Basketball without Borders: Senegal, Africa
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Tamika Raymond played seven years in the WNBA and once held the single-season record for field-goal accuracy (66.8%). She has two NCAA Division I National Championships with UConn, and most recently was an assistant coach for Kansas University women's basketball team.
Nykesha Sales played 11 years in the WNBA, six times as a WNBA All-Star. She won the NCAA Division 1 National Championship with UConn in 1995 and played in two WNBA Finals with the Connecticut Sun.
Both WNBA legends traveled to Senegal to take part in Basketball without Borders Africa, the NBA and FIBA's global social responsibility program that combines basketball instruction with community outreach focused on creating positive social change. Raymond and Sales worked with the top 40 female basketball players from across Senegal, running them through skill and condition drills and coaching them in team games. The camp also featured over 60 of the top male basketball players 18 & younger from across Africa who were coached by NBA players and coaches.
Prior to BWB, Sales traveled to Cape Verde as part of the US State Department Sports Envoy Program where she ran clinics for basketball players in the community. Raymond traveled to Malawi following the camp as part of the same program.
WNBA.com: Have you done anything like this before?
Tamika Raymond: Never before. Here in Africa has been amazing. The people are so nice and friendly. It�s something I�ve never experienced before with the food and just the whole culture, it�s been great. The guys here are very receptive. They want to learn, they want to get better and they believe in what we bring to them. They think America�s got it. So it�s been great.
WNBA.com: Talk a little bit about the camps and clinics you�ve been a part of.
TR: The camps and clinics have been great. It just hasn�t been about basketball. Of course the health awareness and the education part, kind of reaching out in different aspects has really made it a wholesome type of situation. Like I said before, the kids have really, really just been sponges and taking it in. They have some of the best coaches and some of the best players in the world here giving them pointers and teaching them and showing them different things. And I think they�ve been really great in receiving all that.
WNBA.com: What kind of questions were you asked by those involved?
Nykesha Sales: I think most of the questions were how to get better. One little boy asked how he could be faster. Another boy asked how he could be better at dribbling. Just minor questions to help them be better skill wise.
TR: �Can you dunk?� I get that all the time back in America. �Who would win if we play one-on-one?� Sometimes they�ll speak to me in a different language because they assume I�m from Africa. That�s been kind of cool. But the vast [amount] are all about, �Can I play?� Kind of a challenge. But you know what? I fought that my whole life so it�s pretty easy to answer those questions.
WNBA.com: Were the participants anxious to learn or did you have to push them along?
TR: In most Muslim cultures women are second. I think it�s very different for the NBA and WNBA to come together and connect and bring a couple of WNBA players out because it teaches them that we know how to play. Some girls that they might see playing when they go back to their home country they might look at them a little bit different and be a little bit more open to their ability to play. Now they�re coming up to me and giving high fives because there�s a certain respect for them now.
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TR: I just think the NBA has done a good job of putting the clinics together. There are a lot of people who have been on these trips multiple times and so they kind of know the work of the land and then the new people like myself it�s kind of easy to kind of insert yourself in. They have everything broken down, it�s all organized so it�s pretty easy to get accustomed to how it all flows. Basketball is kind of the universal language. You have people who speak French, you have people who speak Portuguese, you have people speak whatever their native language is in their home land and for some reason the game of basketball is universal.
WNBA.com: So what�s your impression of the culture?
TR: The foods are just wonderful. The meal we had last night was superb. One of the best, besides maybe a meal I had in Italy, it�s top three on my list. The people are very laid back. They�re beach people. They work out all the time. They work, they know how to chill. It�s been very relaxing considering the amount of work I�ve done. They�re very open and laid back people. It�s just been great all around. It�s been a wonderful experience.
WNBA.com: For those who can�t help with a clinic, what are some other ways in which they can lend a hand?
NS: There�s a lot of things you can do. You can send donations, get online and do stuff, send clothes or money or whatever it is and they�ll get it into the right hands to help the people in those areas organize it.
TR: Now that I�m here, everything we�ve experienced with these kids, after you come here and see what�s around, how 80 to 90 percent of the basketball that they play is outdoors. Today we had to say, �No three-point shots� because of the wind. When I was playing, you know, in a semi-air conditioned gym with a roof over my head, nice bleachers, nice food and more Gatorade and Powerade than you can drink, what these kids have to go through you understand why it�s so important to donate. Whether it�s your time, whether it�s your money or whether it�s your advice, like the coaches are coming to give, it�s something unlike anything I�ve ever experienced. And I think it�s very special and people should give to it because once you see what�s around and what we get in America as opposed to what they get and how much passion they have behind it and how much it changes not only them but their families and their community, I can�t put it in words.
WNBA.com: Do you plan on doing something like this again?
NS: I would love to do something like this again. I know there�s a lot of opportunity with the NBA so if I�m asked to do it I�m sure I will do it again.
TR: (Laughs) I told Dikembe (Mutombo) whenever they need me I�m here. After coming to experience something like this, I don�t think there�s anything else in the world that I could do. When you see where they come from, our low-income housing would be their upper echelon. I am so appreciative. When I go back home I appreciate that I have a million pairs of shoes and there are people here who have one pair of flip-flops and they�re fine. They�re middle class. So there�s a certain appreciation you leave here with that I don�t think in my life, in my 30 years and hopefully 80 more years that I live, I can never live up to it.