News from SUNY Cortland

For more information contact: Jennifer Wilson, 607-753-2232

Former New York Knicks Executive To Address Sport Management Ceremony May 1

CORTLAND, NY (04/23/2008; 1439)(readMedia)-- Anucha Browne-Sanders, a former sport industry executive with the National Basketball Association’s New York Knicks who recently won an $11.6 million sexual harassment lawsuit against the organization, will deliver the keynote address at the Seventh Annual SUNY Cortland Sport Management Awards ceremony on Thursday, May 1.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Old Main Brown Auditorium at 6 p.m. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Organized by the College’s Sports Management Department, the annual ceremony recognizes student excellence in both academics and service-learning activities.

“SUNY Cortland’s innovative Sport Management Department currently has more than 400 undergraduate and 50 graduate students enrolled in its business-based degree programs,” explained Daniel DePerno, an assistant professor of sport management.

“Students are provided with both the formal academic foundation and the additional key experiential learning opportunities necessary to gain access to a career in the extremely competitive sport industry.”

Brown-Sanders, who is now the senior associate athletic director for marketing and senior woman administrator within the University at Buffalo Athletics Department, was a two-time Big Ten Player of the Year in basketball while an undergraduate at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. After graduating in 1985, she earned a master’s degree in communications from Florida State University.

Prior to joining the Knicks, Browne-Sanders spent 11 years with IBM, where she served as a program manager and oversaw IBM's sport marketing related activities.

One of the few African American women of her generation to hold a high profile executive position in the sport industry, Browne-Sanders was the senior vice president for marketing and business operations for the New York Knicks from 2000-06.

In that capacity, she directed all marketing efforts, including ticket sales, advertising and design, fan development, event presentation, community relations, field marketing, alumni relations, new media and special events. In 2002, Sports Business Journal named her to its list of top 40 under-40 sports executives, an annual honor for "the most influential and powerful young executives in the sports business."

In October 2007 in a landmark sexual harassment case, a jury found that New York Knicks General Manager and Coach Isiah Thomas sexually harassed Browne-Sanders and that Madison Square Garden terminated her position for complaining about her circumstance.

The SUNY Cortland Sports Management Awards ceremony is supported by the SUNY Cortland Sport Management Club and the Hampton Inn. For more information, contact DePerno at (607) 753-5507.

-30-