The WNBA for 14 consecutive years, including last season, has earned top marks for racial and gender hiring with A-pluses across the board — racial, gender and overall — says The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES). TIDES’ latest report card on the women’s pro basketball league awarded A-plus grades for the following seven categories: head coaches, … [Read more...]
Sports: a space for local and national sports news, with emphasis on stories pertaining to African Americans.
‘Socially conscious’ WNBA players recognized with Leadership Award
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, WNBA legend Dawn Staley, Washington guard Natasha Cloud Washington’s Natasha Cloud is this season’s Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award recipient, the WNBA recently announced. The Mystics guard was also recently featured in the MSR. The award is named in honor of WNBA legend and Hall of Famer Dawn Staley, the South Carolina women’s … [Read more...]
As basketball goes small, there will always be a place for the bigs
While analytics now rule sports, especially basketball, in determining talent among other things, and as players drift farther and farther away from the paint to launch shots, watching two giants operate on the blocks gives one hope that the game hasn’t totally changed. It seems ages ago, but actually, it was just in the last century that, when a player was 6’-5” or taller, … [Read more...]
Keep talking W
Talking WNBA all year round, in-season as well as off-season, has historically been a dilemma the majority-male mainstream sports media have wrestled with since the pro women’s basketball league came on board over 20 years ago. We asked Cathy Engelbert, the league’s first commissioner, how she might use her “bully pulpit” to finally help erase the above chauvinistic sports … [Read more...]
WNBA, players negotiations: points of contention are as old as league itself
W Commissioner Cathy Engelbert WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has a lot on her desk since taking over the league last month. It isn’t like she inherited a mess left behind, but rather variations of the same old mess the league has been dealing with for much of its existence. Unlike any previous time in its history, the players are becoming more vocal, more demanding. … [Read more...]