Socially Conscious, Culturally Mixed

He is a cutting-edge philanthropist, outspoken war activist and proof that individual fame and fortune can become the catalyst for positive change.

Steve Nash, the All-Star point guard for the Phoenix Suns and two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, is a citizen of the world.

At the age of 34, Nash is unique both in his sport – an athletically average, 190-pound point guard dominating in sport amid seven-foot gazelles – and his multicultural upbringing.

Born to an English mother and a Welsh father who played professional soccer, Nash was born in South Africa and began a whirlwind ride.

The family moved to Victoria, British Columbia, where he marinated amid a melting pot of cultures and traditions, gaining an acceptance and understanding that would form the foundation of his core values.

“Well, that’s the world, right?,” Nash said. “In 50 years, what will it be like? My story will be even less unique. With the world getting smaller and cultures becoming more and more intertwined and familiar and accepting, in a lot of ways I was given a head start on all that. That’s why I love to travel, meet new people and accept their cultures – I never felt confined to parts of the world because of the way my life as gone.”

He went to college in California, a Jesuit school, Santa Clara University, married a Paraguayan beauty Alejandra, who presented him with twin daughters Lola and Bella. The family splits their home base between the tranquil Arizona desert and the chaotic but cathartic streets of New York City.

And while he didn’t grow up affluent by North American standards, he had an early insight into how high he was on the world’s totem pole, and how many others lagged behind. Combined with an education at a college that advocated service and making a difference, he knew he wanted to transform his personal fame into an engine for change.

Now in its sixth year, the Steve Nash Foundation not only focuses on the physical fitness and health of the world’s children, but also on making healthy choices when it comes to the environment and the world around them.

“First, I love kids,” Nash said. “We are most impressionable as children, so you can have the most impact on them. It’s also really fun to work with kids; to see that growth scale that’s possible. I had unbelievable opportunities as a kid – I had great parents, great (athletic) programs, and great coaches. It’s good to look out for other people and give them some of the same opportunities I had.”

But if you are a kid playing in the Steve Nash Youth Basketball League – which is in the process of expanding from British Columbia to every Canadian province – or a student at his camps or in an audience at his speeches, when did talking about jump shots and defense morph into pitches promoting recycling, conservation and planet replenishment?

“It all goes hand in hand,” he said. “How can you be concerned with the welfare of children, without being concerned about the environment? And if you’re not concerned with the environment, can you really be concerned about our children, or those that come after?”

Children around the world have been the beneficiaries of Nash’s Foundation.

In Alejandra’s native Paraguay, Hospital de Clinicas in Asuncion, has a postoperative cardiac recovery room with incubators, monitors, resuscitators and other instruments that make what were once impossible heart surgeries into a daily reality. Though they deal with the on-going struggle to keep the clinic running.

“We’ve found that at sometimes the government won’t pay for the electricity or that supplies will disappear along the route,” Nash said, the latest expansion of the project is scheduled for next year.

A charity basketball game last summer co-hosted by Nash and Yao Ming was an overwhelming success, raising nearly $3 million to improve the educational resources for Chinese children living in 70 poor, isolated, rural communities.

In Arizona , Nash’s “Early Childhood Education Initiative,” focuses on prenatal health for moms and early attention to leaning for children in the first five years – when brain development is at its most explosive.

After a Suns game in Seattle in March, more than a thousand young players from his youth basketball league made the bus ride from British Columbia to see the game as his guest and stayed for a lively question and answer session following Phoenix’s win.

It is not unique to see Nash making himself available to AIDS and cancer patients in the cities the Suns visit during the season, spending an hour here or there signing autographs, bearing gifts or just talking one-on-one. But he has also used his celebrity status to exponentially broaden his impact on the causes he champions.

Nash’s representatives, Bill Duffy and Bill Sanders, fully embrace Nash’s goals to affect change and to help him, as Nash puts it, “get the most bang for your buck” when he agrees to sign with or endorse products and services.

“We love to roll up or sleeves and make Steve’s ideas and visions become a reality,” Duffy said. “The profit isn’t the motivating factor. It’s about doing what’s right.”

So Nash signed on to not only pitch bottled water for Clearly Canadian, but to play a key role in their new “Global Water Initiative,” designed to build safe drinking water systems in Central and South America.

Nash’s latest Nike shoe is called “The Trash Talk,” and for good reason. It is their first basketball shoe made mostly from waste products of other Nike shoes.

His latest venture with the Mission Skin Care is a perfect example of getting the most of the partnership. The company has developed environmentally friendly skin care products for athletes – such sunscreens that won’t run into the eyes when the user sweats – to promote prevention of skin cancer. And 10 percent of the profits go directly to charitable organizations.

“In a way it’s created a movement of its own,” Nash said. “Companies want to make money and be successful, but they want to do it under the right terms. It’s really positive and I think you’re going to see a lot of companies pushed in that direction because people and consumers are becoming aware and comfortable with the idea of being socially responsible.”

“That’s something I’m proud of. I feel like I was one of the people who played a part in opening up that way of thinking in today’s sports. Then you get a chance to watch the impact of not only those directly influenced by it but those that helped you accomplish the goal. You create a ripple effect.”

Nash has never been afraid to make waves. His vocal opposition to the Iraq War – he came to the 2003 NBA All-Star Game wearing a shirt that read “No war, Shoot for Peace” – was criticized by sports writers and other athletes like Navy graduate David Robinson, even though his true opposition was more against any war, any time.

“The amount of positive feedback I got from that was ten-fold, at least in my ears,” he said. “I knew I was going to take some heat for it and I did. But to this day, people stop me on the street and say ‘I don’t really follow basketball, but thank you for speaking out.’ I thought people would forget that. It doesn’t matter if people like or dislike what you say, it’s important that we had a dialogue about the subject.”

All voices. All people. All opportunities. No wonder Nash abandons his car each summer and immerses himself in the rhythm of his favorite American city, New York, where he plays club soccer, gets around by skateboards and subways and disappears as much as a high-profile athlete can.

“My wife and I met there and it’s her home away from Paraguay,” he said. “I just love the city: the diversity, the pace, the people. Everything is there. You walk out your door and the whole world is in front of you.”

A world that is a better place because of Steve Nash.