HEAT Celebrates Black History Month

Series of Vignettes Honoring Prominent African-Americans to Air on Sun Sports
Vignettes to Air in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties’ Public Schools

MIAMI, FL – 02/01 The Miami HEAT will once again honor Black History Month with a comprehensive campaign spanning multiple media platforms and outlets. The HEAT, along with exclusive broadcast partner, Sun Sports, has produced a series of vignettes that will chronicle the notable achievements of various African-Americans who have helped change the course of history with their contributions in sports, literature, the arts, politics, science, music and medicine.

HEAT players and coaches will participate in the process, telling the stories of heroes – both lesser known and well known – with the hope of keeping fresh in the minds of many the significant sacrifices required by each in achieving an historic goal.

Included among the 15 subjects that will be featured in the month-long tribute are sports figures such as Bill Russell, Hank Aaron, and the first African-American to win an Olympic Gold Medal–John Baxter Taylor. Legendary recording studio, Stax Records, and singing great, Billie Holiday, are among those musical artists to be honored, while the HEAT will also recognize the collective group of 11 black men and women who have won a Nobel Prize. HEAT President and Head Coach Pat Riley will honor the memory of a broadcasting icon, as he pays tribute to former 60 Minutes legend, Ed Bradley. Presidential candidates, politicians, doctors, astronauts, pilots and golfing legends both past and present round out a distinguished list of honorees.

In addition, during HEAT broadcasts on Sun Sports in February, watch for a very special series of interviews featuring HEAT great Alonzo Mourning, who recently sat down with 11-time NBA champion and Hall of Famer, Bill Russell. The two discussed a wide-range of topics, including the racial obstacles Russell and his generation faced both in and outside the realm of sports.

The HEAT will make the pieces available to schools in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties through a partnership with Broward Education Communications Network (BECON), WLRN, a local, non-commercial, cable access channel of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, and The Education Network (TEN), the television production service for the School District of Palm Beach County. All three networks will provide the educational programming to schools in those districts.

All of the vignettes will air during HEAT broadcasts on Sun Sports in February. Several vignettes will also air as part of the in-arena presentation on HEATV at each of the six home games during Black History Month and will be presented by Idearc Media the Official Publisher of Verizon Print Directories.

The segments will also be featured on HEAT.com, and corresponding stories will appear in the Tipoff magazine, the HEAT in-game publication.

A complete list of the subjects and those HEAT players and coaches who relay the stories, is included below.