MILWAUKEE — Dwyane Wade is headed home to Wisconsin.
The three-time NBA champion, Olympic gold medalist and 2003 Final Four player for Marquette will serve as Marquette University’s undergraduate commencement speaker on Sunday, May 22 at 9 a.m.
Thelma Sias will speak at the graduate school and graduate school of management ceremony on Sunday, May 22 at 2 p.m. Sias is the former vice president for local affairs at We Energies.
Both commencements take place at Summerfest’s American Family Insurance Amphitheater and will be livestreamed through the commencement 2022 website.
Both Wade and Sias will receive honorary doctor of humane letters degrees.
Wade went to Marquette from 2000-2003. In 2003, he lead Marquette men’s basketball team to the NCAA Final Four— its first Final Four appearance since 1977. He was the fifth-overall NBA Draft pick in 2003.
“Through his voice and his actions, Dwyane Wade has done what Marquette University asks of all of its students and alumni: to Be The Difference,” Michael Lovell, the university’s president, said. “He is a credit to the transformational experience our university offers its students and, in turn, has been a great source of excitement and pride to the Marquette community. We are delighted to once again welcome Dwyane back to Milwaukee to deliver an inspiring address and offer an appropriately thrilling send-off to our graduates.”
Wade was one of Marquette’s most decorated athletes. He was a consensus first-team All-American and named the Conference USA Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in 2003. He inducted into the Marquette M Club Hall of Fame in 2009 and named Distinguished Alumnus of the Year in 2019.
No. 3 played for the Miami Heat for the majority of his professional career, and won league championship titles in 2006, 2012 and 2013. In 2006, Wade was the NBA Finals MVP and in 2010, the MVP of the NBA All-Star Game. In 2021, the NBA names him one of the top 75 greatest players in NBA history. He played in the Olympic Games for Team USA twice, bringing home gold in 2008 and the Beijing Games.
Wade established the Live to Dream Summer Reading Program through the Marquette Hartman Literacy and Learning Center. The program helps Milwaukee students improve, or maintain, reading skills over summer breaks.