CHENNAI, INDIA – WNBA Champion Tamika Catchings will tip off the city’s Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA Championship on February 1st at the Santhome School which will see youth from schools all across Chennai participate. She will also be at the Dominic Savio School in Andheri East in Mumbai on January 28th.

The City Championship marks the culmination of three competitions that have been taking place across the city. There will be a finals of the 5×5 team competition featuring the top eight boys and girls teams from across the city; a 3×3 team competition featuring over 150 teams; and the finals of the Hot Shot individual shooting competition, which will see one boy and girl crowned as the best shooters in the city.

“It is an honor to travel to India on behalf of the Reliance Foundation and the NBA to help teach basketball to young boys and girls in India,” said Catchings. “It is exciting that the sport I love is taking off in India and I am looking forward to working with these kids.”

One of the best all-around players in the WNBA, Catchings was the 2012 Finals MVP, the same year her team, the Indiana Fever, won the WNBA title. A year before that, Catchings was the league MVP, in 2011. Catching was the WNBA’s MVP in 20122, is a nine-time WNBA All-Star, and also has won the Defensive Player of the Year five times (2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2012). Catchings also has the distinction of winning three consecutive Olympic golds, 2004, 2008 & 2012, with the U.S. Women’s National Team.

The Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA initiative is a comprehensive youth basketball program, which uses the positive values of the sport to engage and impact the lives of Indian youth. It focuses on inspiring youth to play and living a healthy, active lifestyle. Basketball is a great form of exercise that teaches youth valuable life lessons such as teamwork, sacrifice, discipline, dedication and sportsmanship.

About Reliance Foundation

Reliance Foundation (RF), the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries Limited, aims to play a catalytic role in addressing the nation’s development challenges through innovative and sustainable solutions with its focus on five core pillars: Rural Transformation, Education, Health, Urban Renewal, and Promotion and protection of India’s Arts, Culture and Heritage. Smt. Nita M. Ambani is the Chairperson of Reliance Foundation and the guiding spirit behind the Foundation’s ambitious vision of becoming the leading vehicle for social development, empowering the underprivileged and infusing social transformation in India. Reliance Foundation has touched the lives of over a million underprivileged across the country, reaching out to over 2,500 villages and various urban locations.

About the NBA

The NBA is a global sports and media business built around three professional sports leagues: the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, and the NBA Development League. The league has established a major international presence with games and programming in 215 countries and territories in 47 languages and NBA merchandise for sale in more than 125,000 stores in 100 countries on 6 continents. NBA rosters at the start of the 2013-14 season featured a record 92 international players from 39 countries and territories. NBA Digital’s assets include NBA TV, which is available in 60 million U.S. homes, and NBA.com, which averages more than 42 million page views per day, more than half of which originate from outside of North America. The NBA is the No. 1 professional sports league on social media, with more than 475 million likes and followers globally across all league, team, and player platforms. Through NBA Cares, the league and its teams and players have donated more than $225 million to charity, completed more than 2.6 million hours of hands-on community service, and created more than 830 places where kids and families can live, learn, or play.

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