On Saturday, three of the best players in WNBA history will be inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame: Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles and Maya Moore. It’s the largest class of WNBA players ever for the Hall. Between them, they have 10 WNBA championships, two MVP trophies and 11 Olympic gold medals.
That trio helped shape the WNBA that exists today, and now, in retirement, they continue to blaze paths for current players by proving that there isn’t one way to navigate life after basketball.
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Bird has put her time and energy into building a media empire. Along with soccer player Alex Morgan, snowboarder Chloe Kim and swimmer Simone Manuel, she founded Togethxr, a media company that also sells the now ubiquitous “Everyone watches women’s sports” shirts. Togethxr has created documentaries and podcasts, including “The Syd and TP Show,” starring current Fever player Sydney Colson and former WNBA player Theresa Plaisance.
Togethxr is also the home of “A Touch More,” the podcast Bird launched with her fiancée, soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe. The pair have used their connections to pull some of the best guest stars in women’s sports, including WNBA stars Caitlin Clark and Naphessa Collier, author Glennon Doyle and her wife, retired soccer great Abby Wambach. Bird and Rapinoe have a clear rapport with their guests and ask questions that might sound strange coming from non-athlete media. For example, they razz Clark about her aggressive play in soccer as a high schooler.
But Bird has kept one foot in the basketball world, in addition to being a fixture on the sidelines at games around the league. In May, Bird was named the managing director of women’s basketball by USA Basketball. She was a part of five of Team USA’s last eight gold medals, and now she’ll play a large part in ensuring that streak continues. Bird will be in charge of selecting the next coach for the U.S. team as they prepare for the FIBA World Cup next year in Berlin and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
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Fowles, who was part of four of those gold medals, couldn’t be more different than Bird. She was a quiet player during her time with the Sky and the Lynx, letting her incredible play do the talking en route to two championships, a 2017 MVP award and eight All-Star selections. Fowles was happy to give up the spotlight after retiring from the Lynx in 2022.
Now, Fowles spends her days on pursuits like knitting, crocheting, taking long bike rides and baking. She’s continued to take classes in mortuary science, as she has dreamed of being a funeral director since she was a kid.
While she lives in Miami, she will still show up to WNBA games from time to time, and she still speaks with Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve as Minnesota has put together its best season since 2017. Fowles told Yahoo Sports earlier this year that Reeve is keeping the door open for Fowles to take on an official role with the team, as former teammates Rebekkah Bruson and Lindsay Whelan have.
But as for playing the game, she told Women’s Health in June that moving on was the right call.
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“People don’t understand how I don’t miss something that I did for so long,” Fowles said. “And I have to remind people often that basketball just was the gateway for me to get to all these great things. It wasn’t who I am. It was just a part of who I was.”
Fowles’ teammate, Moore, took an even more unusual path, stepping away from basketball in a way that shocked players, fans and media. In 2019, she announced she would forgo that season to focus on her ministry. At the time, Moore was at the top of her game. In her 2018 season with the Lynx, she averaged 18 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, and was named MVP of the All-Star game. She was not yet 30 years old.
But Moore knew she couldn’t follow the path she wanted while also playing the game.
“There are different ways to measure success,” Moore wrote in an essay for the Players Tribune in 2019. “The success that I’ve been a part of in basketball truly blows my mind every time I think about it. But the main way I measure success in life is something I don’t often get to emphasize explicitly through pro ball. I measure success by asking, ‘Am I living out my purpose?'”
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A big part of Moore’s purpose was working on freeing Jonathan Irons, a man wrongly convicted of murder in Moore’s home state of Missouri. Irons’ conviction was overturned in March 2020, and he was freed in July of that same year. A few months later, Moore and Irons were married.
After Irons’ release, Moore continued to work with Win With Justice, a campaign that aims to educate the public on the role of the prosecutor in the justice system. She and Irons also welcomed a son in 2022, and she officially retired in 2023.
While those off-the-court accomplishments won’t be the focus on Saturday when Moore, Fowles and Bird are inducted on Saturday, they are key parts of their stories and the history of the WNBA.
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