USA Basketball: Martin Dempsey back as USA Basketball chair; Sue Bird, Kevin Durant among those added to board- Retired Gen. Martin Dempsey was reelected chairperson of USA Basketball on Monday, while five-time Olympic gold medalist Sue Bird and three-time gold medalist Kevin Durant were among those added to the federation’s board of directors.
Dempsey, who was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Barack Obama, is the second person to be elected chair for back-to-back Olympic cycles, following Jerry Colangelo.
Dempsey will remain in the role through the 2024 Paris Olympics. He said he was proud of USAB’s “remarkable success,” including gold medals in men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and women’s 3×3 at the Tokyo Games.
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USA Basketball: Martin Dempsey back as USA Basketball chair; Sue Bird, Kevin Durant among those added to the board
“We remain unflinchingly and enthusiastically committed to winning and rededicate ourselves to representing our country with honor in international competition,” Dempsey said.
Durant and Bird are among five athlete representatives — all Olympic gold medalists — who were added to the board, which was expanded from 11 to 15 people for this cycle. Joining Bird and Durant are Seimone Augustus, a three-time winner, and Jennifer Azzi and Harrison Barnes, who won gold once.
Other new board members include WNBA head of league operations Bethany Donaphin, West Coast Conference commissioner Gloria Nevarez, National Federation of State High School Associations executive director Karissa Niehoff, and John Rogers Jr., the chairman, and co-CEO of Ariel Investments.
The other board members are holdovers from the most recent Olympic cycle, including NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum, NBA senior vice president of international operations Kim Bohuny, NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt, Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir, and Texas executive senior associate athletics director Chris Plonsky.
