Founding WNBA president Val Ackerman recently cleared up a long-held belief about the league since its debut almost 20 years ago.
The two-year unbeaten U.S. Olympic womenâs basketball teamâs successful run, which culminated with a gold medal win in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, wasnât the inspiration for then-NBA commissioner David Stern to push forward a league-owned and operated womenâs pro basketball division. Rather, it was the 1995 NCAA Womenâs Final Four winner in Minneapolis that lit up Sternâs brain lightbulb.

âDid that have anything to do with the start of the WNBA? The answer is yes,â admitted Ackerman during an MSR interview this past spring in Chicago.
Connecticut and Tennessee played against each other for the first time ever during the 1994-95 season, an 11-point Huskies home win in an ESPN televised game. A rematch later that season came in the national title game inside the downtown Minneapolis arena, which again was won by UConn. It was the first of the programâs 10 national championships.
More importantly, that first championship actually was the inspiration for the longest running womenâs pro league in U.S. history.

âWe were thinking on that back in the early â90s, on how that program in particular energized the Northeast media, ESPN, and the rivalry between UConn and Tennessee and what that meant,â continued Ackerman, now the Big East commissioner. âIt was one of many factors that made the WNBA launch [in 1997] possible.â
âI never heard her say that,â said Minnesota Lynx forward Maya Moore when a reporter told her about Ackermanâs âsecret.â She was a grade schooler at the time but later would enroll at UConn, where Mooreâs Huskies clubs went 150-4, including a 90-game winning streak and two consecutive NCAA crowns before she became the WNBAâs overall top pick in 2011.
âThere probably were a lot of things that led to the birth of the WNBA, and the ABL [American Basketball League, 1996â1998] was before that,â said Moore.
Asjha Jones, also an UConn alumnus â her 2001-02 club also went unbeaten and won the 2002 NCAA title â also didnât know Ackermanâs âsecret.â She and Moore became first-time pro teammates when Jones signed with Minnesota in May. The two were 2012 London Olympics teammates with Seimone Augustus and Lindsay Whalen and won a gold medal for the U.S.
When reminded about her legacy status of womenâs college basketball dynasty, âItâs the culture,â said Jones on Connecticutâs success. âEverything we did, we did aggressive. When you go on the court for practice, thereâs tape all over the court â Xâs and lines where you need to stay. We learned how to read each other so well that we could play with our eyes closed. He (Coach Geno Auriemma) gets the best out of his talent, no matter whoâs on his team.
âYou were looking forward to games because practices were so hard. Thatâs also why we were so good,â surmised Jones. She (4th) and her UConn teammates Sue Bird (1st), Swin Cash (2nd), and Tamika (Williams) Raymond (6th) were among the top six picks of the 2002 WNBA Draft.
âIf that hadnât happened in womenâs basketball,â concluded Ackerman on UConnâs success, âthere wouldnât have been a WNBA.â
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
Charles Hallman is a contributing reporter and award-winning sports columnist at the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.