Maya Moore

Maya Moore has won nearly every accolade available in sport and for her excellence on the court, and for her sacrifices and leadership off it she is regarded among the greatest athlete activists ever.

Since being drafted first overall by the Minnesota Lynx in the 2011 WNBA Draft, Moore has won four WNBA Championships, was named WNBA Finals MVP in 2013, and led the U.S. to two gold medals at the 2012 & 2016 Olympics. At The University of Connecticut, she won more games than any player in college basketball history. She is a four-time NCAA All American, three-time Academic All American, UConn’s all-time leading scorer, and the first woman basketball player to sign with the Jordan Brand. But even with all of her accolades and awards, Maya has maintained her faith as the central driver of her life.

At the end of the 2018 WNBA season, she announced she would be taking a sabbatical from basketball to focus her energy on criminal justice reform through the organization she set up in 2016, Win With Justice. Specifically, she was focused on the case of Jonathan Irons, a family friend who was wrongfully convicted at 16 and handed a 50 year sentence in Moore’s hometown of Jefferson City, MO. On July 1, 2020 after an arduous legal battle and consistent public pressure from Moore, Irons was granted his freedom and released from incarceration.

Coming from a family of educators, teaching and learning have always played a major role in her life and after making the surprise announcement on Good Morning America that she and Jonathan were married after his release, she has burst back onto the scene with a campaign around the importance of voting in local and state elections.

Moore was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.