Our Team
Directors
Tiffany Crowe | Howie Evans, Emeritus (in memoriam) | Keith Houlemard | Cassius Johnson | Claude Johnson | Kiel King | Michael King | Kevin McGruder
TIFFANY CROWE
Tiffany is currently the director of Washington, DC’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection. She is also a descendant of Black Fives pioneer George Crowe who was Indiana’s first “Mr. Basketball” and later played for the New York Rens. George also a record-setting first baseman who played for several Major League Baseball teams.
It’s an honor to join the Black Fives Board. My entire life, the legacy of our family, the Crowe Family, has loomed large. When Claude began his journey all those years ago, he graciously included descendants of my Uncles George and Ray Crowe, both of whom helped raise my father, Brad. I never dreamed that I would have the opportunity to support Mr. Johnson’s work, and the work of the Black Fives organization, so closely. I look forward to helping expand the already impressive work of the Board. Thank you for having me!
– Tiffany Crowe
KEITH HOULEMARD
Keith is the former President of the Jordan Brand at Nike, where he spent more than 25 years. He grew up in Pasadena, California, the youngest of six children in a close family immersed in sports. He attended San Diego State University, where he earned a BS in Business Finance and played Aztec baseball. It was there he set his goal of a career in the sports business.
After college, while selling footwear at Nordstrom, Keith pursued a job at Nike. He started in Entertainment Marketing as a warehouse manager, became an Ekin (Nike Field Service Rep), and rose through leadership roles in Sales, Product, Marketing, and Merchandising. He served as President of the Jordan Brand from 2008 to 2012. From 2012 to 2022 he was VP/GM of Olympics, leading Nike through the Rio 2016, PyeongChang 2018, and Tokyo 2020 Games. Starting in 2017 he was also VP/GM of Running for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, based in the Netherlands, before retiring from Nike in 2022.
Today Keith is based in Portland, Oregon, where he is an investor and philanthropist and co-founder of the FOODe app. He has served on the Black Fives Foundation board since 2015 and is also a board member of The Maurice Lucas Foundation. A father of three, Keith loves a challenge, enjoys working with diverse and talented teams, and is energized by learning new things. (Back to top)
CASSIUS JOHNSON
Cassius is a wealth manager at Merrill Lynch in New York City, where works with professional and collegiate athletes to grow and preserve their wealth. Previously, he was an account associate at DKC Sports, a sports public relations agency in New York City.
In college, Cassius played football at the University of San Diego where he was a second-team All-American cornerback and won four NCAA Division I conference championship titles. He graduated with a degree in Marketing. (Back to top)
CLAUDE JOHNSON
Founder & Executive Director
The Black Fives Foundation
Claude Johnson is an author, historian, and founder of the Black Fives Foundation. He was born in Vienna, Austria, and lived in the Republic of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) before moving to the USA with his parents at age six. His father was African American, from the South Side of Chicago, and his mother was German, from the Römerstadt section of Frankfurt am Main.
He has a BS in civil engineering and economics from Carnegie Mellon and an MS in mechanical engineering from Stanford. During a 20-year career in corporate America, Claude held management and exec positions at IBM, American Express, NBA Properties, Nike, Phat Farm, and Benetton Sportsystem. He left to become a stay-at-home dad to his three sons, each of whom are NCAA Division I student-athletes – the oldest two in football and his youngest in basketball. For more information, please visit Claude Johnson’s profile page on LinkedIn. (Back to top)
KIEL KING
Kiel, a military veteran and graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, is an exercise scientist who runs the Kings of Fitness strength and conditioning training facility in upstate New York.
He is also a descendant of Black Fives pioneer William “Dolly” King who played with the New York Rens and the Dayton Rens as well as the Washington Bears, with whom he won a World’s Pro Basketball Tournament Championship in 1943. (Back to top)
MICHAEL KING
Michael was a national sales manager for an educational publishing house. He has spent his career working in education with a desire to give back to future generations what he is so fortunate to have learned. Previously, Michael taught in Brooklyn as an adjunct assistant professor at New York City Technical College in Brooklyn, New York (formerly NYCCC).
Michael is a descendant of the Black Fives Era. He is the son of William “Dolly” King, a collegiate and professional sports star from the 1930s and 40s, who helped pioneer the racial segregation of the National Basketball League, a predecessor to today’s NBA, and is enshrined in the Long Island University Athletic Hall of Fame. After his sports career, “Dolly” became a prominent referee, a community leader, and a professor at Manhattan Community College.
In 2013, Michael and his family were honored at the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets professional basketball team, during a halftime ceremony to unveil a life-sized photographic image of “Dolly” that is permanently installed at the arena. The power of education and academics was instilled throughout the King family. Michael’s uncle, John B. King Sr., was the borough of Brooklyn’s first Black school principal, and his first cousin, John B. King Jr., was the former United States Secretary of Education and is currently Chancellor of the State University of New York system. (Back to top)
KEVIN MCGRUDER
Kevin is an Associate Professor of History at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he is also a Faculty Fellow for Faculty Development and Diversity and serves as a Faculty Trustee. His research focuses on African American institutions, urban history, and gay and lesbian history. He holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University, an MBA in Real Estate Finance from Columbia University, and a PhD in History from the City University of New York Graduate Center.
Before entering academia, Kevin spent many years in nonprofit community development. He was a Program Director at Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Director of Real Estate Development at the Abyssinian Development Corporation, and Executive Director of Gay Men of African Descent in New York City. His love of Harlem’s history also led him into business. He owned the Home to Harlem gift shop and later co-owned Harlemade Style Shop, which sold Harlem-themed tee shirts, books, and other items celebrating the neighborhood.
In 2011–2012, Kevin was a Scholar in Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library. There he completed the research for his book Race and Real Estate: Conflict and Cooperation in Harlem, 1890–1920 (Columbia University Press, 2015), which covers the same Harlem of the early Black Fives Era. He is also co-author of Witness: Two Hundred Years of African-American Faith and Practice in the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem (2013). (Back to top)
In Memoriam
HOWIE EVANS (Board Member Emeritus, 1934-2025)
Howie Evans was the Sr. Sports Editor for The New York Amsterdam News, the third oldest paper in New York City. He has embraced a career that spans over 30 years of experience as an educator, journalist, communications specialist, high school, and college basketball coach, and as coach in the Holcombe Rucker Summer Pro Rucker League.
He was named by the New York Daily News as one of New York City’s 25 Most Influential African-American Individuals in Sports and Entertainment. The United States Tennis Association honored him in 2006 with their Communicator of the Year Award. Howie Evans served as a charter member on the New York City Board of Education Chancellors Task Force on Academics and Athletics. He spent over 20 years in the New York City Board of Education public school system as the Director of Youth and Adult Education in the troubled areas of the South Bronx, Central, West and East Harlem. The longtime New York Congressman Charles Rangel cited him for his work with youth. More …
