14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde became the first Black American winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in its nearly 100-year history. But, shockingly enough, spelling is just one of several of Avant-garde’s stunning talents and interests. She also holds the Guinness World Record for most bounce juggles in a minute, as well as two other world records for the art of dribbling multiple basketballs at once. Avant-garde has even previously appeared in a commercial alongside NBA star Steph Curry, who congratulated her on her win Friday morning.
Avant-garde’s Instagram is rife with videos of her basketball mastery, and she told CNN shortly after her spelling bee victory that one aspiration of hers is to coach in the NBA. The NBA would be lucky to have her — but they’d be competing with her other aspirations toward working at NASA, or potentially neuroscience and gene-editing.
Recent Comments