Mountain Stars Basketball (UAA) travels to Africa for transformative service with Kenya Basketball Federation and represents USA at the NBA Academy Showcase in Senegal
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Salt Lake City, Utah (March 20, 2023) — Mountain Stars Basketball, a member of the Under Armour Association (UAA), will be in Africa from March 25 to April 9 with fifteen of its high-level basketball players, ages 15-18, by using basketball as a means of educating and enriching the lives of African youth—both boys and girls — helping to empower youth to dream big, hosting basketball camps and clinics, contracting academic and basketball infrastructure, and provide hundreds of much-needed clothing items and athletic shoes to the second largest urban slum in Africa, under Mountain Stars' multiyear investment in sports and academic infrastructures across the continent.
After a 3-year pause due to pandemic-related restrictions, the sixteen-day tour marks the return of Mountain Star's yearly tradition of traveling the continent to grow the game and empower youth through education on and off the court. Since 2018, Mountain Stars has built courts and infrastructures in Mali and Kenya with their 17U, 16U, and 15U teams to maximize their players' life trajectory with a perspective of the power of education, the value of humanity, and an appreciation of the power of basketball in shaping lives. Club owner Troy Zentner says, "The level of success we shoot for doesn't happen by accident. It results from a refined process of hard work, impactful experiences, deeper perspectives, proper training, and elite competition", club owner Troy Zentner says. "Our youth leadership trip is a vital part of their development. It's extreme; it's hard and requires a lot from these athletes. The journey in Africa instills a much deeper perspective that drives how they think and act moving forward, both off and on the court. Those willing to go through this process learn how to lead and impact those around them in school and life. All of this changes their trajectory."
Starting in Mombasa, Kenya, Mountain Stars will provide much-needed classroom supplies by building a water system and 100 desks with the local villages, and a new classroom with four walls. Today, villagers walk miles to bring back buckets of water for the day. Installing a solar-powered water system will provide stability, allowing them to focus on progress instead of survival. Under a multiyear partnership, the villages' leadership will be able to leverage Mountain Stars' resources with qualified teachers and monitoring that has already empowered hundreds of university graduates from these villages.
The next stop will be in Kibera, Kenya, the largest slum in Nairobi, and the largest urban slum in Africa. Mountain Stars, in partnership with the Kenya Basketball Federation, will teach classes at a local high school and elementary school; host national coaching clinics and skills development camps with the youth National Teams; provide hundreds of much-needed clothing items and athletic shoes to the community; and deliver ten academic scholarships to five partner independent schools who have matched Mountain Stars scholarships guaranteeing life-changing education to 20 deserving students.
Closing the club's journey this summer, the Mountain Stars will travel 3,700 miles (5,974 km) west to Saly, Senegal, Africa, to be the only team from the United States participating in a bonus NCAA live period at the African and Latin American NBA Academy Showcase.
For more information on the initiative and to follow along as each new project and transformative experience is unveiled across the continent, join the Mountain Stars Basketball online community at MountainStarsBasketball.com or follow @_mountainstars and #africacombine2023 on Instagram.
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About Mountain Stars Basketball:
A member of the preeminent grassroots shoe circuit Under Armour Association (UAA), Mountain Stars Basketball is a program created to let a wide range of elite players push the limits of what is possible and is more than what happens on the basketball court. Their close-knit brotherhood develops both on and off the hardwood through transformative service opportunities in Africa, high‑quality teammates and experiences, and a demanding national schedule fueled by a coaching staff with 40-plus years of professional basketball and 30 years of NCAA Division I (D-I) coaching experience. As an active force in international community service, the Club provides student-athletes a way to change their lives in Africa and the Americas each year.
The program awards scholarships to student-athletes; donates, builds, and opens schools; constructs basketball courts and writing desks for students; and forges trusted, long-term partnerships with academic institutions, local & federal governments, basketball clubs & federations, national teams, and Olympic committees.
For media inquiries, contact:
Jim Detjen
Head of Marketing & PR
uaa@mountainstarsbasketball.com
(801) 455-7269
