HEAT Celebrates Black History Month
MIAMI -- The Miami HEAT will once again pay tribute to Black History Month with a comprehensive campaign spanning multiple media platforms and outlets.
For the 10th consecutive season, the HEAT will present a series of vignettes focusing on the notable achievements of various African-Americans who have helped change the course of history with their contributions in sports, literature, the arts, the community, education, science, music and the military. Pepsi is the presenting sponsor of this initiative that will be shared as part of the entire HEAT experience—online, in-arena and featured in TIPOFF magazine.
Sun Sports will air each of the vignettes in its pre-game, halftime, and postgame segments throughout February, with the United States Marine Corps joining as a national broadcast sponsor for several of the stories. The vignettes feature HEAT players, executives and coaches telling the stories of heroes and heroic events, saluting the significant sacrifices required by so many in becoming a part of the collective history and fabric of our nation.
As they have in each of the last eight years, the HEAT will make the video vignettes available to all schools in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties through a partnership with BECON and WLRN, both of whom provide educational programming to schools in those districts.
A complete list of the subjects and those HEAT presenters is included below.
Black History Month Feature Subjects for 2012-13 Season
| Sports | |
| 1) The Harlem Globetrotters | Bob McAdoo |
| 2) Joe Louis | LeBron James |
| 3) Arthur Ashe | Mike Miller |
| 4) Venus and Serena Williams | Dwyane Wade |
| 5) Satchel Paige | Ray Allen |
| Events | |
| 6) The March on Washington | Udonis Haslem |
| Artists/Authors | |
| 7) Lena Horne | David Fizdale |
| 8) Sidney Poitier | Chris Bosh |
| 9) Miles Davis/John Coltrane | Keith Askins |
| Science & Education | |
| 10) Mary McLeod Bethune & HBCU | Joel Anthony |
| 11) Mae Jemison | Norris Cole |
| Famous Works | |
| 12) The Color Purple | James Jones |
| Politics and Military | |
| 13) Colin Powell | Pat Riley |
| 14) Buffalo Soldiers & Tuskegee Airmen | Erik Spoelstra |
| 15) Benjamin Oliver Davis, Sr. | Mario Chalmers |
| Community | |
| 16) Overtown | Alonzo Mourning |
| “I Have A Dream” Speech Tributes | |
| 17) Alonzo Mourning | |
| 18) HEAT team compilation |
Additionally, the Fourth Annual Black History Month Challenge presented by Pepsi will be held at AmericanAirlines Arena on Tuesday, February 5th at 10:30 am. The contest is a game show-style competition where a team from each of the schools will test their knowledge of Black history, with the winning school walking away with a $4,000 grant and tickets to an upcoming HEAT game. Further details will be released in the future.
