Today we’d like to introduce you to Chineze Nwagbo. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Chineze Nwagbo started her basketball career at Duval Senior High School, in Lanham, Maryland, where she is recognized as a four-year varsity letter recipient and two-time team captain. Her honors include two back-to-back State Championship Titles, All-American Honorable Mention, All-County First Team, All-Gazette, USA Today’s Most Improved and Most Important Player to Scout in Maryland, amongst a plethora of other accolades.
Chinny was a standout basketball player at Syracuse, where she earned her B.S. in Biology. Shortly after graduating, Chinny embarked on a career playing professionally for 11 years in Spain, Chile, Brazil, Poland, Portugal, & Israel, winning 4 MVP titles, appearances in championship games. The highlight of her career was when she represented her parent’s native country of Nigeria in the 2006 World Championship Games.
After retiring in 2016, Chinny began a series of ventures with the NBA. In China, she helped develop a grassroots implementation of an NBA-based basketball curriculum. She has done work for Jr. NBA programs, the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders developmental camps, and was brought on to work with the Atlanta Hawks, NY Knicks, Washington Wizards, and the National Basketball Players Association as a youth development coach and mentor.
She has served as an envoy for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Sports Diplomacy program, which was designed to use platforms in sports as transformative power to create social change in global communities around the world by bridging divides, creating cultural understanding, supporting women’s empowerment (& gender equality), advocating safe environments for kids with disabilities to play, and championing the importance of creating a more equitable and peaceful society. As an Envoy, Chinny has traveled to various parts of the world, building
relations with a myriad of different U.S. Embassies, sports federations, administrators, coaches, and players. She has also dedicated her time as a motivational speaker to various youth programs and amazing non-profits geared toward providing resources for under-represented & underserved youth around the world. In her spare time, she has appeared on New Channel 8’s SportsTalk show as a guest sports analyst and hopes to play an instrumental role in the growth of the game, especially serving as a role model for young girls.
All these experiences have led Chinny to where she is today at PeacePlayers, a guiding light who couldn’t be more thrilled to continue doing the work that matters most to her: providing opportunities for kids!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There has been some opposition along the way, specifically in basketball and in the nonprofit space. As a professional female athlete, gender discrimination in sports appears in three main ways: the wage gap, media coverage, and stereotypes. The wage gap is one of the most severe issues of gender discrimination in sports, and countless examples can verify it. In my case, it has been a mixture of all three and a little sprinkle of other unavoidable inequities that coexist with being a woman of color in sports. Luckily, I have always truly believed in myself and my ability as an athlete to concentrate on my passion and purpose for basketball, which provides a great deal of strength to silence naysayers. Not to mention, I have a phenomenal support system that holds me accountable for being the very best version of myself at all times.
As a Director of PeacePlayers Baltimore, a nonprofit that uses the transformative power of sport to bridge divides in historically conflicted communities, that discriminatory space is in your face daily. Like in many cities in America, Baltimore’s residents of color still experience the aftermath of redlining, the historic institutionalized disinvestment in predominantly non-white neighborhoods, a trend that unfortunately persists to this day. This institutionalized discrimination negatively impacts the opportunities available to youth in predominantly non-white communities in Baltimore. Youth in low-income neighborhoods have few options for after-school activities and lack exposure to experiences outside their local neighborhood. This institutionalized discrimination, at heart, has been the most challenging part of my journey in nonprofit, to experience explicit racism and discrimination that exist for people of color and have limited power to make an immediate change.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Currently, I serve as the Director of PeacePlayers Baltimore.
PeacePlayers Baltimore provides high-quality sports and leadership development education to youth in underserved communities in East and West Baltimore. We use basketball and peace education to provide youth the skills to mitigate conflict and grow as ambassadors for peace in their communities. Youth build long-standing healthy relationships and develop the confidence to become leaders on and off the court, advocating for themselves and their communities, bridging divides, and creating structural change within the city. In addition, through community partnerships and connections with the greater PeacePlayers network, PeacePlayers helps expose and connect youth of color to opportunities that have systematically been withheld from them, allowing youth to realize their full potential.
Our hope is if youth are engaged across geographic divides in sustained, sports-based programming grounded in leadership development and peace education, led by committed and effective local coaches, then youth will develop the skills, attitudes, and behaviors that enhance their belief in themselves, their ability to reduce conflict, and their desire to succeed in life while connecting them with opportunities that systemic racial inequality has historically denied them.
I am most proud of this role because it allows me to use my platform to serve something greater than myself. I couldn’t be more thrilled to wake up every day, head raised high, leaning firmly into my purpose to ensure that young people who need it the most are provided resources and access to equitable experiences.
We love surprises, fun facts, and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I think I am very passionate, vulnerable, and transparent so there are not many people who would not know that about me especially when it comes to my work ethic and the things I stand for.
Contact Info:
- Email: cnwagbo@peaceplayers.org
- Website: www.peaceplayers.org
- Instagram: PeacePlayers_US, chinny_n
- Facebook: Chinny Nwagbo
- Twitter: chinnyloveslife
- Youtube: PeacePlayers
