⚾0️⃣4️⃣5️⃣ Benjie Meleras
Meet Benjie Meleras, a French-American helping to elevate baseball on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
✍️🏀0️⃣4️⃣4️⃣ Deliah Mathieu
Meet Deliah Mathieu, a public relations and communications strategist whose storytelling work on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean have helped foster greater French-American understandings through sport.
🏈0️⃣4️⃣3️⃣ Maceo Beard
Meet Maceo Beard, a cornerback for the Paris Musketeers who facilitates the transatlantic sports conversation thanks to his passion for American football.
🏀0️⃣4️⃣2️⃣ Agnus Berenato
Meet Agnus Berenato, a former player, storied NCAA Division 1 coach, educator and an early U.S. pioneer who played professional basketball in France.
🏀0️⃣4️⃣1️⃣Dianne Nolan
Meet Dianne Nolan, one of the longest reigning NCAA D1 women’s basketball head coaches who discovered her FranceAndUS connection at the world’s oldest basketball court in Paris during her broadcast career with ESPN.
🏀0️⃣4️⃣0️⃣ Melissa Diawakana
Meet Melissa Diawakana, a former professional player-turned-skills trainer, graduated professional coach, speaker, and media consultant who spun a passion for basketball into a career and passport to the world.
🏀0️⃣3️⃣9️⃣Gail Marquis
Meet Gail Marquis, a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer with the 1976 Olympic silver medal-winning U.S. team who blazed trails in the United States and France through basketball.
🎨🏀0️⃣3️⃣8️⃣ Anaïa Hoard
Meet Anaïa Hoard, a multi-hyphenate artist, former basketball player, 2017 U16 European Champion, and 2018 U17 World Cup runner-up with the French National team who is helping to redefine basketball as a global cultural movement, not just a game.
🏀0️⃣3️⃣7️⃣ Fanta Daffe
Meet Fanta Daffe, a student-athlete swishing hoops on both sides of the Atlantic while representing France and Mali on and off the hardcourt.
🏀0️⃣3️⃣6️⃣ Mah Minthe
Meet Mah Minthe, a student-athlete transcending transatlantic ties through basketball to live her version of the “American Dream” on and off the court.
⚽0️⃣3️⃣5️⃣ Camille Abily
Meet Camille Abily, a soccer warrior who, after an international and professional playing career, is writing a new chapter as Assistant Coach at her former team Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, the world’s most dominant professional club.
⛳🏀📺0️⃣3️⃣4️⃣Sébastien Audoux
Meet Sébastien Audoux, a veteran broadcast journalist who with Canal + helped translate via golf and basketball.
🤺0️⃣3️⃣3️⃣ Justin Tausig
Meet Justin Tausig, a sports and performance psychologist and former six-time member of the U.S. Senior National Team who cut his teeth in the world of elite fencing in Paris at the Racing Club de France.
⚽0️⃣3️⃣2️⃣ Hakim Zermouni
Meet Hakim Zermouni, whose informal sports diplomacy experience demonstrated the power of sport through football.
🎾0️⃣3️⃣1️⃣ Helen Hull Jacobs
Meet Helen Hull Jacobs, a U.S. tennis player, three-time French Championship finalist, and on-court fashion pioneer who, through the “Battle of the Helens,” helped forge one of the sport’s first fierce rivalries.
🏀0️⃣3️⃣0️⃣ Bob Riley
Meet Bob Riley, the former Atlanta Hawk who helped enrich the French game and national team as one of the first U.S.-born naturalized Frenchmen to play for Les Bleus in the 1970s.
⚽🗞️029 Jonathan Johnson
Meet Jonathan Johnson, a French football specialist who helps translate the hexagone’s football, stars, tacticians, and culture to American audiences.
🏀0️⃣2️⃣8️⃣ Bill Cain
Meet Bill Cain, the New York native who translated his NCAA student-athlete activist experience into a role as a sports ambassador for the United States, France, and Les Bleus in basketball.
🏀0️⃣2️⃣7️⃣ Tariq Abdul-Wahad
Meet Tariq Abdul-Wahad, the basketballer who, following an NCAA career with the University of Michigan and San Jose State, was the first Frenchman to play in the NBA in 1997.
🏀🗞0️⃣2️⃣6️⃣ Arnaud Lecomte
Meet Arnaud Lecomte, a basketball journalist for L’Équipe who has covered and translated the NBA for French audiences since 1992.
Mapping the Connections
The connections highlighted by #FranceAndUS Voices over time.
Blue = From the United States to France. Red = From France to the United States.