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Speaker 1: On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, we continue Where

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Speaker 1: Are They Now weak, a multi part series delving into

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Speaker 1: the lives of sports biggest stars decades after their extraordinary

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Speaker 1: athletic triumphs. Today, the greatest shot blocker in NBA history

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Speaker 1: running these days, Dekembi Ma Tumbo, is not blocking shots

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Speaker 1: so much as advocating for them in his native Democratic

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Speaker 1: Republic of Congo. Since his retirement from the NBA in

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine, Matumbo has stayed busy. He runs a

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Speaker 1: foundation which is built a large hospital and a school

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Speaker 1: in the Congo, and he spent the past couple of

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Speaker 1: years pushing for COVID awareness and vaccine uptake. I'm producer

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Speaker 1: Jessica Armoski from Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. This

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Speaker 1: is Sports Illustrated Weekly. Brian Burn said, We're going to

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Speaker 1: talk today about where de Kimba is now, but just

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Speaker 1: to remind everyone, where was he at the height of

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Speaker 1: his eighteen season NBA career, seven ft two strong, long arms,

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Speaker 1: multiple time Defensive Player of the Year, often led the

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Speaker 1: league in block shots. He was really well known at

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Speaker 1: the time when the NBA was built around centers. He

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Speaker 1: was one of the big stars you know, when Shack

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Speaker 1: and Ewing and Robinson were dominating in the league, Montembo

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Speaker 1: was right there with him to try to stop them.

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Speaker 1: Especially at the time when he was really in his

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Speaker 1: heyday in the nineties and into the early two thousand's,

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Speaker 1: he was known as an intellect, the humanitarian Already, he

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Speaker 1: was known to speak multiple languages. He was known to

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Speaker 1: try to go back and give back to where he

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Speaker 1: was born and raised in the Congo, and so he

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Speaker 1: was known as a worldly person beyond just his prowess

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Speaker 1: on the basketball court. So when I got there, he

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Speaker 1: was on a call and you could hear that distinct

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Speaker 1: deep voice at going down the hall and you know,

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Speaker 1: oh the Kim based clearly here he's he's working. So

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Speaker 1: I sat in his lobby for a bit and looked

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Speaker 1: around and took note. And behind me kind of the

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Speaker 1: center piece of the lobby of his office was a

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Speaker 1: collage of photos were very well lit, of physicians and

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Speaker 1: children of him interacting with them at his hospital in Africa,

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Speaker 1: and there was one that particularly struck me. That's the

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Speaker 1: centerpiece of it as him. There's a girl who looks scared,

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Speaker 1: a little frightened. She's clearly getting a medical procedure or

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Speaker 1: test on or something like that. There's a doctor near

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Speaker 1: and he's lifting her chin up, looking at her very seriously.

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Speaker 1: And you contrast that against on a sidewall. It's it's

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Speaker 1: a nice painting, it's a big painting, but it's definitely

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Speaker 1: relegated to kind of a side wall. It's not the

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Speaker 1: center piece. Is a painting of him laying on the

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Speaker 1: floor in a Nuggets jersey holding a basketball up after

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Speaker 1: they had just upset the Sonics. It was the first

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Speaker 1: eight one upset in NBA history, was a huge deal.

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Speaker 1: Dan Price is the ball and they are unlikely upset

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Speaker 1: the eight set a team that was two games o

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Speaker 1: the season that Denver youngest in the NBA have beaten

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Speaker 1: the table the best record in the NBA, the Seattle SuperSonics,

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Speaker 1: and can be Tumbo one of the biggest moments of

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Speaker 1: his career. It's a very famous photo that he had

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Speaker 1: turned into this painting, but it's it's not the centerpiece.

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Speaker 1: You know, I did, I did accomplish this. I'm proud

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Speaker 1: of it. I'll put it up, but it's over on

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Speaker 1: the side. But me helping this girl, helping my country,

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Speaker 1: that's what matters. Most there's a great deal of poverty

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Speaker 1: and underserved communities there. It's a very impoverished population generally speaking.

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Speaker 1: But his father had gone and studied in Europe and

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Speaker 1: was an educator and an administrator, which provided him and

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Speaker 1: his multiple siblings with a stable enough upbringing, though they

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Speaker 1: were not immune to some of the difficulties that young people,

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Speaker 1: people of all ages really in the Democratic Republic of

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Speaker 1: Congo would face. Youth there, even if you are in

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Speaker 1: a relatively stable household like he was, it can be

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Speaker 1: a traumatic experience. With malaria's running rampant. Later on, aids

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Speaker 1: in HIV became a big issue. Polio is still there. Also,

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Speaker 1: many friends, friends going out a lot, a lot, a

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Speaker 1: lot of many friends. There's a lot they have to

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Speaker 1: contend with that we probably take for granted or ignore,

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Speaker 1: don't consider. But it was a difficult upbringing for him

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Speaker 1: as he was growing up from a young age to

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Speaker 1: Kimbay identified largely because he'd seen some suffering and lost

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Speaker 1: friends along the way that he wanted to try to help.

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Speaker 1: His north star was trying to help his people, help people,

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Speaker 1: and what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo live

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Speaker 1: better lives, live healthier, lives. He'd seen his father do

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Speaker 1: a version of that after being educated in Europe by returning,

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Speaker 1: rather than going to the US or staying in Europe

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Speaker 1: and trying to find a more lucrative life, he returned

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Speaker 1: and applied his education at his homeland and did Kimbay

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Speaker 1: very much wanted to follow in those footsteps, and he

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Speaker 1: thought he was going to do it through medicine, and

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Speaker 1: then I told about being a doctor. Even since when

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Speaker 1: he did end up going to Georgetown, it was to

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Speaker 1: do that. He had planned to get a bachelor's degree

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Speaker 1: and eventually go to med school, but was noticed on

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Speaker 1: campus as a you know, seven ft two athletic, you know,

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Speaker 1: someone with a lot of potential and joined the team

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Speaker 1: almost unexpectedly, and that pivoted him to the career that

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Speaker 1: he wound up having. But he never lost sight along

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Speaker 1: the way. Through the success of Georgetown, through the Hall

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Speaker 1: of Fame NBA career enabled him to build his name

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Speaker 1: and reputation and wealth to a point where he felt

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Speaker 1: he could use all of that that he had accumulated

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Speaker 1: through basketball, all that goodwill, all that fortune, and apply

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Speaker 1: it to that original goal he has as a child,

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Speaker 1: to get back to help specifically people that didn't have

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Speaker 1: the health care that they needed. So that never left

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Speaker 1: his mind, even as he is spending all those years

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Speaker 1: in the league, he always wanted to give back, namely

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Speaker 1: through medicine and through education, and that's a goal that

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Speaker 1: he has spent his post playing days fulfilling and fulfilling

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Speaker 1: in a great order. The Kimbay started plotting out what

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Speaker 1: would become the hospital that would be named for his

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Speaker 1: late mother. He started that process us in the late nineties,

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Speaker 1: in the thick of his NBA career, really at his prime.

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Speaker 1: He started fundraising amongst NBA peers, team owners, the league itself.

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Speaker 1: That was the starting point. Later evolved into having broader

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Speaker 1: business connections that he's remained in touch with and I

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Speaker 1: think have been more of the circles he runs in

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Speaker 1: now as far as fundraising goes. But those were his

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Speaker 1: early beginnings in the early nineties and it was a

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Speaker 1: process that persisted through the duration of his career. He's

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Speaker 1: talked about his years in Houston towards the end of

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Speaker 1: his career, and they had drafted Yao by that point.

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Speaker 1: Another center they became close. They've trained together. They were

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Speaker 1: sat across the aisle from each other on team flights

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Speaker 1: from games. Yeah, I would look across the stile and

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Speaker 1: there's the Kimby plotting out planning for the hospital, trying

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Speaker 1: to find staff and trying to find what equipment they need.

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Speaker 1: You go talk to y'all men. If you google a

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Speaker 1: couple of his article that to Dine in the press

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Speaker 1: and then fifteen years said I would have now gone

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Speaker 1: build more than thirty fifth school. That yeah, building China

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Speaker 1: and it Roll area. With his foundation, he said, I

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Speaker 1: would have not done it if I didn't have a

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Speaker 1: teammate will preach about the good working in the community,

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Speaker 1: and he's share about watching me during my foundation work

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Speaker 1: on the plane every day, whenever we go from one

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Speaker 1: game to the next game, I'll be there working during

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Speaker 1: an epist of paper I think that I want to do.

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Speaker 1: Who do I need to talk about? Which part of

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Speaker 1: the hospital I cannot get because my teammate watching it

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Speaker 1: for two years planning the opening of the hospital. It

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Speaker 1: was years and years of logistics, almost ten years of

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Speaker 1: logistical planning that went into this, much of which overlapped

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Speaker 1: with the latter half of his career. So that's where

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Speaker 1: he devoted his free time to planning the hospital to

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Speaker 1: get back to his community. He said, some coaches, some

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Speaker 1: teams were a little wary at first. Is his attention

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Speaker 1: not fully here as he too focused on his humanitarian efforts.

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Speaker 1: Some of my coaches worst questionings up basketball it was

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Speaker 1: in the front over world, and I think they came

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Speaker 1: to realize that it wasn't both. Around the time he

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Speaker 1: was first formulating the hospital, first planning it out, sadly,

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Speaker 1: his mother passed away. It was during an ongoing conflict

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Speaker 1: spurred from their really bloody civil war that had occurred

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Speaker 1: in the nineties, and there were curfews at the time

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Speaker 1: where you you weren't allowed to leave the house in

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Speaker 1: the evening, and she had suffered a medical condition that

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Speaker 1: required immediate care, and due to the curfews, logistically just

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Speaker 1: they weren't able to get her to a medical facility

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Speaker 1: in time as she passed away. And I do think

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Speaker 1: that as the Kimbay faced some hurdles along the way again,

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Speaker 1: ten years is a long time to go from starting

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Speaker 1: to raise funds to getting a hospital built. A lot

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Speaker 1: of red tape he had to cut through. I do

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Speaker 1: think that that helped keep him motivated. The notion that

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Speaker 1: his mother needed urgent medical care and couldn't receive it

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Speaker 1: and wanted to help others in her position not face

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Speaker 1: the same fate. The hospital he was planning was in

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Speaker 1: Northern conshasa a wide tract of land in a pretty

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Speaker 1: poor community in Northern conshasa that he had targeted, but

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Speaker 1: there's really no local health clinic here that the people need. Yes,

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Speaker 1: there's big hospitals in the heart of the city, but

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Speaker 1: those are hard to access. A lot of people are

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Speaker 1: traveling on foot, people don't have cars. It's really hard

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Speaker 1: to get to these big medical facilities. And what they

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Speaker 1: really need, particularly in the poorest areas around the city,

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Speaker 1: is a local clinic that is there to serve that

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Speaker 1: community that was in dire need of it. So that's

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Speaker 1: why he targeted that area. In conshasa a big function

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Speaker 1: of them. Tumbo hospitals day to day operations is treating cancer,

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Speaker 1: specifically cancers for women's cervical cancer breast cancer. Cervical cancer

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Speaker 1: is among the most fatal conditions that women in Central

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Speaker 1: Africa face. There's just not enough infrastructure there for proper screening,

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Speaker 1: detection or even treatment once it is detected. Being able

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Speaker 1: to detect it early that can definitely help with mortality rates,

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Speaker 1: and so that has been a huge focus of Mutumbo's

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Speaker 1: hospital is health care for women, particularly screening for cervical cancer.

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Speaker 1: Other than facing COVID square on. One of his biggest initiatives,

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Speaker 1: perhaps his biggest initiative during the pandemic, was to start

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Speaker 1: the school. As the world is facing down the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: he realized people were captive at home. He could get

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Speaker 1: calls out all the time. People were eager to talk

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Speaker 1: about the state of the world and to try to help,

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Speaker 1: and he tried to channel that energy into starting a

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Speaker 1: school in the village where his parents were born and raised. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: when the school opened late last year, he named it

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Speaker 1: for his father, honoring him as a teacher and longtime

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Speaker 1: school administrator. And that was two three buses in my

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Speaker 1: previo Kiss and I got through a born and raised

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Speaker 1: that they never see a bus before, did see a

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Speaker 1: bus to go to school. The school laws electricity, which

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Speaker 1: a lot of the kids do not have at home.

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Speaker 1: They get two meals a day. So beyond just education,

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Speaker 1: which is vital, it's providing some key life services and

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Speaker 1: functions and improving their quality of life as well. So

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Speaker 1: initially when COVID struck to Kimbay. Like all of us,

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Speaker 1: you kind of get moored at home, and for him

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Speaker 1: home is is Metro Atlanta. There were obviously travel bands.

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Speaker 1: The DRC lockdown quickly and quite effectively and large heart

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Speaker 1: because they already had the infrastructure in place, even if

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Speaker 1: they lacked resources. They were accustomed to dealing with pestilences

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Speaker 1: of this nature Ebola mainly, and so they were able

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Speaker 1: to use those systems and those personnel to spring into

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Speaker 1: action to try to mitigate the spread of COVID early on.

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Speaker 1: Based on the data, and there's some mixed reports as

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Speaker 1: to whether the data is accurate or if it's underestimating

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Speaker 1: the total number of cases and death, which is more

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Speaker 1: likely the case, but generally speaking, they did lockdown fast

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Speaker 1: and early and were able to protect the population. At

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Speaker 1: COVID's onset, people thought it would ravage Africa, and that

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Speaker 1: didn't appeared to be the case, at least in Central Africa.

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Speaker 1: So did Kimbay initially at least focus his efforts more domestically,

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Speaker 1: meaning in the US. But once he was able to

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Speaker 1: get his vaccine, the first thing he did was get

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Speaker 1: on a flight and get back to his first home

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Speaker 1: to the DRC. He did about a half dozen trips

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Speaker 1: over the past year and a half or so. He

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Speaker 1: spent about two to three months over there during that time,

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Speaker 1: and much of his efforts during this period, beyond working

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Speaker 1: with the school, have been mass distribution. We brought so

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Speaker 1: many mosque distribute marks. I knew that there was crisis.

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Speaker 1: People were dying. Then I was one there and gone.

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Speaker 1: People wearing where they're getting yet I went through, Man,

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Speaker 1: there was some good about that made as I can do,

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Speaker 1: you go spread our cards. He's done a lot to

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Speaker 1: try to bolster vaccine awareness and the importance of vaccines

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Speaker 1: among the population there. His hospital set up kind of

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Speaker 1: makeshift tents outside where they were doing vaccine drives, giving

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Speaker 1: out free vaccines to the population. Really the main barrier there.

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Speaker 1: We've heard about a lot in the US there's vaccine

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Speaker 1: hesitancy for maybe social or political reasons, whatever that might

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Speaker 1: be there, that's less the case. The experts I talked

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Speaker 1: to in the field said that really access is the

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Speaker 1: bigger issue. Where for me, for instance, I have three

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Speaker 1: publics as I can drive to within ten minutes and

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Speaker 1: go get a vaccine right there. It's I'm gonna have

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Speaker 1: to give up a day's work and walk or take

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Speaker 1: a motorcycle ride or a bus to try to go

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Speaker 1: get my vaccine. And my day's work literally pays for

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Speaker 1: my day's food that day or my children's food. So

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Speaker 1: that's a decision I have to make. Am I willing

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Speaker 1: to sacrifice that for the sake of this vaccine that

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Speaker 1: may protect me and my family, but we may not

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Speaker 1: eat that day? And so that's a very difficult decision

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Speaker 1: to make. And so that was really the Kimbay's hospital.

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Speaker 1: They tried to make it accessible to people in that

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Speaker 1: area that may not have otherwise been able to make

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Speaker 1: the sacrifices to get the vaccines. And he was there

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Speaker 1: filming it. Me, I'm very happy to be here at

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Speaker 1: the ambassadors say there's once there's a big reason that

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Speaker 1: products to get a year because we want to save

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Speaker 1: more life. We are seeking time seeing our love one dying.

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Speaker 1: We have already lost enough for people, almost close to

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Speaker 1: six and then eighty some thousand people have already parished.

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Speaker 1: We cannot lose more people because our community have diminished.

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Speaker 1: He recorded his his driver that he has when he visits.

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Speaker 1: He encouraged him to get the vaccine. His brother got

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Speaker 1: the vaccine, and he's done what he can specifically in

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Speaker 1: the area of vaccine awareness and distribution. That's been as

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Speaker 1: big as focus during COVID. He's such a big presence

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Speaker 1: there that the government appreciates all his efforts and what

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Speaker 1: he does on many fronts, whether it's combating malaria or

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Speaker 1: cervical cancer or COVID it. He is widely admired. It's

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Speaker 1: not an overstatement to say that that his word carries

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Speaker 1: a lot of weight there, that people listen that that

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Speaker 1: what he's done has had an impact on the community.

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Speaker 1: Dickimbay has partnered with Messiah Jerry, the general manager of

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Speaker 1: the Toronto Raptors, where they are engaged in a program

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Speaker 1: that is building basketball courts all around Africa in the

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Speaker 1: name of trying to give kids something productive to do

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Speaker 1: in their downtime, to try to grow the sport in Africa.

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Speaker 1: There's just not a lot of well paved services where

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Speaker 1: you can play, so he is trying to get more

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Speaker 1: courts built there. One yes, it's to grow the game

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Speaker 1: in Africa. Maybe that helps continue the pipeline of African

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Speaker 1: players to the NBA or two colleges, but really it's

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Speaker 1: just more to give the youth some more structure and

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Speaker 1: direction and something to distract them that keeps them off

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Speaker 1: the streets. He said, that's important. It's just another means

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Speaker 1: to an end of bettering the lives of the population there.

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Speaker 1: Say he had pursued his desire to be a doctor,

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Speaker 1: he obviously would have been acted lives very personally, very directly,

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Speaker 1: in very important ways. But he's supremely confident that the

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Speaker 1: route he took, the platform basketball gave him that he's

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Speaker 1: impacted far more lives than he would have otherwise, even

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Speaker 1: as a position, and that's what drives him and what

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Speaker 1: motivates him, and how basketball is intertwined with all his

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Speaker 1: humanitarian efforts. It built his name in his stature up

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Speaker 1: enough that people would listen, people would look up to him,

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Speaker 1: people would appreciate what he was offering and go take

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Speaker 1: advantage of those resources. They would enroll in the schools,

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Speaker 1: they would go visit the clinic. Yes, he could have

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Speaker 1: been a humanitarian, he could have made a big impact.

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Speaker 1: He's got a huge and elect I'm sure he would

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Speaker 1: have succeeded in some way. But but basketball added a

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Speaker 1: lot of fuel to that fire and enabled him to

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Speaker 1: touch many more lives than he might have otherwise. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening, and a quick reminder, please rate and review

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Speaker 1: our show. It helps people find us. Sports Illustrated Weekly

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Speaker 1: is a production of Sports Illustrated My Heart Radio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

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Speaker 1: And for more of Sports Illustrated It's best stories and podcasts,

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Speaker 1: visit SI dot com. This episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly

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Speaker 1: was produced by Jessica Armoski That's me, Jordan Rozsieri, and

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Speaker 1: Isaac Lee, who is also our sound engineer. Our senior

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Speaker 1: producer is Dan Bloom. Our executive producers are Scott Brody

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Speaker 1: and John Gonzalez. Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider.

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Speaker 1: If you stuck around this long, we leave you with this,

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Speaker 1: then what some American movie you see? All those black

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Speaker 1: talk people on TV radio with a tvous cream share it.

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Speaker 1: I used to see a look, look, Amerker, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: forget that the black people who live in a boker, right,

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Speaker 1: is so obs