November 16, 2024
Inductees announced for the Women’s Basketball Hall Of Fame Class of 2025
Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles headline the seven-person class
The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame announced the inductees for the Class of 2025 on Friday.
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The next class of Hall of Famers includes longtime WNBA stars Sylvia Fowles, Sue Bird, Cappie Pondexter and Alana Beard, coaches Lucille Kyvallos and Mark Campbell as well as Danielle Donehew, executive director of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.
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The celebration is scheduled to occur on June 14, 2025 at the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville, the home of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
Both Bird and Fowles retired from the WNBA in 2022 and have won multiple gold medals at the Olympics with USA Basketball. They were both part of the WNBA 25th anniversary team in 2021, as well as Pondexter.
Bird and Pondexter were also members of the 20th and 15th anniversary teams and they are both currently two of the top 10 of the league’s all-time scoring leaders. Beard became a WNBA champion with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2016 and was WNBA Defensive Player of the Year twice in 2017 and 2018.
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Kyvallos served as head coach for West Chester State College in Pennsylvania and Queens College in New York. She led Queens to the 1973 AIAW national championship and was the coach of the first women’s collegiate basketball game to be played at Madison Square Garden in 1975.
Campbell is currently coaching his 26th season at the Division II school, Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He holds the record of 742-116 and won NAIA national championships in 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2010 and is also a four-time NAIA Coach of the Year.
Donehew has held her position with the WBCA since 2014 and spent seven years as a grad assistant and director of operations under coach Pat Summitt at the University of Tennessee after playing basketball at Georgia Tech. Before stepping into her current role, she became the executive vice president of the Atlanta Dream and the associate commissioner for women’s basketball for the Big East and the American Athletic conferences.
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