Driven by a passion to serve the next generation, Dan Cross Jr is the founder of Athlete Connections Foundation. Established in 2006, a nonprofit dedicated to transforming youth sports through life skills education, mentorship and academic support.
His mission has been to utilize sports to empower at-risk youth, build character and teach essential life skills designed through proven programs to help reach highest academic and athletic achievements, inspiring personal excellence!
Dan Cross is a celebrated athlete, philanthropist, social impact entrepreneur, and community visionary whose journey spans from the inner courts of Illinois, to the global stage. Born in Chicago and raised in Carbondale, Illinois as the eldest of five children, Dan learned leadership, resilience, and purpose early in life — values that would later define his legacy on and off the court.
A Hall of Fame inductee at the University of Florida, Cross made history as the point guard who helped lead the Gators to their first-ever appearance in the 1994 NCAA Final Four. During his collegiate career, he earned numerous honors, including two-time All-American, 1995 UF Male Athlete of the Year, and John Wooden National Player of the Year Candidate, before graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications.
Cross went on to enjoy a professional basketball career that took him across the globe, competing in over 10 countries and immersing himself in diverse cultures across 25+ nations, including Italy, Greece, Israel, Turkey, Finland, Cyprus, and Venezuela.
He is also an inductee of both the Carbondale High School Athletic Hall of Fame and the Illinois High School Association Basketball Hall of Fame.
Throughout his playing career, Dan saw firsthand how deeply troubled many young athletes became once they progressed out of the sports and the educational system, and has made it his life’s purpose to change that.
While his foundation’s roots are in athletics, his vision has grown to support diverse programs and passions from sports to the arts, stem, scholarship funds, holiday toy drives and beyond. With this growth in mission it has given birth to a community arm of the foundation called “ACF Cares”.
Under his leadership, the foundation has:
✅ Provided hundreds of high school students with laptops, technology access, and scholarships.
✅ Helped secure an estimated $7 million in college athletic scholarships. Placed more than 80 high school graduating seniors in D1 or D2 college athletic program
✅ Hosts an annual Christmas Holiday Toy Drive. Last year impacting over 1,700 families and children in the Parramore community. Providing $30,000+ in Christmas toys and holiday gifts to families and communities in need in Orlando, Florida
Expanding his mission beyond athletics, Dan also launched Cross Academy LMS, an online learning life skills curriculum platform designed for both public, private, home school educational institutions and juvenile justice departments.