Anucha Browne Sanders facts for kids
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Anucha Browne is an American former women's basketball player and a former executive for the New York Knicks team of the NBA. .....
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Playing career
In 1982, Browne enrolled at Northwestern, where she was a star on the school's women's basketball team. Sanders was selected to the all-Big Ten team three times, and was named Big Ten Player of the Year twice; she also holds the all-time conference records for scoring (2,307 points) and rebounds (951), and in 1985 led all Division I women's basketball players nationwide in scoring average with 30.5 points per game. According to an article published by Northwestern University, Sanders may be "pound for pound, one of the most accomplished athletes in the school's history".
Browne graduated from Northwestern in 1985 with a degree in communications, and was selected to the school's athletic Hall of Fame in 1993. She later would complete a master's degree in Marketing Communication at Florida State University.
After graduation, Browne continued to participate in organized basketball to some extent. She was briefly on the United States Women's National team, and participated in several organized exhibition tournaments. However, an attempt at a pro career in the WNBA (which did not start operations for more than a decade after her graduation) did not pan out; she applied for that league's draft and was not selected.
Northwestern University statistics
Source
| Legend | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GP | Games played | GS | Games started | MPG | Minutes per game |
| FG% | Field goal percentage | 3P% | 3-point field goal percentage | FT% | Free throw percentage |
| RPG | Rebounds per game | APG | Assists per game | SPG | Steals per game |
| BPG | Blocks per game | PPG | Points per game | Bold | Career high |
| Year | Team | GP | Points | FG% | FT% | RPG | APG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Northwestern | 29 | 346 | 51.1% | 63.8% | 6.0 | NA | 11.9 |
| 1983 | Northwestern | 27 | 552 | 55.8% | 64.7% | 9.2 | NA | 20.4 |
| 1984 | Northwestern | 26 | 554 | 45.9% | 65.1% | 10.4 | NA | 21.3 |
| 1985 | Northwestern | 28 | 855 | 51.1% | 68.1% | 9.2 | 1.1 | 30.5 |
| Career | 110 | 2307 | 50.8% | 65.9% | 8.7 | 0.3 | 21.0 |
USA Basketball
Browne was named to the team representing the US at the 1985 William Jones Cup competition in Taipei, Taiwan. After losing an early game to Sweden, Team USA won the next six games, including a two-point victory in the final game against Japan, to secure the championship. She scored five points at the event.
Post basketball career
After her collegiate career ended, Browne Sanders worked for eleven years for IBM in several roles; her final role was as a program manager in the company's Worldwide Sports Office. As program manager, she oversaw IBM's marketing sports-related marketing activities, including at the Olympic Games in 1996, 1998, and 2000.
In 2000, Browne Sanders was hired by the New York Knicks as a marketing executive.
In 2002, she was promoted to the position of senior vice president of marketing and business operations by the franchise, making her one of the most powerful female black executives in pro sports in the United States. She held that role for nearly four years, until January 2006, when she was fired.
Honors and awards
- Sports Business Journal 's "40 under 40" list, given to up-and-coming young sports executives.
- 1993: Inducted into the Northwestern Athletics Hall of Fame
- Northwestern University's Athlete of the Decade for the 1980s.
Personal
Sanders graduated from Saint Saviour High School in Brooklyn, New York. Sanders is divorced with three children. She is currently the Chief Impact Officer at Tides after being the vice president of women's basketball championships for the NCAA, and serving as senior associate athletics director for marketing and senior woman administrator at the University at Buffalo.
