We were lucky to catch up with Jamal K. Atkins recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jamal , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

My hope is, I am able to build a legacy of service and progress through the connections and partnerships I have been blessed to share with like minded people around the world. I am not sure what people will say after I am gone but I hope the work I have been a part of will have lasting positive effect in both peoples lives and in their community through infrastructure repair & development and the creation of safe spaces for all. I hope people remember me most for my unwavering dedication to making the lives of the communities around me better daily and consistently.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a sports development and life skills specialist with a passion for community development through basketball. I have a proven track record with 20+ years’ experience in domestic and international coaching and the design and management of sports development and training programs. Committed to the promotion of healthy lifestyles, physical fitness, teamwork and youth leadership, I specializes in the technical design and implementation of youth skills development and corporate team building activities. In 2005, I started Basketball Academy of Excellence as a response to the gaps I found in the fundamental skills training area of a non-profit organization I was hired to support in South Africa. BAE identifies talented basketball players in the United States, Europe and Africa and provides them rigorous training sessions, mentorship, and life skills training; preparing players for opportunities within their home countries and abroad.

Through the Academy, I have helped South African, Zambian, and Zimbabwean and students from other countries obtain scholarships to high schools and universities in the United States, Canada and Asia. In addition, I am privileged to have shepherded eight Zambians athletes to the NBA’s exclusive Basketball Without Borders annual camp in South Africa. Throughout my career, I have also worked on teams that have helped design and facilitate a basketball league for high school students in South Africa, provided capacity building services, safe spaces and computer labs for 2,000 young women in Lesotho. I have also implemented a life skills mentoring and training program for more than 50,000 participants in partnership with the Ministry of Education in Zambia, as well as assisted in the launch of Project Knapsack, a pen-pal exchange program between students in the United States and Southern Africa. I currently resides in the greater Baltimore area where I continue to build and cultivate basketball talent as the Chief Training Officer of The Sanctuary Collective Baltimore (501C3) and serves as the CEO on the Board of a youth development organization, Global Youth Initiatives for Transformation (GYIFT)(501C3). In addition, I serves on the Black Alumni Network board at Shenandoah University as the Community Engagement Advisor where I attended undergrad and continues to mentor youth in Howard County and greater Baltimore area.

Combined with my sporting background I am an experienced technical design engineer for communications, A/V and surveillance systems. I have had the opportunity to use my design skills and technical knowledge to deliver large scale corporate events providing audio/visual design and installation services for domestic and international clients. I have led teams across multiple countries providing project and corporate event management services for some of the top global brands designing successful branding strategies for telecommunications companies, banks, airlines and television networks to penetrate new markets. I have served as team lead for company launch events for Emirates Airlines and Airtel Telecommunications inclusive of 500+ VIP Galas, domestic and international media management, and logistics for international executives. I have also provided event management services for international media giants like CNN’s African Journalist Awards, MTV’s South African Music Awards, and the MTN sponsored AFCON Cup.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Lesson learned! I can share a brief version of my business/life pivot I had to make to get to this point. In 2017 I married my wife whom I met through a mutual friend 2 years prior. When we got married, I was still living and working in Southern Africa as the owner of Basketball Academy of Excellence and partner in a consulting & engineering firm in Zambia. I worked basically 7 days a week as I lived on the compound of the business and was a de facto caretaker amongst other things. Although having my own wing of the building and additional spaces it was not the place to start a family with my new wife, so we began looking for another living space and I would keep my office and workshop on property as it had been for years. As we began the process of finding new housing, which took much longer and was more costly than originally planned, I needed to draw down some of my shares tied to the business to make this transition a less stressful process. This is where the pivot begins, I noticed that many of my questions and queries were going unanswered or had an insufficient explanation. This made me ask for a full audit of the books internally so I could understand where the problems were. This level of pressure and attention to detail was difficult to overcome with surface-level justifications, thus cracks started to show. The more I dug the more I began to see that the company paperwork had been altered to benefit my partners who were a married couple and me not so much. I asked to see all three companies that we housed under one umbrella separately so I could see where the issue was. I subsequently found out that one of the companies, the one where I focused most of my time and energy, had been all but gutted. Having 50% of nothing is still nothing, I was floored to say the least, but I have to say it was partially my fault, as I trusted way too much. After almost 3 weeks of digging and many days of not so nice meetings, I had to walk away from the company with far less than I was due. This nearly broke me spiritually as well as mentally, it took me years before I bounced back from the loss of a considerable income stream, and some friends to say the least. This situation taught me to trust but verify and check back constantly to be sure things are what they appear to be. In addition, it taught me to allow others to see the agreements I plan enter in writing so it can all be deemed above board. Lastly this taught me that I can start over and rebuild as I have.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

In both of my professional fields my reputation has been built off transparency and consistency. When I agree to take on a project it is after multiple meetings and discussions, loads of research and a clear desired outcomes document that we can refer to before during and after completion of the project. I like to have planned meetings during major phases of a project for M&E purposes as well as ensuring the client(s) are comfortable with the process. Another thing that has helped me build a great reputation in my technical field is my baseline of redundancy even though it usually means smaller margins for the firm at the end of a project. One of the costliest things for technical companies are call-outs or repair calls. This is not something we had to often on a job my team has completed but if we do, my team for the most part has pulled additional communication lines, or signal lines to cut our repair time down to a fraction of the time it would take to sniff out a technical issues when you have 1000’s of feet of cable runs throughout a building or a network of buildings. This quick response technique has gained me lifetime clients as we as referrals that sustain us during the lean times. Lastly, my reputation for leaving makers marks on jobs we complete was taught to me when I was in undergrad working of building sites in Northern Virginia, these makers marks have assisted the client in discerning who is responsible for what system and its care, saving them countless dollars in insurance over the years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.basketballacademyofexcellence.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/basketballacademyofexcellence/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamal.k.atkins/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamal-k-atkins-6b826493/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jamalk.atkins6855
• Other: www.GYIFT.org
  https://www.sanctuary-collective.org/

Image Credits

Stanton B. Miller , Peter Olumese, Jamal K. Atkins