Distinguished Alumni Award: Maxwell Pearce ’18
Maxwell Pearce ’18 is an award-winning mixed media artist and Harlem Globetrotter from Tuckahoe, New York, whose work bridges the worlds of sports and art to illuminate the full humanity of athletes.
A former starting point guard at Purchase College, he earned national recognition for his slam dunk artistry — finishing 3rd in the ESPN College Slam Dunk Championship as just the seventh Division III player to compete — before signing with the Harlem Globetrotters upon graduation with a degree in economics.
At Purchase, he also won the college’s first-ever shark tank competition for Flynance, a nonprofit he co-founded to help student athletes navigate life after sports, which was named a 2018 Westchester Up & Coming Award recipient.
As a visual artist, Pearce creates striking works from shoelaces and sports equipment that tell the stories of the whole person beneath the jersey; his commissions include portraits of Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, and Gladys Knight, and his art has been featured by NBC, Forbes, CBS Mornings, and the NCAA, among others.
A TED Talk speaker, Howard University keynote, and collaborator with the NBA, NFL, Reebok, and HBCUs, Pearce continues to challenge how we perceive athletes and inspire the next generation at the intersection of sports, art, and service.