As much as former NBA center Dikembe Mutombo is know for his shot-blocking finger wag, he’s celebrated for his humanitarian efforts, too.
Most recently, the 52-year-old, who spent most his NBA career with the Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets, flew an 8-year-old boy from Africa to the U.S. so he could undergo surgery to remove a large tumor from his face. According to what Muombo told TMZ, the boy was being shunned by his community due to the growth.
“I was touched by what he’s going through as a young boy who’s 8 years old. Not going to school. The way he’s been pushed away by the society,” Mutombo said. “His mom has to keep him in the bedroom every day because people are talking bad about him.”
After initially meeting the boy in a Congo-area hospital, Mutombo arranged for him and his father to travel to Los Angeles, where a Beverly Hills doctor will perform the surgery for free.
Mutombo flew to California, and met the boy on Wednesday. The 7’2″ four-time Defensive Player of the Year winner gave him a giant teddy bear, balloons and a hug upon arriving.
But, that’s not all. Mutombo has been a busy man in the last month. At the end of November, he traveled to Jerusalem’s Old City, where he inaugurated a new sports center and hosted a basketball clinic for Jewish, Christian and Muslim children.
The facility was dubbed “an oasis of coexistence” by Sylvan Adams, the Canadian-Israeli philanthropist who sponsored the building.
“Who doesn’t know about all the wars that have taken place here?” Mutombo told the Associate Press. “But on the court you don’t talk about whose skin is darker, which ethnicity group you come from, which language you speak. You just play the game.”
And, in the process, if you come up with a big block, you just wag your finger, too.
