A college ice hockey player, Brooker’s professional ambitions ended after an injury. But he’d always had an interest in the inner workings of various leagues, so he turned his focus toward staying in the sports industry.

As senior director and associate counsel of the NBA, Brooker commutes to New York City every week as part of what he calls a “seven day a week job.” Despite being so busy, he also finds time to teach a contract negotiation course at the George Washington University School of Law, play pickleball, and participate in a recreational men’s hockey league.

 Brooker served two years on the Young Professionals board of the Special Olympics of Virginia, a position he found highly rewarding. More recently, he’s volunteered as a youth hockey coach for local 14U and 12U travel hockey teams.

He credits his drive to his Richmond parents who are small business owners. “Through them I saw what it meant to work hard and diligently,” he says. “They taught me to be the best version of myself on a daily basis.”

 Part of that diligence is having an active pro bono practice. Prior to working with the NBA, Brooker worked in Hunton Andrews Kurth’s Richmond office. While there, and working on his MBA at Northwestern University, he was the lead associate counsel on the team that successfully represented the City of Richmond in their efforts to remove several Confederate monuments from Monument Avenue. “I was deeply involved with that,” he recalls. “It was important because it had lasting impact.”

 Despite being so busy, Brooker is proudest of managing so much while balancing his professional and personal lives, which includes frequent patronization of Richmond’s myriad restaurants.

“I am tied and indebted to the Richmond community,” he says, adding that in 30 years, he expects “we’ll be settled in our forever home, and I’ll be sitting on the porch chatting with neighbors, happy, professionally and personally fulfilled.”