New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, a short walk from the NBA and WNBA headquarters, was the scene as family, friends and many basketball luminaries paid their final respects to David Stern, a man regarded as one of the greatest sports commissioners and visionaries of all time.
Stern presided over the globalization of the NBA, converting basketball from a “city game” to an international game. Stern oversaw the metamorphosis of the Association from a winter-spring sport into a year-round sport.
His career presiding over the NBA also included controversy – notably the nixed Chris Paul trade that would have sent him from the New Orleans Hornets to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Tim Donaghy refereeing scandal and the relocation of the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City.
But, without a doubt, one of Stern’s biggest accomplishments was the establishment of the WNBA, which remains in existence today with 12 teams and is poised for even more growth. Val Ackerman, the WNBA’s first president, was in attendance for the proceedings and credited Stern’s vision for women’s basketball.
For all the advances in women’s team sports since that auspicious night, I hope historians will write that it was women’s basketball and the WNBA that did it first and blazed a trail.
–Val Ackerman, current Big East commissioner (per Associated Press)
I hope they’ll write that David, while always quick to deflect credit, was the most important figure in the women’s sports movement since Billie Jean King.
–Val Ackerman, current Big East commissioner (per Associated Press)
Many others attended, including Pat Riley, Magic Johnson (of the Los Angeles Sparks ownership group), Rick Welts, Kathy Behrens and current NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
We broads truly owe him.
–Val Ackerman, current Big East commissioner (per Associated Press)
