Colgate, 1999
• 1996 Academic All-America® Second Team
• 1997 Academic All-America First Team
Adonal Foyle was inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Hall of Fame in 2010.
12-year NBA veteran Adonal Foyle has traversed the globe while utilizing basketball as both a teaching tool and platform to affect change in politics and democracy.
A native of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Foyle was adopted at age 15 and immigrated to Central New York to begin his life in the United States. He attended high school at Cardinal O’Hara Catholic in suburban Philadelphia before spending his final two high school years at Hamilton Central High School in New York. He led the Emerald Knights to a pair of New York state titles and his monster numbers of 47 points and 25 rebounds in the state semifinals in 1994 are numbers that remain records to this day for a New York state tournament game.
He enrolled at Colgate University in the fall of 1993 where his adopted parents, Joan and Jay Mandle, taught as professors. Despite fielding offers from a number of blue blood programs, he chose the liberal arts-grounded Colgate because of his belief in a strong academic background in shaping his future. Foyle put together an outstanding career for the Red Raiders and remains the school’s all-time leading rebounder while also ranking second in scoring. He wrapped up his career in 1997 as the NCAA Div. I all-time leading shot blocker with 492 career swats, despite playing only three collegiate seasons (Foyle is now third all-time in blocks).
A two-time Patriot League Player of the Year (1996, 1997), Foyle earned second team All-America honors from the Associated Press as a junior in 1997 and also garnered third team All-America accolades from the USBWA. He earned CoSIDA Academic All-America® accolades in both 1996 (second team) and 1997.
He entered the NBA Draft after his junior campaign in 1997 and became a lottery selection, as the Golden State Warriors drafted Foyle with the eighth overall pick.
He would play 10 seasons in the Bay Area before wrapping up his professional career with the Orlando Magic (2007-09) and Memphis Grizzlies (2009). Foyle posted 2,989 points, 3,461 rebounds and 1,193 blocked shots in his 12 NBA seasons. He ranked among the top-10 NBA players in blocks in three seasons of his career.
While in the league, Foyle completed his degree at Colgate in 1999 and graduated magna cum laude in history.
Upon his retirement from playing professional basketball, Adonal served for 2 seasons with the Orlando Magic as their Director of Player Development.
In addition to successes on the court, Foyle has made lasting contributions to communities both at home and abroad. While in the NBA, Foyle created the Kerosene Lamp Foundation, an organization dedicated to serving the needs of children in his home country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. KLP uses basketball as a means to provide education and health awareness to future generations in the country.
He also has utilized his passion for political advocacy while running the Democracy Matters organization since 2001. The group is a non-partisan, campus-based national student organization working to get big private money out of politics and people back in.
In 2014, Foyle visited Spain and Morocco with WNBA standout Ruth Riley (a 2012 Academic All-America Hall of Fame inductee) as a SportsUnited Sports Envoy for the U.S. Department of State. The mission utilized basketball camps and lectures to teach important life lessons to youth such as education, leadership, conflict resolution and respect for diversity.
Foyle’s philanthropic efforts have not gone unnoticed. In 2009, he was inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame, joining just eight other NBA players in the prestigious group.
He’s also a published author who released a children’s book in 2013
entitled Too Tall Foyle Finds His Game. He continues to serve as consultant with a number of organizations, in addition to his own projects, while serving as a Community Ambassador for the Golden State Warriors.