To nearly everyone who avidly follows sports, Dikembe Mutombo will be remembered as a prodigious shot-blocker, a tower of a man who won four Defensive Player of the Year awards in his prime.
Of course, for Bucks fansâ_and the other 24 teams he hasn't played forâ_""the memories aren't as fond. He caused problems for Milwaukee on the defensive end of the court and summarily dismissed my team from the 2001 NBA conference finals with that indelible line: ""Anybody want to come to L.A. with me?""
But, thanks to a recent development that really transcends any obsession of the Bucks winning a title, Mutombo's legacy doesn't have to be written that way. At least, not for me, it doesn't.
Mutombo, 40, was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country torn today by disease, famine and civil strife. Needless to say, it is abjectly poor. The infant mortality rate is almost 10 percent, life expectancy is around 50 years and the number of people living with AIDS approximates 5% of the country.
Nine years ago, civil unrest in the country prevented Mutombo's mother, suffering from a stroke, from reaching a hospital 10 minutes away in the capital, Kinshasa. At that point, in 1997, the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation knew its objective: to build a hospital in the downtrodden city.
""I've always tried to do as much as I can to make a difference,"" Mutombo recently told Reuters. ""I always felt God put us here for a purpose, which is to make a difference for the next generation. I guess this is my way to make a difference.""
The 300-bed Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital—named after Dikembe's mother—is to begin taking patients next month. Mutombo, who will play his 18th season in the league this year for Houston, underwrote about half the bill for the hospital, which was priced at $29 million.
When he arrived at Georgetown in 1987, Mutombo was on an academic scholarship. He wanted to become a doctor, but was recruited by Hall of Fame coach John Thompson to join the Hoyas.
""I'm making a huge difference in the lives of so many people,"" he said. ""So many people will be treated for generations to come. If I was a doctor for the rest of my life I could never treat this many people.
The road to creating the hospital was difficult. Mutombo had to solicit money from other sources, acquire the land and still has to figure out how to pay off the balance, as well as the $2.5 million per year cost of running the facility.
""It's been a big headache,"" he said. ""There were times I thought about quitting.""
We hear countless stories of generosity from athletes. But there's something so personal about this particular one; Mutombo contracted malaria, one of the deadliest illnesses to plague Africa today, on a trip back home in 1999.
""Malaria is treatable, only in Africa they don't treat it well,"" Mutombo told USA Today in 2002. ""I learned a lot from the way I was treated in America. Maybe I can take this knowledge back to my hospital in Africa.""
So, for all the times he blocked a Milwaukee shot and waved the trademark finger, those won't be my lasting memories of Dikembe Mutombo. What's more remarkable is the shot he's giving the Congolese and the finger he has on the pulse of that country.
