Dikembe is known for his Basketball accomplishments but he is MORE than that as a human being.....
NBA Legend DIKEMBE MUTOMBO was born in the capital city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mutombo is the seventh of ten children born to the late Samuel and Biamba Marie Mutombo. He arrived in the United States in 1987 on an academic scholarship to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In his second year, legendary basketball coach John Thompson invited the 7'2" Mutombo to try out for the university's renowned basketball team. After joining the team, Mutombo re-directed his pre-med ambitions and graduated from Georgetown with dual degrees in Linguistics and Diplomacy. Mutombo is fluent in nine languages, including five African languages. He played professional basketball in the NBA for 18 years before retiring from the Houston Rockets in 2009.
Giving back has always been a trademark of Mutombo ever since he entered the NBA in 1991. As a former spokesman for CARE, the international relief agency, Mutombo visited the Somali refugee camps in Northern Kenya in 1993 and traveled with NBA Commissioner David Stern and Georgetown colleagues Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning to Cape Town and Johannesburg.
In 1996, Mutombo paid for the Congo's women's basketball team's trip to Atlanta for the Summer Olympics games and also picked up the tab for the track team's uniforms and expenses. He is the first Youth Emissary for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and he also served on the Advisory Board for the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health.
Mutombo presently serves on the boards of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Constitution Center, Special Olympics International and on the National Board for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.
Mutombo has been named ABC's Person of the Week, Essence Magazine's 2001 Achiever, and Sporting News' No. 1 Good Guy. He has been featured in Europe's TIME magazine, Sports Illustrated for Kids, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Houston Chronicle and Forbes magazine.
In 2009, then NBA Commissioner David Stern appointed Mutombo to the newly created position of NBA Global Ambassador where he continues to work to grow and celebrate the game of basketball through international sporting events while working with NBA Cares to bring attention to important social issues.
Honors and awards:
2017 Trumpet Humanitarian Award – Trumpet Foundation
2016 NCAA Silver Anniversary Award
2016 Professional Honoree Boys Scouts of America/Atlanta Chapter
2015 Naismith Memorial Basketball – Hall of Fame
2015 Caring Award The Caring Institute
2014 Global Leadership Award – Upwardly Global
2014 Global Leadership Award – FrenchAmerican Chamber of Commerce
2014 Chairman's Award – 100 Black Men of America
2014 Trailblazer Award – 100 Black Men of America
2014 Humanitarian of the Year - FOCOS
2013 Congressional Humanitarian Award
2013 Legacy Award – Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Metro Atlanta
2013 Gateway Award for Excellence in Humanitarian Service – Washington Adventist University
2011 Goodermote Humanitarian Award – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
2011 Public Service Award – Big Brothers/Big Sisters of New York City
2010 Laureus World Sports Award
2010 B.C. Forbes Peopling of America Award for Sports – Ellis Island Foundation
2010 Miracle Corners of the World Award
January 2010, President Barack Obama served as a surprise guest at the eighth annual "Let Freedom Ring!" event celebrating of the life and legacy of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and honoring NBA great and philanthropist Dikembe Mutombo who received the John Thompson, Jr. Legacy of a Dream award.
2010 Humanitarian in Sport Award during the Beyond Sport Summit, which was attended by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
2010 Steve Patterson Award for Excellence in Sports Philanthropy awarded to the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
2007 - Mutombo was recognized by President George W. Bush during his State of the Union address
2003 – Helen Hayes MacArthur Award
2000 - The President's Service Award awarded by President Bill Clinton
World Economic Forum - Young Global Leader
Wilt Chamberlain Award - Operation Smile
Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters – SUNY/Cortland
Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters – Georgetown University
Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters – Haverford College
NAACP Phoenix Award
The Henry Iba Citizen Athlete Award
J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award - NBA
Ernie Davis Humanitarian Award
The Samuel J. Halsey Award - Georgetown University
Constituency for Africa's Trailblazer Award
Dikembe Mutombo is the Chairman and President of the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation which he created in 1997. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia the Foundation's mission is to improve the health, education and quality of life for the people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One major project of the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation was the construction of a new general hospital in the capital city of Kinshasa. In December 2007 and at a cost of $29 million, the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital opened in the Congo. Named in memory of Mutombo's beloved mother, the hospital has treated close to 200,000 men, women and children. Dikembe Mutombo and his wife Rose live in Atlanta, Georgia with their 3 children.
