Susan Summons, Miami Dade College’s head women’s basketball coach and a senior professor, will be among 25 distinguished individuals the Institute for International Sport and the World Youth Peace Summit will honor at its Ambassadors of Peace Dinner Oct. 22 at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.
The event will recognize Summons and others who have an appreciation for the scholar-athlete and sportsmanship initiatives promoted by the Institute and its Summit that aims to develop current and former scholar-athletes from around the world into peace advocates.
Now in its second year, the Summit will host a series of events this month at the University of Connecticut in conjunction with the World Scholar-Athlete Games. The event is expected to draw more than 30,000 students from across the globe and 150 foreign ambassadors, as well as members of Congress.
A veteran educator, leader and public speaker, Summons has been actively involved in the Summit’s other initiatives. Earlier this summer, she was selected to attend a historic reception at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., to announce the launch of the Summit. She has made presentations at Institute programs, which, organization representatives believe, played a big role in its success to date.
Summons has a host of other accomplishments. The Institute named her one of the Top 100 Most Influential Sports Educators in America. She has served as an ambassador and coach of the inaugural World Scholar-Athlete Games and is a nationally acclaimed sports educator, hall of fame coach and player, professor, master teacher, author and internationally renowned motivational speaker.
Summons was the first African American woman at the community college level to serve as assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic Sports Festival Team (which won a bronze medal), a floor coach at the USA World Championship Trials and an assistant coach for the USA National European Select Team Tour (in Israel and France).
She was a pioneer in the first Women’s Professional Basketball League, where she played for the New England Gulls.
She was also a 2009 Pulitzer Prize nominator for the book The Encyclopedia of Sports Parenting by Dan Doyle.
PHOTO: Susan Summons
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