Amar'e Stoudemire

Amar'e Stoudemire was born in 1982 in Lake Wales

Stoudemire was born in Lake Wales, Florida. His parents divorced when he was young, his father died when he was 12, and his mother was often in prison. He moved between several high schools and graduated from Cypress Creek High School in Orlando in 2002.

He began playing organized basketball at 14 and was named Florida's Mr. Basketball. He committed to the University of Memphis but chose to enter the 2002 NBA draft instead. The Phoenix Suns picked him ninth, and he was the only high school player taken in the first round that year.

In Phoenix he won the 2003 Rookie of the Year award, the first player drafted from high school to do so. He played in 6 All-Star Games and was named to the All-NBA First Team in 2007. He had knee surgery in 2005 and later played for the New York Knicks, Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat before leaving the NBA in 2016.

He won a bronze medal with the US team at the 2004 Olympics. He became an Israeli citizen in 2019 and completed his conversion to Judaism in 2020, taking the name Yehoshophat ben Avraham. He won the Israeli championship with Hapoel Jerusalem in 2017 and with Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2020, and owns a share of Hapoel Jerusalem.

He later worked as an assistant coach for the Brooklyn Nets. He entered the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2025 and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2026.