Sheryl Swoopes

Sheryl Swoopes is a former professional basketball player regarded as one of the greatest female athletes of all time. She won three Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) Most Valuable Player awards and four WNBA titles as a member of the Houston Comets. A five-time All-WNBA first-team selection, she won three Olympic gold medals as a member of the U.S. women’s basketball team (1996, 2000, and 2004). She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.

After being named the 1991 national Junior College Player of the Year, Swoopes transferred to Texas Tech University. There, she won the National Player of the Year award in her senior season as she led the Lady Raiders to the 1993 NCAA national championship, where Swoopes also set a record for most points -- 47 -- scored in the title game.

Swoopes was the first player signed to the WNBA, and with the introduction of the Nike Air Swoopes in 1995, she became the first female athlete to have a Nike Signature shoe named after her. She joined the Comets before the WNBA’s inaugural campaign in 1997, and helped the team win that season’s WNBA title. Swoopes and the Comets reeled off three additional championships in the next three years, the last of which (in 2000) came after a regular season in which she scored a career-high 20.7 points per game and won the league’s MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards. Swoopes won both the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards again in 2002. She repeated as Defensive Player of the Year in 2003 after leading the league in steals per game, and in 2005 she became the league’s first three-time MVP. Swoopes also spent time with the Seattle Storm and the Tulsa Shock.

In 2017, Swoopes returned to Texas Tech, serving as director of player development for the women’s basketball team before being named an assistant coach. She also provided analysis for ESPN in 2019. Today, she serves as the president of Sheryl Swoopes Foundation for Youth Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting underprivileged youth in the local community.