12 GoodLifeFamilyMag.com JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2019 Very Inspiring Parent AWARD BY KARYN BRODSKY R ebuilding a corporate culture as the first black woman to head an NBA franchise is a win-win situation. Rebuilding the life of a child is a slam dunk. Cynthia Marshall has done both and more. Not only did she survive domestic abuse, beat cancer and overcome racial barriers, the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks is now transforming the basketball team’scorporateculturetobemoreinclusiveanddiverse.Asamom, she’s given her four adopted children a warm, loving environment in which to grow and prosper. Born in December 1959 in Birmingham, Alabama, Marshall’s family moved to Richmond, California, near San Francisco, when she was a baby. Her parents didn’t want to raise their children in the Jim Crow segregated South. Her mother was a member of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which was later infamously bombed by a white supremacist in September 1963, killing four little girls. The family of eight lived in a housing project, where in addition to being surrounded by external violence, Marshall, her mother and five siblings were subjected to abuse by her father. She didn’t allow her situation to get the best of her. “My mother always said, ‘It doesn’t matter where you live, it’s how you live.’ She handed me a math book and a Bible and said keep your head in these and you’ll get out of here,” Marshall explains. In sixth grade as Student of the Month, Marshall was taken on a special field trip to see My Fair Lady in San Francisco. She now realizes the educators did so to expose children to new experiences. This experience inspired her to work hard, and she graduated at the top of her school district. She earned five full college scholarships and attended the University of California Berkeley, staying close to home, as her parents had divorced. Marshall remained so focused on her studies at Berkeley that when her boyfriend transferred to San Francisco University to be closer to her, she informed him her first priority was her studies but that she’d call him the day after she graduated. She did so, and he said he was engaged. Marshall invited him to attend a friend’s party MORE FOR THE FAMILY ONE FOR THE TEAM Cynt Marshall, Dallas Mavericks’CEO, Cheers on her Team, her Kids and our Community and Scores our Very Inspiring Parent (VIP) Award "MY MOTHER ALWAYS SAID,'IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE, IT’S HOW YOU LIVE."'