INDIANAPOLIS — Thirty years after helping launch the WNBA, founding league president Val Ackerman sees today’s surge in interest around women’s professional basketball as the realization of a vision she and others shared from the beginning.
“It was the dream,” Ackerman said.
Ackerman was honored Saturday with the Indiana Fever’s Lin Dunn Inspiring Women Award during halftime of the Fever’s game against the Los Angeles Sparks. The annual award recognizes women whose impact has helped shape basketball and women’s sports.
“It’s such an honor to be getting an award that’s been named after the legendary Lin Dunn,” Ackerman said of the Hall of Fame coach and longtime WNBA executive.
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The recognition comes during the WNBA’s 30th season, a milestone that prompted Ackerman to reflect on the patience it took to build the league into what it is today.
“I don’t think anybody expected it to become the NBA overnight, but we did get some very good early results that made us even more hopeful,” she said.
Today, Ackerman finds that hope in the generation that grew up with the league become lifelong fans.
“We’ve seen the young kids of yesterday now embracing these teams and the league in ways that young boys have done for decades with men’s sports teams,” she said.
Ackerman served as the WNBA’s first president from 1996 to 2005, overseeing the league’s launch and its first eight seasons. Among the executives she hired during those early years was current Fever president Kelly Krauskopf, who began her WNBA career during the league’s inaugural season.
“I have great respect for her,” Ackerman said. “She’s very talented. I think she brings the best of the historic approach, where the league’s been, but I think also has kept up with the times.”
In a statement released by the Fever, Krauskopf credited Ackerman with helping build the league “from the ground up” and creating opportunities for generations of women in basketball.
Since leaving the WNBA, Ackerman has served as commissioner of the Big East Conference and has been inducted into both the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Ackerman announced in April that she will retire as Big East commissioner later this summer, saying the conference is positioned for continued success and that “the time is right for me to hand off the baton.”
“It took a while to get to that point, but everything that we hoped would happen has happened, and I know that the future of the league remains right,” Ackerman said during halftime.
Jessica Garcete is an IndyStar sports reporter. Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter. Subscribe to IndyStar TV: Fever for in-depth analysis, behind-the-scenes coverage and more.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: First president Val Ackerman sees ‘dream’ realized in WNBA surge in popularity
Reporting by Jessica Garcete, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jessica Garcete, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
