tagstranslate) @AP
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