Dikembe Mutombo, GU Basketball Legend and NBA Hall of Famer, Dies at 58 – The Hoya

Dikembe Mutombo (SLL ’91, H ’10), a Georgetown College males’s basketball icon who grew to become a basketball Corridor of Famer for his rebounding and blocking prowess with the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and Atlanta Hawks, died Sept. 30 after a two-year battle with mind most cancers. He was 58.

Mutombo, a middle from the Democratic Republic of Congo, grew to become one in all Georgetown’s greatest-ever gamers, dominating within the paint and defensively earlier than reaching stardom in an 18-year NBA profession. All through, Mutombo was identified for his philanthropy, funding and supporting humanitarian efforts notably in Central Africa.

“Basketball followers bear in mind him for his protection, rebounding and that trademark finger wag, however to these of us that knew him properly, we are going to miss the daddy, teammate, mentor and buddy,” Georgetown Athletic Director Lee Reed wrote in a press launch. “Dikembe left his mark on the Georgetown group in so some ways, however he will probably be greatest remembered for his distinctive reward of leveraging his platform as a Corridor of Fame basketball participant to maximise his international impression as a humanitarian. Our deepest condolences to the complete Mutombo household, Dikembe is a real Hoya who is not going to be forgotten.”

“The world misplaced a particular individual in Dikembe Mutombo, however he’ll stay on via his humanitarian work and dedication to household. Dikembe really embodied what it means to be a world ambassador – he’s eternally a Hoya, and Dikembe’s legacy transcends the game of basketball,” Georgetown males’s basketball coach Ed Cooley wrote on X.

Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo was born June 25, 1966, in Kinshasa, the Congo’s capital. He gained a world science competitors his senior yr of highschool and acquired a USAID scholarship to Georgetown in 1987, initially planning to check drugs. 

Standing 7-foot-2, he was recruited by former males’s basketball coach John Thompson Jr. and performed on a basketball scholarship his remaining three years at Georgetown. Mutombo didn’t converse English when he arrived in the USA and realized the language in just some weeks.

“I went to English class from 9:30 to 2:30, then I needed to go to my different lessons after I acquired out from my English class,” Mutombo advised The Hoya in 2021. “Then I needed to go to basketball apply, then I needed to carry weights, then I needed to go eat, then I needed to go research. I used to get again to my dorm at 8 p.m., after leaving at 8 within the morning.”

A digital unknown exterior Georgetown’s gates, Mutombo started enjoying for the lads’s basketball workforce within the 1988-89 season as a sophomore. His efficiency on the courtroom immediately spoke to his defensive prowess: Throughout his rookie season, Mutombo blocked 12 photographs in a single recreation towards St. John’s College — an NCAA single-game document — setting the stage for a formidable frontcourt partnership with Alonzo Mourning (COL ’92) often known as “Rejection Row” and serving to his workforce to an Elite Eight end. 

Throughout his junior season, Mutombo started to play extra, averaging a double-double — 10 factors and 10 rebounds — within the 24 video games he began. Although the Hoyas had been knocked out early within the NCAA event, Mutombo was named Large East defensive participant of the yr and second-team all-Large East. 

With Mourning injured, Mutombo grew to become the Hoya offense’s point of interest as a senior, main the workforce in scoring and repeatedly main the workforce in rebounds — tallying 27 within the Large East Event quarterfinal matchup towards the College of Connecticut. In all, Mutombo recorded 947 factors, 354 blocked photographs and a whopping 823 rebounds over his three-year faculty profession. 

After graduating from Georgetown with levels in linguistics and diplomacy, Mutombo was the No. 4 general choose within the 1991 NBA draft, going to the Denver Nuggets. 

“I like to take a seat again and hearken to how folks say how nice a few of these at the moment are, as a result of in a couple of years Dikembe’s going to surpass all of them,” Thompson mentioned of the 1991 draft picks.

Mutombo wasted no time propelling to stardom, ending his rookie season as an All-Star and runner-up in rookie of the yr sweepstakes. Mutombo grew to become identified for wagging his proper index finger at opponents, teasing them after blocking their photographs.

Over his lengthy NBA profession, together with stretches with the Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks and Houston Rockets, Mutombo racked up 4 defensive participant of the yr awards to go together with over 11,000 factors, 12,000 rebounds and three,000 blocks.

“Dikembe Mutombo was merely bigger than life,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wrote in a press launch. “On the courtroom, he was one of many best shot blockers and defensive gamers within the historical past of the NBA. Off the ground, he poured his coronary heart and soul into serving to others.”

All through his profession and after, Mutombo was a tireless advocate for his residence nation, spearheading a number of charity initiatives to assist schooling and healthcare within the Congo. Mutombo based the Dikembe Mutombo Basis in 1997 and helped fund the development of a normal hospital in Kinshasa, established a major college targeted on science and entrepreneurship and championed kids’s points with UNICEF and Particular Olympics Worldwide, serving on the boards of each organizations. Mutombo based Mutombo Espresso in 2021, which goals to work principally with feminine farmers within the Congo and different African international locations to shut the gender hole within the espresso trade. 

“The well being and the event of a rustic are intently linked to the well being of its folks,” Mutombo mentioned in a speech at Georgetown in 2001. “Schooling is so necessary to good well being.”

The NBA named Mutombo its first international ambassador in 2009. Mutombo labored with the NBA on worldwide outreach efforts together with Basketball With out Borders, a program that gives basketball instruction in 33 international locations.

Mutombo was inducted into the NBA Corridor of Fame in 2015 for his common of 9.8 factors and 10.3 rebounds per recreation in his profession.

Past his basketball stardom, Mutombo served on the college’s board of administrators, an advisory physique which helps to manipulate Georgetown, from 2017 to 2023, serving on two of its committees, in keeping with a college press launch.

“Dikembe Mutombo was the embodiment of the spirit of Georgetown,” Joseph Ferrara, a college vice chairman and chief of workers to school president John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95), wrote within the launch. “From his prolific faculty {and professional} basketball careers to his tireless work in retirement to enhance the lives of these in want of higher well being and alternative, he lived Georgetown’s values in a means we at all times will maintain with nice esteem and satisfaction. His passing is an incredible loss for the Georgetown group and certainly the USA, Congo, and all over the place else the place he uplifted these round him.”

Mutombo is survived by his spouse, Rose; his kids, Carrie (COL ’19, LAW ’22), Jean Jacques and Ryan Mutombo (CAS ’24), who performed three seasons on Georgetown’s males’s basketball workforce; and 4 nieces and nephews whom he and his spouse adopted.

This story is growing and will probably be up to date as extra data turns into obtainable.