Leadership & Diversity
The organizational leader I chose to write about just recently retired from his
position of commissioner in the National Basketball Association, or to what many know
as the NBA. David Stern was the league commissioner from 1984-2012. Throughout
that time, Stern has changed the landscape of the league for the better, from adding
teams to expanding the market overseas, Stern has played a significant role in what the
NBA has become today, the industry leader among men’s professional sports leagues
for racial and gender hiring practices. This did not happen overnight, but Stern
gradually took it step by step to reach his goal of diverse association. By the end of this
paper you will see what Stern has implemented and how he took the NBA to the
diversity it has today.
The NBA was just as common of an industry when it came to diversity before
Stern took the helm. The NFL, NHL, and MLB sports organization’s all were lacking
diversity from the teams to the front offices. That all changed in 1984 when Stern started
making major strides. For example, In 1992, Stern and the National Basketball Players
Association director Charlie Grantham helped launch Project Teamwork in post
apartheid South Africa. This program was created in a study of sports in society in 1988.
It became known later after evaluating it by public opinion analyst Lou Harris called it
“America’s most successful violence prevention program”, and President Bill Clinton
named it as a model program (Eichenhofer, J. 2014, Feb 1). It used athletes to train
young people with conflict resolution skills with a special emphasis on conflicts based
on race and gender. In South Africa, rugby and cricket were all white sports and soccer
was almost an all black sport. Stern’s goal was that basketball might be an integrated
sport. Stern agreed to put together a team that he would lead to go to South Africa. After
he put together the team known as Project Teamwork, they went to Africa in 1993 and
1994. The South African youth were star struck and dazed by the size of the American
players. The children took to the game right away. The NBA built several courts in the
impoverished communities of Soweto and Alexandria. Because of the huge success of
Project Teamwork in 2001 the NBA created its Basketball without Borders program,
which annually goes to Africa and countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. Basketball
without borders brings together the best talent from the continent and teaches
basketball skills for half of the day and life skills and community service for the other half
of the day. Stern wanted NBA players to understand the power of sport to bring positive
social change whether you are in the United States, Africa, Europe or Asia. The NBA is
the only American league that has an office in Africa. It is near Nelson Mandela Square
