Directors
Robert Castaneda | Claire Fay | Howie Evans (Emeritus) | Keith Houlemard | Marc James | Claude Johnson | Michael King | Eric Vinson
Robert Castaneda. (Jay Dunn)
Robert Castaneda is the co-founder and executive director of Beyond the Ball, a sports-based community development organization that uses the power of sport to change lives, give hope, reclaim space and develop a culture of opportunities for youth and families in Chicago.
Robert and his wife, co-founder Amy Castaneda, have dedicated their lives to making their West Side community of Little Village a peaceful place through sport and play. Beyond the Ball now serves over 2,500 residents throughout the year, using sport to teach personal and social responsibility.
In 2010, Beyond the Ball received a Beyond Sport “Most Courageous Use of Sport Award,” for Project Play, a program designed to reclaim public play spaces from gangs. Robert, who is featured in the White House’s “Champions of Change” Program, was also selected as a 2012 Chicago Community Trust Emerging Leader Fellow for his continued efforts to bring life back to his community, making it healthier physically and socially. (Back to top)
Howie Evans
Howie Evans. (New York Amsterdam News)
Howie Evans is the Sr. Sports Editor for The New York Amsterdam News, the third oldest paper in New York City. He has embraced a career that spans over 30 years of experience as an educator, journalist, communications specialist, high school, college basketball coach and as a coach in the Holcombe Rucker Summer Pro Rucker League.
He was named by the New York Daily News as one of New York City’s 25 Most Influential African-American Individuals in Sports and Entertainment. The United States Tennis Association honored him in 2006 with their Communicator of the Year Award. Howie Evans served as a charter member on the New York City Board of Education Chancellors Task Force on Academics and Athletics. He spent over 20 years in the New York City Board of Education public school system as the Director of Youth and Adult Education in the troubled areas of the South Bronx, Central, West and East Harlem. The longtime New York Congressman Charles Rangel cited him for his work with youth.
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Claire Fay
Claire Fay.
Claire has more than 30 years of experience in the national criminal justice arena specializing in research and evaluation as well as policy and planning in the areas of criminal and juvenile justice, law enforcement, corrections and system-wide strategic planning. This has included work in the Federal and District of Columbia governments, and the private non-profit sectors.
Among her most notable positions are as the Director of Government Relations for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Special Advisor to the Director of the National Institute of Justice, Senior Research Staff Scientist at the George Washington University’s Institute on Crime, Justice and Corrections, and most recently, the Director of Justice and Community Relations at the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia.
Claire also owns her own wellness business specializing in creating customized nutrition programs for athletes and others with high-performance lifestyles.
Finally, Claire is the Founder and Executive Fund Advisor for The Guardian Angel of Health, a non-profit fund that provides financial assistance to individuals in need of health services they otherwise could not afford. (Back to top)
Keith Houlemard
Keith Houlemard.
Keith Houlemard is Vice President/General Manager, Olympics at Nike, Inc. He originates from Pasadena, CA, the youngest of six children from a very close family immersed in the culture of sport. Keith attended San Diego State University, where he earned a BS in Business Finance and played Aztec baseball. It was there that Keith realized his athletic passion, and made it a goal to have a career in the sports business.
Following college, while working in footwear sales at Nordstrom, Keith started his pursuit of a career at Nike. After a number of interviews, he began with Nike in Entertainment Marketing as the warehouse manager. From there, Keith moved to become an Ekin (Nike Field Service Rep). In the years since, he was elevated within Nike to numerous positions in Sales, Product, Marketing, and Merchandising. Each role brought its own challenges and opportunities, giving him new perspectives on the business while continuing to develop his leadership skills. Keith is consumed in the passion for Nike, its culture, and its people.
These varied experiences led him to the Jordan Brand where he served as President from 2008-2012. With 25+ years at Nike and as VP/GM of Olympics, Keith led the Nike Brand through the Rio 2016 Games, which turned out to be an amazing success. With all of his travel to Rio these last few years he’s hoping the Portuguese he learned stays with him. His business focus is now on the 2018 Winter Olympics in Korea and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, along with Strategic Projects that capture new opportunities for Nike.
Keith is on Nike’s Black Employee Network Executive Committee and is the Executive Sponsor of the Nike School Innovation. He is also a board member of The Maurice Lucas Foundation. Besides being a busy executive for Nike, Keith is a father of three and a proud new grandfather of one. He is an active participant in numerous community activities. Working at Nike has allowed him to travel and experience the world. Keith has always appreciated competition and enjoys working with diverse and talented groups of people. He loves a challenge and is energized by learning new things. (Back to top)
Marc James
Marc James.
Marc James is a Private Investor. He was formerly a Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities in New York and was the Co-Head of Interest Rate Derivative and Foreign Exchange Sales within the Global Rates Group at Wachovia.
With over 25 years in the financial services arena, Marc formerly headed similar efforts at several securities firms. He spent five years at Frankfurt-based Commerzbank Securities, heading FX, Fixed Income, and Equity Derivative Sales in the Americas.
Marc also founded the Corporate Fixed Income Derivatives Coverage Team at Bear Stearns, where he spent seven years structuring derivative-linked capital markets structures for corporate finance clients in the US. His prior derivatives experience includes more than four years at Chase Securities, the investment banking arm of Chase Manhattan Bank, heading various coverage efforts for Middle Market, Energy & Power, and the Media & Telecom sectors. He began his finance career at PaineWebber, as an Equity Index Arbitrageur and Program Trader.
Marc’s civic involvement includes his participation as a member of the University of Chicago’s Council on the Booth Graduate School of Business, which advises the GSB’s leadership in their efforts “to maintain faculty excellence and develop the highest quality management education programs in the world”. He is a member of the President’s Circle of the National Urban League, and a member of the Chairman’s Circle of Jazz at Lincoln Center, an organization focused on “enriching the artistic substance and perpetuating the democratic spirit of America’s music”.
Marc coaches 11-13 year olds in basketball for the 78th Precinct Youth Council in Brooklyn, and is an Elder at the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn. (Back to top)
Claude Johnson
Founder & Executive Director
The Black Fives Foundation
Black Fives Foundation executive director Claude Johnson speaks with local schoolchildren and descendants of early Brooklyn-based African American basketball teams. (Photo: James Devaney/WireImage)
Claude Johnson is an author, historian, writer, and founder of the Black Fives Foundation, a 501(c)3 public charity whose mission is to research, preserve, showcase, and teach the pre-NBA history of African-American basketball while honoring its pioneers and their descendants. The Black Fives Foundation Archives contain the world’s leading collection of historical artifacts from that period, known as the Black Fives Era.
He was born in Vienna, Austria — his father is African American, from the South Side of Chicago, and his mother was German, from the Römerstadt section of Frankfurt am Main — and lived in the Republic of the Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before moving to the USA with his parents at age six.
Claude Johnson on location for a scene from his “Artifact Of The Week” video series.
Claude is the author of “Black Fives: The Alpha Physical Culture Club,” the history of a pioneering early 20th-century all-Black basketball team, and is writing his second book, with Macmillan Publishing. He also contributed a chapter in the new book “Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs In Sports History,” by Mike Pesca, a compilation of stories by an all-star list of sportswriters. Publishers Weekly called his piece “one of the best” chapters in the book. He is also a contributing writer for ESPN/TheUndefeated.
Claude’s work has been featured by numerous media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, Slate, Fox Sports, SI for Kids, the History Channel, NPR, the BBC, MTV, ESPN, NBA TV, and Turner Broadcasting.
Claude has three sons. He and his family live in Greenwich, Connecticut.
For more information, please visit Claude Johnson’s profile page at LinkedIn. (Back to top)
Michael King
Michael King, the son of William “Dolly” King, stands in front of his father’s photograph at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. (Nancy Borowick)
Michael is a national sales manager for an educational publishing house. He has spent his career working in education with a desire to give back to future generations what he is so fortunate to have learned. Previously, Michael taught in the South Bronx as an adjunct professor at New York City Technical College in Brooklyn, New York.
Michael is a descendant of the Black Fives Era. He is the son of William “Dolly” King, a collegiate and professional sports star from the 1930s and 40s, who helped pioneer the racial segregation of the National Basketball League, a predecessor to today’s NBA, and is enshrined in the Long Island University Athletic Hall of Fame. After his sports career, “Dolly” became a prominent referee, a community leader, and a professor at Manhattan Community College.
In 2013, Michael and his family were honored at the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets professional basketball team, during a halftime ceremony to unveil a life-sized photographic image of “Dolly” that is permanently installed at the arena. The power of education and academics were instilled in the King family by Michael’s father, and this is proven out by the commitment to education by Michael’s first cousin, John B. King Jr., who is currently the acting United States Secretary of Education. (Back to top)
Eric Vinson
Eric Vinson.
Eric H. Vinson has held executive positions in facilities management, technology, and private banking with Fortune 500 financial service institutions, including JP Morgan Chase and US Trust as well as strategic policy planning with extensive legislative and regulatory compliance experience in local, state and federal Agencies including the State of New Jersey Office of Information Technology and the Office of General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He also served the New York Stock Exchange and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a securities and commodities litigator.
Eric’s entrepreneurial ventures are diverse and have included leading a sports and entertainment management and marketing firm representing world-class professional athletes and entertainers, and co-producing an acclaimed hip hop musical on the history of hip hop at Harlem’s Apollo Theater.
He was a co-founder of Verdero/CTG Athletics out of the South Bronx, NY, pioneering one of the largest minority-owned manufacturers and suppliers of baseball equipment to Major League Baseball.
Eric was one of the original co-owners of Amistad Press, along with founder and majority owner Charles F. Harris, the late Arthur Ashe Jr., and Ed Lewis, chairman of Essence Publications. Amistad, a pioneering book publishing venture, published and distributed African American titles that included noteworthy bestsellers such as Arthur’s own seminal work, “A Hard Road To Glory: A History of the African American Athlete.” Amistad was recently acquired by Harper Collins, where it remains a popular imprint.
In addition to their friendship, Eric was also associated with Arthur as a board member of his African American Athletic Association, helping to establish a think tank for sports-related policies and issues.
Eric has served a number of nonprofit boards and trade associations including the Princeton Alumni Council, ThinkQuest, and the International Facilities Management Association. He graduated with honors from Princeton’s University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and holds a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown Law School. (Back to top)