Former NBA player Tracy McGrady is on a mission to empower athletes to make smart decisions when it comes to money management. According to Forbes, the Florida native is launching an advisory program to help young athletes make sound financial choices during their careers, so they won’t find themselves in financial trouble after retirement.

The financial advisory program is a collaborative effort between the former San Antonio Spurs player and investor Grant Haas who serves as the managing partner of the Haas Portman Family Office. Through the initiative, which is being run under Haas’ company, the pair will foster connections between athletes and leaders in the finance and venture capital space. The program will offer free services for athletes interested in getting involved and aims to prevent athletes from going bankrupt.

For McGrady launching the advisory initiative is personal. After dealing with several injuries during his final years in the league he started focusing on constructing a life outside of sports. He also witnessed many of his NBA counterparts end up in financial binds shortly after retirement due to reckless spending habits and bad investments. McGrady—who is now a sports analyst on ESPN—believes athletes must start considering these things while they are young.

“When you first start playing in the NBA, you never really think about all this money or the endgame,” he said in a statement. “It’s about that moment in time. You’re never really thinking about life after basketball.” Haas says he’s excited about the partnership with McGrady and believes the program will be instrumental in changing the trajectory of a young athlete’s financial future by helping them manage copious amounts of money. “The No. 1 goal, and the reason I’m so excited to launch this program with Tracy, is to educate players and help them make sound financial decisions,” he said. “It’s what we want for players who have a chance to write their own futures during and after their careers.”

Programs like the one being led by McGrady are needed. According to CNBC, 60 percent of NBA players have financial troubles within five years of leaving the league.

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Simone Biles is the epitome of Black girl magic. After winning her 25th overall medal during the 2019 World Gymnastics Championships in Germany last month Biles—who is the most decorated gymnast in the world—has been selected as the 2019 Team USA Olympic Female Athlete of the Year, Today reported.

The Columbus, Ohio native received the honor at the Team USA Awards ceremony which was hosted in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The Olympian has had nothing short of an epic year. She’s hit many historic milestones while competing. The athlete took home five gold medals during the 2019 FIG World Championships; setting a record for taking home more gold medals than any other gymnast at the competition in 61 years. While competing in Germany, she displayed a triple-double on the floor and a double-double dismount on the beam; two moves that had never been performed by a female gymnast in a competition before. She also won her sixth U.S. all-around title, making her the first woman in 67 years to do so.

The 22-year-old says she wants to use her platform in sports to inspire and empower women and girls to be unapologetic about their greatness. “It’s important to teach our female youth that it’s OK to say, ‘Yes, I am good at this,’ and you don’t hold back,” she said in an interview with USA Today. “You only see the men doing it. And they’re praised for it and the women are looked down upon for it. But I feel like it’s good to do because once you realize you’re confident and good at it, then you’re even better at what you do.”

Other athletes who received awards included figure skater Nathan Chen, Paralympic rower and cross-country skier Oksana Masters and archer Ben Thompson. The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team and the U.S. National Sled Hockey Team were honored as well.

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Over the course of her career, the late legendary tennis player Althea Gibson broke several racial barriers within the realm of sports. She was the first African American to win a Grand Slam title and the first Black person to win at Wimbledon. In honor of her legacy, a sculpture of Gibson was recently unveiled outside of Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York during the U.S. Open tennis tournament, CBS Sports reported.

The creation of the sculpture was an effort led by the North Carolina-based One Love Tennis group. The young members of the group penned letters to leaders of the United States Tennis Association encouraging the organization to create a sculpture of Gibson to pay homage to her contributions to sports. The bronze statue—which was built by sculptor Eric Goulder—was unveiled by former tennis player Billie Jean King.

“Althea is a very strong reminder that it’s important to the living people right now that we carry on her legacy and the legacy of equality,” said King during the unveiling ceremony. “I knew if Althea had gone through what she had gone through and changed the world, that I had a chance to follow in her footsteps and help change the next generations.”

Those who were close to Gibson say that she would have been beyond humbled to receive the honor. “It’s about time,” he former doubles partner Angela Buxton told The Undefeated. “Althea, with her two ticker-tape parades, still wasn’t allowed into a hotel where the whites sleep or a water fountain to drink where whites drink, but she helped to break that down.” Gibson passed away in 2003 at the age of 76.

The unveiling of her statue comes months after the city of Richmond renamed a road after Arthur Ashe.

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