![\"Val](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/WCHGTTAXKVGZ7J7BQYWZAN4CCE.jpeg\")
Val Ackerman\u2019s uncle Steve (left) who played football at Yale, grandmother Marion, grandfather George and father Randy in the back. Courtesy of Val Ackerman <\/p>\nEmployee No. 98 made a name for herself, didn\u2019t she? But it\u2019s time now; time for No. 98 to put herself first, time to eat some sandwiches, time to stop with all the startups and instead do a shutdown.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been 30 years since we met her, since the NBA\u2019s bossman, David Stern, crowned Val Ackerman \u201cpresident\u201d of the brand-spanking-new WNBA and kept the \u201ccommissioner\u201d title for himself. But that\u2019s essentially what she was back then, at the tender age of 36 \u2014 the face of a league who learned how to wear makeup because of it.<\/p>\n
The stories she could tell. Like the one about the first WNBA logo, their female Jerry West. Or the one about the first slogan, and whether it should be \u201cWe Got Next\u201d or \u201cWe\u2019ve Got Next.\u201d Or the one about the color of the ball, and whether it should be old-school orange or new-school orange and oatmeal. Or the one about Stern, who\u2019d haul her into his office to go over disappointing ticket reports line by line.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I\u2019m supposed to explain why ticket sales are down in Charlotte,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
But all that\u2019s history now, with investors tripping over each other to pay $250 million or more for franchises. So, at last month\u2019s WNBA All-Star Game in Chicago, Val Ackerman \u2014 NBA Employee No. 98 and WNBA Employee No. 1 \u2014 took center stage at the league\u2019s 30-year reunion to give a talk for the ages.<\/p>\n
There was so much she wanted to say, without making it feel like a goodbye. She wasn\u2019t going to mention her days as commissioner of the Big East were numbered, that she was retiring as of Aug. 31. She wasn\u2019t going to mention she was about to be a first-time grandma, that it had her thinking about her own grandparent, George Ackerman, who paved the way for her career. Instead, she put together a speech (the way she used to ghostwrite them for Stern) that was bound to make her audience think, make her audience nod and make her audience say, \u201cYou go, girl.\u201d<\/p>\n
She began it like this:<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank the WNBA and the \u2018MNBA\u2019 for hosting this event \u2026”<\/p>\n
Get it?<\/p>\n
Driveway Hoops<\/p>\n
Twentieth-century word alert: Tomboy.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what Valerie Ackerman was, circa 1971, allowed to be the star of her driveway but nowhere else. <\/p>\n
This is before Title IX, at a time the only middle school girls\u2019 sports team in Pennington, N.J., was \u2026 cheerleading. Val tried out for that, practicing her sis-boom-bah in front of a mirror, and wound up getting cut. \u201cNot that I wanted to be a cheerleader, but I was so humiliated,\u201d Val says. \u201cSo I often tell people that, at heart, I\u2019m a frustrated cheerleader.\u201d<\/p>\n
Val Ackerman\u2019s uncle Steve (left) who played football at Yale, grandmother Marion, grandfather George and father Randy in the back. Courtesy of Val Ackerman <\/p>\n
The other option was trying out for the boys\u2019 basketball team she would\u2019ve been cheerleading for, and, as it turns out, a lot of people thought that was the ticket. They\u2019d seen her play in her front driveway, with and against her brother (one year younger), and not many were better shooters. Except her dad, Randy, of course.<\/p>\n
Those Ackermans \u2014 every one of them was a baller, no matter the age, no matter the sport. Randy won 12 varsity letters at Trenton State (now College of New Jersey). His brother, Steve, played football at Yale. His other brother, John, was drafted by the Orioles. But the patriarch was Randy\u2019s father, George Ackerman, who was once \u201cPicture of the Week\u201d in Life Magazine.<\/p>\n
In some ways, that 1949 photograph tells you all you need to know about Val, her family and what would become her future. The photo is of George \u2014 then head football coach of a Trenton State team that hadn\u2019t won in 11 years \u2014 giving his team a halftime pep talk while down 6-0. Over his head in the locker room is a sign that read: \u201cIT\u2019S NOT THE SIZE OF THE DOG IN THE FIGHT. IT\u2019S THE SIZE OF FIGHT IN THE DOG.\u201d They ended up winning, 7-6.<\/p>\n
In ensuing years, Trenton State football turned dominant under Coach Ackerman, who famously roamed the sidelines in white buck shoes. Val heard all the stories \u2014 how Poppy, as she called him, coached her dad Randy (a lefty pitcher) on the school\u2019s baseball and basketball team; how George became Trenton State\u2019s athletic director, in charge of every campus sport. George essentially ran the place, and Val says, \u201cI guess a little part of me picked up on my grandfather\u2019s career, <\/b>this idea that maybe someday that would be me.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"NA\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/H7H23ROQUZADRCMFWUQAKGJOE4.jpg\")
Val Ackerman\u2019s grandfather George, the football, baseball and basketball coach at then-Trenton State Teachers College, meets with his team, circa early 1950s. Val\u2019s father Randy is #6 on the upper right. Ackerman family <\/p>\n
Poppy \u2014 who in his 60s became AD at Franklin High School in Somerset, N.J. \u2014 would often visit her house in Pennington, where Randy had dangled a floodlight onto the dogwood tree above the driveway basketball hoop. Perfect \u2014 now they could play after-dinner family games of H-O-R-S-E, which Randy usually won with trick underhand shots or bounce shots from the foul line. But it also meant Val could shoot day and night and night and day. That\u2019s where people got the idea she should try out for the middle school boys\u2019 team \u2014 because she and her brother, also named George, would terrorize the chumps in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember times where other kids were in our driveway, and Val and I would challenge them to a game of two-on-two,\u201d George says. \u201cThey\u2019d say, \u2018Well, you can\u2019t play with a girl.\u2019 We would say, \u2018Yeah, you\u2019ll probably beat us, but we\u2019ll play.\u2019 Of course, we would absolutely clean their clock.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was a glimpse of her future: The only girl in the driveway years before she\u2019d become the only girl in the boardroom. But back then, it hurt. She didn\u2019t want to try out for the boys\u2019 team \u2014 it felt too intimidating, a little too \u201cradical\u201d \u2014 so the driveway was her only outlet. She and her brother would whup those guys, and then her dad would saunter out to say, \u201cSon, we\u2019ve gotta go. You\u2019ve got a game.\u201d So her brother would pull on his CYO uniform and leave for Center City Trenton while Val sat at home thinking. \u2026<\/p>\n
The size of the fight in the dog.<\/p>\n
![\"Val](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/VTRARL4ZFZCYNHA74UVBKHZEF4.jpeg\")
Val Ackerman’s father Randy, who would challenge her to games of H-O-R-S-E in the family’s driveway, encouraged her to play basketball at a time when opportunities for girls to do so were extremely limited. Courtesy of Val Ackerman A Rare College Opportunity<\/p>\n
And then Poppy was gone, too soon at age 66, the victim of a massive stroke and unable to witness the rise and revenge of now ninth-grade Val.<\/p>\n
She had two things going for her that freshman year of 1973, besides being a tomboy. One was Title IX and the other was her father being AD at her high school. Maybe it\u2019s because he\u2019d seen Val shoot under the dogwood tree, or maybe it\u2019s because his not-shy wife, Barbara, was into \u201cwomen\u2019s lib.\u201d But Randy was about to forever change girls\u2019 sports at Hopewell Valley Central High School.<\/p>\n
It started with the uniforms. The first organized basketball game Val ever played \u2014 no, the driveway didn\u2019t count \u2014 she was decked out in basically a tunic, complete with a pleated dress, suspenders and bloomers underneath. Their coach, Barb Skiba, told Randy, \u201cWe need better uniforms than this,\u201d and, by Val\u2019s sophomore year, he made sure they had sleeved shirts and shorts.<\/p>\n
They also had a scorekeeper, who Val kept plenty busy. Val was a towheaded blur out there, her straight blond hair flopping every which way while she became the first 1,000-point scorer in school history, boys or girls, in the days of no 3-point shot. \u201cI wish they counted assists at the time, because maybe I\u2019d have that school record,\u201d says teammate Judy Niederer. \u201cBecause it was, \u2018Get the ball to Val, get the ball to Val.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
By Val\u2019s junior year, the Hopewell Valley girls were packing the crowds in, nearly taking the state title. And when Val toured Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest and Virginia \u2014 in an era when women recruited schools more than schools recruited them \u2014 her mom lugged along Val\u2019s basketball scrapbook to impress the coaches. \u201cThat was my mother; she would do things like that,\u201d Val says. \u201cIt was a little bit annoying, but there was no stopping her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only Duke and Virginia could even offer partial scholarships, and she chose UVA because its coaches were the only ones who\u2019d actually seen her play. Assistant Debbie Ryan \u2014 soon promoted to head coach \u2014 was from the next town over, Titusville, N.J. And not only had Ryan attended Hopewell Valley, her younger sister, Karen, was Val\u2019s teammate. Debbie didn\u2019t need to see the scrapbook and closed the deal.<\/p>\n
It was 1977 when Val arrived in Charlottesville, thinking Title IX had traveled south with her. But Title IX apparently missed the bus. Val and fellow freshman Dori Gamble split the only women\u2019s scholarship, with Val saying, \u201cThe joke was I got tuition and Dori got room and board. So I got to go to class and she got to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"When](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/72U5ZJ5GPFATLGGH2U4URA7NQY.jpeg\")
When she played basketball at the University of Virginia in the 1970s, Val Ackerman split the only available scholarship with another player on the team. Courtesy of Val Ackerman <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t so funny once they saw the locker rooms. The way Val remembers it, the men\u2019s team \u2014 the darlings of the campus, led by Jeff Lamp, Lee Raker and Marc Iavaroni \u2014 were \u201ctreated like gods.\u201d They had a carpeted locker room, pregame meals and privacy. Val\u2019s team had no carpet, no pregame meals (until senior year) and a community locker room shared with other women\u2019s sports. Even worse, it had urinals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe girls would put flowers in those urinals,\u201d Ryan says. \u201cIt was dark and damp and the mirrors were too high. Everything was wrong about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before practice, each player was handed a rolled-up towel containing unmarked shirts and shorts which, according to Val\u2019s teammate Debby Stroman, were \u201chard as a brick because they hadn\u2019t used a softener.\u201d Occasionally, the roll would inadvertently include a jock strap.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo they would come running out with the jock on over their shorts, which was hilarious,\u201d Ryan says.<\/p>\n
Val and Ryan \u2014 whose uncle was the athletic director, Gene Corrigan \u2014 said their piece, and conditions improved somewhat, with men\u2019s coach Terry Holland patiently letting the women finish practice on the University Hall floor. Val was a four-year captain and felt responsible for them all. She was a brilliant student, a political and social thought major who aspired to practice law. She also made certain that Stroman \u2014 the first Black female athlete at the university \u2014 was embraced. And, on the court, she made sure that after every hard workout, the team chanted, \u201cRanked \u2026 ranked.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the goal \u2014 get UVA in the top 25 \u2014 and during her senior year of 1981, the Cavs climbed to No. 15. But ask her for other memories of her college career and a pre-Christmas tournament that year at Temple flashes before her eyes.<\/p>\n
Ryan had scheduled the game just for Val \u2014 so she could play close to home in front of family and friends \u2014 and, with three seconds left, UVA had a one-point lead and possession. During a timeout, Ryan asked Val, now a 1,000-point career scorer and the most dependable player on the team, to inbound the ball. Who else would it be? But, in a rare misfire, Val threw the pass away, leading to a stunning game-winning Temple layup. <\/p>\n
Because it was Christmas break, she drove home with her parents feeling \u201ccrestfallen\u201d \u2014 when suddenly her father Randy, son of George of Life Magazine fame, gave his own pep talk.<\/p>\n
It was short, sweet and an outlier. According to Val, Randy was \u201cnot the kind of father who was very expressive. I <\/b>think he was more repressed. That was sort of typical of men at that time, of that era.\u201d But that made it even more poignant when he turned to his daughter and said simply, \u201cThe sun is going to come up tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Someday she\u2019d use it in a speech.<\/p>\n
![\"NA\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/DKRLJV3BR5D6VFDPWEB4LOM74U.jpeg\")
Val Ackerman with her brother George, after he and his James Madison soccer team played her college Virginia. George Ackerman A Shot At The NBA<\/p>\n
The sun came up all right, specifically 11 years later in Midtown Manhattan. There she was \u2014 after a one-year pro career in France, law school at UCLA and an associate position at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett \u2014 interviewing for a legal job at the NBA.<\/p>\n
The league had never hired a female lawyer \u2014 it was as if Val was back in high school, wearing a tunic \u2014 but Randy was over the moon about the opportunity. He\u2019d been a Bill Russell\/Celtics fan forever and wished his daughter luck. It didn\u2019t hurt that her mom, who\u2019d worked in New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne\u2019s administration, had Byrne himself write a letter of recommendation. As far as Val knows, Barbara didn\u2019t send the basketball scrapbook.<\/p>\n
Her hiring manager was Gary Bettman, then-NBA general counsel, and Val met extensively with him, NBA Executive Vice President Russ Granik and even the junior lawyer at the time, Joel Litvin. They were all in (\u201cI thought we were lucky to find such a good candidate for what was at the time basically an entry-level legal position,\u201d Bettman, the NHL commissioner, says now) but Stern still had to meet Val and sign off.<\/p>\n
That was no picnic; not for a woman, a man or any living thing. Stern may very well have been the Bobby Knight of sports commissioners, in that he could be brilliant, charming, curt and rude over the course of the same day. Or hour. Or half hour. He\u2019d champion you and hang up on you. Which is why Rick Welts, then-NBA vice president of marketing \u2014 hired and mentored himself by Stern \u2014 says, \u201cIt was bootcamp. I mean, I don\u2019t think Stern\u2019s management style would have flown in 2026. It was tough. Often felt like an interrogation more than a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s what Val, age 27 and wearing a pantsuit, was about to walk into, an NBA that Welts said stood for \u201cNothing But Attorneys \u2026 and was run by Stern, who considered himself the best attorney. So to start as a staff lawyer couldn\u2019t be a more difficult assignment. And by the way, she was a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before Val met him, Litvin warned her Stern always asks about a hire\u2019s law review article. She panicked \u2014 she\u2019d been on the UCLA moot court national team, not law review \u2014 but Litvin gave her a thumbs up and off she went. \u201cI sit down, and I\u2019m nervous,\u201d Val says. \u201cAnd David was a master interrupter. If you ever went in to talk to him, the over\/under on when he would interrupt you to say something or ask something was usually about 30 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Litvin was right: Stern peered at her r\u00e9sum\u00e9, asked her about moot court and she nailed her shot, the same way she\u2019d nailed them under the dogwood tree. When Bettman formally offered her the job in November 1988, he asked her when she wanted to start.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow,\u201d she said. She thought of her dad.<\/p>\n
Family Setback<\/p>\n
And then Randy was gone, too soon at age 54, the victim of an asthmatic attack and unable to witness the rise and revenge of Val and eventually a league called the WNBA.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d been at the league office about a month, initially writing cease-and-desist letters to shysters who were illegally selling non-sanctioned NBA T-shirts, and even witnessed her first office Christmas party, which was a sight to behold. Stern had everyone wear a hat with the order of their hire etched on the back. Val turned her cap around and saw: Employee No. 98.<\/p>\n
But the news of her father\u2019s death, just after he\u2019d battled a chest cold over Christmas, had her asking for a leave of absence. Although Randy dealt with acute asthma his entire life, he\u2019d been a picture of health who was still a high school teacher and AD, still playing tennis three days a week. \u201cThe shock of all shocks,\u201d his son, George, says. For his funeral, the school system closed to pay homage, and the line to enter, in frigid temperatures, was out the door.<\/p>\n
A despondent Val returned to the NBA, work being her escape, but she\u2019d go home to her husband, Charlie Rappaport, a fellow attorney she\u2019d met at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, and cry all night. \u201cFor two years,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
So many sentimentalities crossed her mind, like the driveway basket. Randy had built it from scratch, rummaging up a flagpole \u2014 perhaps from school \u2014 and screwing on a backboard and basket. He strung up the floodlight just for her, way ahead of his time, because back in the early 1970s, a dad-and-daughter game of H-O-R-S-E wasn\u2019t as common as it is now.<\/p>\n
Through all her tears, though, Val realized her father and her grandfather, too \u2014 both inclusive ADs and principled leaders \u2014 had shown her how to thrive and speak up in a man\u2019s world. It was about to come in handy.<\/p>\n
Granik approached her circa 1989, saying he needed her help with FIBA. He told her Olympic eligibility rules were changing, that NBA players would play in the 1992 Olympics. Her first experience with a startup: the Dream Team.<\/p>\n
She immersed herself in all of it: where the team would stay in Spain; the nuances of the insurance policies; what would happen if Magic, Michael and Larry, et al, got injured. She ingratiated herself to USA Basketball leadership, particularly Dave Gavitt of Big East fame. She was taught by her father and grandfather to revere the men who built the game, and Gavitt appreciated her. Stern did, too.<\/p>\n
In 1990, the commissioner created a position just for her: special assistant to him. \u201cI think I offered my condolences,\u201d Welts says, laughing. \u201cIf you were living in the moment, I can\u2019t imagine a tougher job. But also with a vote of confidence that he would\u2019ve put her in that role.\u201d<\/p>\n
She opened his mail in an era before email. She\u2019d listen in on his calls; sit in on his meetings. She says he\u2019d kick her out of his office, hang up on her and leave Post-its on her phone saying, \u201c8 a.m. came by, you weren\u2019t here.\u201d She says his mantra was, \u201cMicromanagement is underrated.\u201d She\u2019s sure it was partly \u201cfor show,\u201d partly \u201cjust to kick you in the butt a little bit.\u201d But she also believes the job was the opportunity of a lifetime, \u201cjust a master class in learning how to be a commissioner.\u201d She was eternally grateful.<\/p>\n
She traveled with the Dream Team amidst it all, while pregnant with her first child, Emily. And, after a pre-Olympics practice day in La Jolla, Calif., Michael and Magic said, \u201cFollow us,\u201d and sneaked her off the team bus to avoid a ridiculous crowd. It was validation. She was one of the guys.<\/p>\n
While in Barcelona, she was the rare NBA exec to sneak and watch the U.S. women play, which didn\u2019t go well. The team, led by Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Edwards, had been upset by the Soviets, and Val, aghast, personally went to see them take the bronze. Val may have been in a man\u2019s world, may have been one of the guys. But, just like she never tried out for the middle school boys\u2019 team, she still wanted to be one of the girls.<\/p>\n
Female Dream Team<\/p>\n
Little did she know, Stern was grooming her for it all. <\/p>\n
He had earlier begun asking her to write his speeches, which was a compliment, a sign of trust and a crapshoot \u2014 because there was no guarantee he\u2019d use them. \u201cOh my gosh, he was the worst deliverer of speeches ever,\u201d Welts says. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many times we were off-stage at some event, and he\u2019ll look at you five minutes before he goes on and says, \u2018What should I say today?\u2019 And then he will go out and completely charm.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Val wrote them, anyway \u2014 always pouring her heart and soul into them \u2014 even though she remembers Stern sometimes \u201ctossing them in a garbage can as he was walking up the steps to the stage.\u201d She hardly took it personally because he was better winging it anyway, \u201cthe envy of all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The point is, she had his ear, and after the \u201992 women\u2019s Olympics debacle and then another loss at the \u201994 women\u2019s World Championships, she had a suggestion: a female Dream Team.<\/p>\n
No one knew it then, but, big picture, it might be the most transcendent moment in women\u2019s sports. A dozen ladies \u2014 Dawn Staley, Jennifer Azzi, Lisa Leslie, Rebecca Lobo, Sheryl Swoopes, to name five \u2014 would drop everything and spend a year traveling, scrimmaging and playing together ahead of the 1996 Olympics. The NBA would foot the bill, and on the exact 1994 day that USA Basketball formally agreed to the extended tour, Val gave birth to her second child, Sally.<\/p>\n
Granik and Welts passed along the good news while she was lying in a hospital bed, and her maternity leave lasted all of about six weeks. She wasn\u2019t missing this.<\/p>\n
When she delivered Emily in \u201992, Val believes Stern and Co. assumed she\u2019d resign to be a stay-at-home mom. But if they didn\u2019t know Val then, they knew her now. She predicted to Stern, Granik, Welts and Stern\u2019s new special assistant, Adam Silver (\u201cPretty good job that kid Adam Silver inherited,\u201d Welts says), that a female Dream Team could ignite a women\u2019s basketball revolution. And when the team went 52-0 on the tour, jogged with President Clinton and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated ahead of the Olympics, Stern\u2019s wheels started turning.<\/p>\n
In April 1996, even before the U.S. women won gold in Atlanta, the commissioner convinced the league\u2019s board of governors to ride the wave of the national team and approve the concept of a WNBA. And probably because he could hang up on her, bellyache at her and crumple up her speeches \u2014 and she still kept her wits about her \u2014 Stern wanted Val to run the league. Maybe it was all a test. <\/p>\n
He named her president, of course, not commissioner. Because remember: Micromanagement is underrated.<\/p>\n
![\"Val](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/S2OBQGJKXBCD3FJ3MWMBGNMDZI.jpeg\")
Val Ackerman returned to work after having daughter Sally and soon found herself named by NBA Commissioner David Stern to oversee the birth of the WNBA. Courtesy of Val Ackerman Launching The W<\/p>\n
Now this was a startup! Val, who once wore bloomers to play basketball, got to decide whether the uniforms would be baggy like the Fab Five (yes) and V-neck (yes, again). The basketball would be one inch smaller in circumference than the men\u2019s ball (to stay consistent with the women\u2019s college game), and, in collaboration with NBC\u2019s Dick Ebersol, they trialed basketballs of various colors at Madison Square Garden with cameras running. Orange and oatmeal won, made for TV.<\/p>\n
The slogan \u201cWe Got Next\u201d beat out \u201cWe\u2019ve Got Next,\u201d because that\u2019s how the world spoke on the playground. But the most raw debate was over the logo, which, despite popular belief, was not a silhouette of Jennifer Azzi. The discussions started with the shape of the hair. Should it have a ponytail? Should it be a white girl? A Black girl? From all appearances, the choice was a hybrid. Should there be breasts? Hips? Muscles? The answer was all of the above. \u201cHad to make her athletic,\u201d said Renee Brown, then Senior Vice President & Chief of Basketball Operations and Player Relations.<\/p>\n
Val spread the word all over the country and decided she needed a personal shopper so she would look the part. \u201cMy shopper turned me on to a makeup person, stuff I never had to worry about before,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m a doer, a grinder, I chop wood. But here I was, thrust right into the limelight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first year, the league averaged about 10,000 fans, and when Stern witnessed the Liberty\u2019s debut sellout at MSG, Val saw him stare into the rafters and grin. It made her year. He even let her use his league-chartered plane \u2014 usually reserved for him \u2014 to fly to the WNBA Finals in Houston, and the owners all applauded Val at that fall\u2019s BOG meeting. <\/p>\n
![\"As](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/RLY3CDYOUBCNRIHURWXC7QCEN4.jpeg\")
As the first president of the WNBA, Val Ackerman posed with the eight original team owners. Courtesy of Val Ackerman <\/p>\n
But the NBA got too ambitious, expanding the W too fast, changing the second-year slogan to \u201cWe Got Game\u201d when \u201cWe Got Next\u201d resonated more. \u201cI just remember she was holding the weight of the world on her shoulders trying to keep this league up,\u201d said Kristin Bernert, then an executive for the Detroit Shock. <\/p>\n
As attendance nosedived and teams moved and\/or disbanded, friends say Val wore it. She wasn\u2019t as blunt with colleagues as Stern was (\u201cWe had a horrific crowd one night, and she\u2019d just say, \u2018This isn\u2019t what it\u2019s going to be like moving forward, right?\u2019\u201d Bernert says) but could be just as \u201crelentless.\u201d She did it the Val Way, her grandfather\u2019s way. The fight in the dog. But the stress would cave anyone in, and Kelly Krauskopf, then the W\u2019s first director of basketball ops, says, \u201cI\u2019d always joke with her, \u2018You\u2019re so serious all the time. Do you ever laugh? You ever just smiling?\u2019 We would all sort of be, \u2018How are we going to get Val to laugh today or smile today?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone noticed it. Dee Kantner, the league\u2019s director of referee development, says, \u201cI would hug her and say, \u2018Have you eaten lately?\u2019 Because she always looked too thin. I was like, \u2018Val, you\u2019re wearing yourself out, you need a sandwich.\u2019 I\u2019d always greet her with, \u2018You need a sandwich.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
By 2005, she\u2019d done all she could, fortunate perhaps the W was still breathing. Granik, for one, says, \u201cIt was never predestined that the league would survive at all,\u201d and Val resigned in 2005 with a legacy of \u2026 well, here\u2019s the best story: <\/p>\n
She was with her daughters, then 11 and 13, when one of them asked, \u201cMom, what\u2019s a tomboy?\u201d<\/p>\n
That said it all. Perhaps because of Val and the W \u2014 perhaps because it was now normal for girls to hoop \u2014 the word \u201ctomboy\u201d hadn\u2019t quite made it to the 21st century.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/4XNE6VPZ45CUJL5LJY4NT6XWYY.jpg\")
The original WNBA logo WNBA Reviving The Big East<\/p>\n
She kept files of Stern speeches in a desk, but it was time to write her own now \u2014 and deliver them, too.<\/p>\n
She became president of USA Basketball, then the first American woman on FIBA\u2019s Central Board. She wrote a prescient 2013 white paper on women\u2019s intercollegiate athletics and later became a scrupulous teacher in the sports management program at Columbia. One day, she and the longtime head of CBS Sports, Neal Pilson, were co-teaching a grad school sports leadership class, and they used the breakup of the Big East as a case study. Now Pilson\u2019s wheels started turning.<\/p>\n
Pilson had ties to the conference and recommended Val as commissioner. Teetering from the exodus of its football schools and rebranded as the convoluted American Athletic Conference, league patriarch and Georgetown President Jack DeGioia took charge. He was the conscience of the \u201cCatholic Seven,\u201d who all wanted to reprise the Big East name, become basketball-centric again, move their offices to New York City and retain MSG as their exclusive tournament home. Val, with DeGioia\u2019s blessing, would lead them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were looking for somebody that could make us an equal partner with the football schools in the future of collegiate basketball \u2014 and she sold us on that,\u201d says Father Brian Shanley, the St. John\u2019s president. <\/p>\n
Another startup! Though the conference had no website, no email, no benefits plan, no checking account, no physical address and no staff, Val says her new job was basically \u201cfighting for the basketball schools.\u201d It was so in her DNA. Before hiring her, the league had called Bettman as a character reference, and he vouched for Val, saying, \u201cI didn\u2019t think they could hire anybody better — particularly for a conference that was more basketball-focused than anything else.\u2019\u2019 <\/b><\/p>\n
She also bumped into Granik and who else but Stern at a Hall of Fame event in Springfield \u2013 fresh off her Big East hire, finally a commissioner \u2014 with Granik joking to their former micromanager, \u201cI guess she did pretty well \u2013 we\u2019re proud of you Val.\u201d Stern\u2019s reaction? \u201cDavid just kind of laughed, but I think it was clear,\u2019\u2019 Granik says.<\/p>\n
But she was also the only woman in the room again, the enormous room of a college sports league. Her brother was asked by an acquaintance one day what Val was up to, and George answered, \u201cCommissioner of the Big East.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen\u2019s commissioner?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, whole conference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Face it; now she was on the boys\u2019 team, girls\u2019 team, the entire shebang. Her coups were bringing back charter member UConn; using her connections to lock in MSG; landing a crucial 12-year, $500 million deal with Fox Sports; ensuring every women\u2019s hoops game was streamed on Peacock or ESPN+; extending the deal with Fox through 2031; and relocating Big East offices to the rarified Empire State Building.<\/p>\n
\u201cI give her so much credit \u2014 in a landscape dominated by, let\u2019s be real, males, Val had as sharp elbows as anybody in those rooms,\u201d says Georgetown AD Lee Reed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I\u2019ve seen Val in rooms being mansplained at times, and it makes me crazy,\u201d says Father Shanley. \u201cAnd it just rolls right over her. \u2026 the challenge for the Big East has long been, \u2018How do we take our place at the table with schools that mainly generate athletic revenue from football?\u2019 And I think Val has kept us at the table with the big boys. \u2026 That\u2019s been a tough battle, but she\u2019s been tenacious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of all, maybe, she gave the Big East its soul back. She had known Gavitt, the conference\u2019s founder, from Dream Team days, and the new weight on her shoulder was preserving Gavitt\u2019s legacy and Gavitt\u2019s conference. Remember: She\u2019d been taught under the dogwood tree by Poppy and Randy to honor the men and women before her. So she insisted, along with Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, that the Big Ten-Big East challenge be named The Gavitt Games. At all costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey could have called it anything,\u201d says Dan Gavitt, Dave\u2019s son and the NCAA\u2019s SVP of basketball. \u201cSo that was probably as touching a moment as I can remember during her tenure.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, DeGioia \u2014 for her first decade as commissioner \u2014 became her invaluable confidant, always a phone call away. But then in June 2024, he suffered and survived a massive stroke that had Val aching. Aching because it was so sudden, so much like Poppy and Randy. Would DeGioia be gone too soon?<\/p>\n
![\"Val](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GA4P2RCEKRBRBDRLTZRNAV7XPU.jpg\")
Val Ackerman led the rebirth of the Big East Conference with its original “Catholic Seven” members. Big East Conference <\/p>\n
She visited DeGioia at his home in Washington, honored him in league meetings and finally faced her own mortality. She turned 66 in November 2025, the same age Poppy had been when he died, and she made her mind up to retire this August before she hits 67.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sounds a little morbid,\u201d she says. \u201cBut my dad died at 54, my grandfather died at 66, and \u2026 we never know what fate has in store for us. I don\u2019t know; maybe I\u2019ll be like my mom and live till 88. But I don\u2019t know how much time I have left. I\u2019m not trying to make this sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
But this summer cheered her up, of course, like it always does: WNBA season. She decided to help arrange the 30th reunion during Chicago\u2019s All-Star Weekend, where she could finally stand up and say what she\u2019s always wanted to say about her life\u2019s work at the W.<\/p>\n
She wrote her speech on her jet from New York (one more speech for old time\u2019s sake?) determined to honor Stern, who had died on New Year\u2019s Day 2020. The audience of more than 100 \u2014 including Silver and WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert \u2014 was riveted when she brought Stern\u2019s name up out of nowhere, when she said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry beyond words that David isn\u2019t here to witness this gathering, as I don\u2019t believe anybody would have been prouder to see how far the women\u2019s game and this league have come in the past three decades than him.\u201d <\/p>\n
Val then got to the heart of the matter, to the elephant in the room: the divisiveness that has recently rocked the W. Employee No. 98 simply looked out at her WNBA and MNBA audience and put it like this: <\/p>\n
\u201cThe league was never meant to pit anybody against anybody else, except on the basketball court. It was never supposed to be about gay versus straight, or black versus white, or men against women, or everybody against the officials. The opportunity was \u2014 and I believe still is \u2014 about the joys that only a league like the WNBA can deliver \u2026 <\/p>\n
\u201cThink about it: Over the past 30 years, the league has progressed from infancy, to toddlerhood, to the teenage years and now adulthood, right before our very eyes. Being part of the journey has been \u2014 or was \u2014 the professional honor of a lifetime for all of us who are here tonight, and I feel very sure that the best is still to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Val way of saying: The sun will come up tomorrow.<\/p>\n
The Val Ackerman File<\/p>\n
Born:<\/b> Nov. 7, 1959, Lakewood Township, N.J.<\/p>\n
Education:<\/b> University of Virginia, B.A., political and social thought (1981), basketball, two-time Academic All-American; UCLA, law degree (1985) <\/p>\n
Family:<\/b> Husband, Charlie Rappaport; two daughters, Emily and Sally<\/p>\n
Boards:<\/b> NCAA Women\u2019s Basketball Oversight Committee, member; Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame, board of directors; Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, lifetime trustee<\/p>\n
1981: <\/b>Union Cosnoise Sportive Basket, player in France<\/p>\n
1985-87: <\/b>Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, corporate and banking associate<\/p>\n
1988:<\/b> NBA, staff attorney<\/p>\n
1989: <\/b>USA Basketball, board of directors<\/p>\n
1990:<\/b> NBA, special assistant to the commissioner; later named vice president of business affairs<\/p>\n
1992:<\/b> USAB organizational liaison at the 1992 Olympics; later has same role for 1994 World Championships and 1996 Olympics <\/p>\n
1996: <\/b>WNBA, president (league\u2019s first); guided the league\u2019s launch the following year<\/p>\n
1999:<\/b> College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-America Hall of Fame, inductee<\/p>\n
2002: <\/b>Atlantic Coast Conference 50th Anniversary Women\u2019s Basketball Team <\/p>\n
2005:<\/b> USA Basketball, president <\/p>\n
2005:<\/b> Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, member<\/p>\n
2005:<\/b> Women\u2019s Basketball Coaches Association President\u2019s Citation<\/p>\n
2006: <\/b>U.S. representative for men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball on the Central Board of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA); named to a second term in 2010<\/p>\n
2008:<\/b> John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame<\/p>\n
2008-13: <\/b>NCAA, consultant<\/p>\n
2012: <\/b>National Consortium for Academics and Sports Hall of Fame (now called Institute for Sport & Social Justice)<\/p>\n
2013: <\/b>Named Big East commissioner <\/p>\n
2013:<\/b> USA Basketball\u2019s Edward S. Steitz Award for contributions to international basketball<\/p>\n
2013:<\/b> Big East signs 12-year deal with Fox Sports worth $500 million<\/p>\n
2014:<\/b> NCAA Men\u2019s Basketball Oversight Committee, member<\/p>\n
2014: <\/b>Led the relocation of the Big East\u2019s headquarters from Providence, R.I., to its current site in New York City<\/p>\n
2014: <\/b>Launch of the Big East Digital Network (BEDN)<\/p>\n
2016: <\/b>Women\u2019s Sports Foundation\u2019s Billie Jean King Contribution Award<\/p>\n
2017:<\/b> U.S. Soccer Federation, at-large board member<\/p>\n
2018:<\/b> Big East and Madison Square Garden sign agreement to keep the Garden as the home of the Big East men\u2019s basketball tournament through 2028<\/p>\n
2019: <\/b>Leads negotiations that result in the University of Connecticut\u2019s return to the Big East, effective the following year<\/p>\n
2019: <\/b>Co-chair of the NCAA Federal and State Legislation Working Group<\/p>\n
2021: <\/b>Naismith Memorial Basketball of Fame, inductee<\/p>\n
2023: <\/b>Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, inductee<\/p>\n
2024:<\/b> Big East enters into a successor media rights agreement through 2031 on multiple Fox Sports, NBC\/Peacock and TNT Sports platforms<\/p>\n
2024:<\/b> Conference and MSG extend venue agreement, keeping the Garden as the home of the Big East men\u2019s tournament through 2032<\/p>\n
2024:<\/b> Sports Lawyers Association Michael Weiner Award of Excellence<\/p>\n
2025:<\/b> Conference enters six-year agreement with ESPN to provide broad coverage of additional Big East competitions on the ESPN+ platform<\/p>\n
2025: <\/b>Big East and Playfly Sports extend multimedia rights partnership through 2031<\/p>\n
2026:<\/b> Big East announces a three-year extension with Mohegan Sun Arena to serve as host of the women\u2019s basketball tournament<\/p>\n
2026:<\/b> Announces planned retirement as Big East commissioner, effective Aug. 31<\/p>\n
\u2014 Compiled by Emma Grace Patrick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Employee No. 98 made a name for herself, didn\u2019t she? But it\u2019s time now; time for No. 98…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1006311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[43100,1260,4281,62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":["post-1006310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-big-east-conference","tag-nba","tag-print","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117110455135816762","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1006310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1006311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1006310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1006310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1006310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}