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PRESS
RELEASE
 USSA
PRESIDENT PRESENTS EAGLE AWARD TO AOL FOUNDER KIMSEY
 (DAPHNE,
Alabama, December 19, 2005) United
States Sports Academy President Thomas P. Rosandich presented James
Kimsey, founder of America Online, in Washington, D.C. with the Academy’s
2005 Eagle Award.
As part of the Sports Academy’s Awards of Sport, the Eagle Award
is presented annually to a world leader in sport to recognize that
individual’s contributions in promoting international harmony,
peace and goodwill through the effective use of sport.
As a member of the Washington Baseball Club, Kimsey successfully helped
relocate the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C., giving the nation’s
capital a franchise in our national pastime for the first time since
the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972. The Expos
had by far the worst attendance in baseball in 2004, averaging 9,356
fans per game. In their first year in Washington, the Nationals averaged
33,651, 11th in Major League Baseball and fifth in the National League.
The players responded by improving their record by 14 games, from
67-95 to 81-81.
Kimsey, a veteran of the United States Army, was recently inducted
into the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame was formed
to honor and preserve the spirit and contribution of America’s
most extraordinary Rangers. He commanded the first company of the
82nd Airborne Division to arrive on the ground during combat operations
in the Dominican Republic in 1965. In 1966, his unit came under heavy
fire. He engaged the enemy from an exposed position and repelled the
ambush, permitting the unit to reach a friendly outpost. On his second
tour in Vietnam, Kimsey guided Regional Force/Popular Force units
in the organization of the defense of their cantonments and was instrumental
in the deployment of the Phoenix program. Kimsey established an orphanage
in Vietnam and supported it financially for 38 years.
In 2001, Kimsey was named chairman of the International Commission
on Missing Persons (ICMP). His work with ICMP has taken him to Iraq
and the Balkans to negotiate the release of information for the location
of mass graves, their exhumation and the identification process to
provide peace and reconciliation to the war-torn nations. Kimsey traveled
twice to the rebel-held Colombian village of Los Pozos to meet Manuel
Marulanda, the chief of the powerful Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, known for earning huge profits from illegal drug trade and
kidnapping. These discussions boosted fledgling peace talks.
In 1985, Kimsey, a native of D.C., transformed Quantum Computer Services
in to America Online, Inc., the nation’s leading independent
provider of interactive online services to consumers. His contribution
to internet technology through this company was a key reason for his
receiving an award from the Sports Academy, the world’s largest
online graduate school, itself an innovator in online education. Eleven
years later, he became the company’s chairman emeritus and turned
his energies to new challenges in business, philanthropy and personal
diplomacy.
He founded the Kimsey Foundation, an organization to benefit area
communities in the arts and education. While its overall mission is
to level the playing field for disadvantaged youth through education
and technology, the foundation also serves to promote international
cooperation to reduce human suffering through intercultural communication
and by providing humanitarian relief, promoting political transformation
and stimulating the exchange of ideas in underdeveloped countries.
Kimsey also served President Clinton, accompanying him on a trip to
Vietnam, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who appointed
him chairman of the International Committee for Missing Persons.
The Sports Academy’s Awards of Sport is a part of the American
Sport Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA) a division of the United States
Sports Academy dedicated to the preservation of sports history, art
and literature (www.asama.org).
The United States Sports Academy, “America’s Sport University,”
is an independent, nonprofit institution that offers sport-specific
programs to students, teachers, and administrators around the world.
The Academy has a special mission to serve the sports industry as
a resource in instruction, research, and other vital sports-related
services. It is the only freestanding institution of higher learning
in the United States offering masters and doctoral degrees in Sport
Science and Sport Management, in addition to its extensive certification
programs.
For more information about the United States Sports Academy, call
251-626-3303 or visit the Academy’s website www.ussa.edu.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
CONTACT: Rick Sincere
Scribe Strategies & Advisors
Phone: 202-393-4884
Fax: 202-318-0555
Email: editor@scribeus.com
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