Wee Chat with Adonal Foyle, NBA veteran, author and activist

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Adonal Foyle is a retired NBA veteran player with a total of 13 NBA seasons under his belt. Foyle played three seasons with the Orlando Magic (2007-2010), and before that, spent a decade with the newly crowned 2015 NBA champions Golden State Warriors, where he began his career as the NBA’s eighth overall draft pick. Adonal now works as a Community Ambassador for the Golden State Warriors. Foyle holds the Warriors’ all-time record in blocked shots (1,140) and is fifth on their all-time list for offensive rebounds and sixth for defensive rebounds. After retiring in 2010, he served the Orlando Magic as the Director of Player Development for two NBA seasons. He is the Founder and President of two youth-related nonprofit organizations (Democracy Matters and Kerosene Lamp Foundation). Foyle has a Master’s degree in Sport Psychology from JFK University and works as a Mental Training Consultant in Pick & Foyle Consulting. In addition, Adonal is an author, having written children’s books (Too Tall Foyle) and his new book “Winning the Money Game: Lessons Learned from the Financial Fouls of Pro Athletes” is out June 23 2015.

Adonal Foyle was born and raised in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Eastern Caribbean. He only began playing basketball at the age of 15, and his raw talent captured the attention of two college professors who helped him to use his basketball skills to get an education. At the age of 16 Foyle left his island home to attend high school in the USA. After a brief stint at Cardinal O’Hara high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Adonal went on to live in Hamilton, New York with the two professors, Jay and Joan Mandle, whom he grew to love as his own family. He attended Hamilton Central High School where he led the basketball team to win their first state championship. There he received such honors as McDonald’s High School All-America and third team USA Today All-America.

Despite being recruited by all the top basketball colleges, Adonal Foyle made the unorthodox decision to attend Colgate University, a small liberal arts college in upstate New York. In his statement to the press, he explained that he wanted the opportunity to learn the principles of the game in a slower-paced setting, where the coach would be able to give him the attention he desired. Foyle also wanted to leave college with a strong academic grounding, and felt that this would be harder to accomplish at a school where you were a basketball player first and a student last. At Colgate, Foyle averaged 20.4 points, 12.7 rebounds and 5.66 blocks a game in his three-year college career (he left Colgate after his junior year in 1997). He also set an NCAA record with 492 career blocks which was only broken in 2002. Although Foyle left Colgate early to join the NBA, he maintained his commitment to education and graduated magna cum laude in 1999. Foyle has a Master’s degree in Sport Psychology from JFK University that he completed whilst an NBA player.

Adonal Foyle is widely respected by his peers and fans as one of the most intelligent players in the NBA and a real renaissance man. He is an activist with a deep commitment to improving the society in which he finds himself. Foyle makes numerous community service visits and founded two non-profit organizations: Democracy Matters, a non-partisan campus-based project working to get big money out of politics and people in; and Kerosene Lamp Foundation which uses basketball to empower at-risk youth to grow into healthy and well-educated adults. A host of organizations have honored his philanthropic efforts including the NBA, the NBA Players Association, the Mayor of Orlando and Sporting News. Most recently, he was inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame and COSIDA’s Academic All-America Hall of Fame, and named Runner Up Central Floridian of the Year (2010) by the Orlando Sentinel. Adonal also serves as Secretary on the Board of Directors for the National Basketball Retired Players Association – Orlando Chapter.

You can follow Adonal on Twitter: @afoyle3131 Instagram: @afoyle3131 Facebook: @foylesforum or via his website: adonalfoyle.com

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