A field guide to the people who back the mission

Fools in the Wild

Out there, doing ordinary and extraordinary things, are people who believe nobody should be stuck in financial stress. We find one every month. Then they help us find the next one.

Meet this month's Fool Nominate a Fool

Sem Verbeek, founding Fool in the Wild — Sem Verbeek Sighting 001

Sightings to date 01 Next sighting October Nominated by the community Always

001 Founding Fool · September 2026 · Spotted at the US Open

Photo

sem-verbeek-founding-fool.webp loads on the live site.

Sem Verbeek 001

Sem Verbeek

Professional tennis player, Wimbledon mixed doubles champion, and a Fool since long before anyone asked him to be one.

Sem found The Motley Fool the way most Fools do, by listening. He emailed the podcast mailbag in 2021, ended up a guest on the show, and kept showing up. In July 2025 he won Wimbledon. He is still the guy who writes in.

Habitat The professional tour, roughly 30 weeks a year, mostly airports

Range Amsterdam to Melbourne, by way of every qualifying draw in between

Field marking First Dutch man to win Wimbledon mixed doubles, with Kateřina Siniaková

First spotted The Motley Fool mailbag, 2021. He wrote to us first.

Connect with Sem

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Field Notes

Four questions, answered by hand

Every Fool in the Wild answers the Foundation question, then picks three more off the list. Nobody gets edited for polish, which is the whole point.

Question 01 The Foundation exists to help people move from financial stress to financial freedom. Who were you picturing when you decided to support it?

I was picturing every professional tennis player who is playing in relative anonymity. There is this biased view of professional sports that it's all glitter and glamour, but if you look under the hood, you find that many of us carry significant financial stress.

In nearly all other professions, if you're in the top 100 in your field, you experience financial freedom. In tennis, that's not the case yet. The Fool Community Foundation can help the sport get there.

Question 02 · The hill he would die on

“Sweet potato fries are always better than regular fries.”

Sem Verbeek, Fool in the Wild 001, taking a position from which he will not be moved

Question 03

Someone hands you $1,000 with one rule: you are not allowed to do anything responsible with it. What happens?

I buy lottery tickets with it and cross my fingers!

Question 04

What did you want to be when you were ten, and how close did you get?

I wanted to become a professional football player, so I just swapped a football for a tennis ball :)

The rule of the program

Pay it Foolward

Every Fool we feature gets one ask, to help us find the next one. That single question is what keeps this page alive, and it means the community helps shape who shows up here, not just us. Sem helps us find 002, 002 helps us find 003, and the page keeps going.

001 Sem Verbeek → 002 Up next → 003 and onward

Or skip the chain entirely. If you know somebody who belongs here, tell us yourself.

What happens after you send a name

01We read it. Every nomination gets a look, and a name plus one sentence is enough to start.
02If it fits, we reach out and send them the questions. Answering takes about fifteen minutes.
03Their profile publishes here, they can share it with their own people, and we ask them to help us find the next Fool.

Know a Fool in the wild?

Tell us about them. A name and a sentence is enough to get us started.

Every sighting, in order

Updated monthly

001 Sem Verbeek September 2026. Wimbledon champion, longtime Fool, defender of sweet potato fries.

002 Up next We ask Sem first, and nominations are open to everyone

003 Open Could be someone you know. The form is right above.

The other way to help

Fools in the Wild give their time. You can give too.

Help more Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck move from financial stress to financial freedom.

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