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Sylvia Fowles Credit: Charles Hallman<\/p>\nBasketball Hall of Fame inducts \u2018greatest women\u2019s class\u2019<\/p>\n
Sylvia Fowles Credit: Charles Hallman<\/p>\n
UNCASVILLE, Conn. \u2014 Sylvia Fowles a few months ago had some practice conjuring up what she needed to say in her Hall of Fame speech. Last Saturday in Springfield, Mass. was the second such induction for her in nearly four months \u2014 Fowles in June went into the Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m going to play a game,\u201d the retired WNBA legend told this reporter during last Friday\u2019s Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame media availability at Mohegan Sun convention center.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fowles, Maya Moore and Sue Bird are the largest WNBA players class to enter the Hall in the same year. All three were USA Olympic teammates, and Fowles and Moore were Minnesota Lynx teammates on two WNBA championships. Combined, they won 11 Olympic gold medals, 10 W championships, and countless individual honors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think hands down, without a doubt, [this is] the greatest women\u2019s class to go into the Hall,\u201d declared Seattle Times beat writer Percy Allen. \u201cThis year\u2019s class will stand the test of time for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very significant, especially knowing the history of the Basketball Hall of Fame,\u201d explained Fowles. \u201cThere\u2019s some years you don\u2019t have women go in at all. So, to have all three of us\u2026says a lot about the game, and it\u2019s such an honor to be among those names.\u201d<\/p>\n
When a reporter asked her about being great, the usually humble Fowles said, \u201cI never thought beyond doing my job. I\u2019ve been watching myself [on film] the last six months and, being honest, I didn\u2019t know I was that good.<\/p>\n
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Sylvia Fowles HOF photo Credit: Threads<\/p>\n
\u201cI was doing my job, but I was highly impressed watching me play,\u201d said Fowles with a wry smile. \u201cIt was a joy to catch myself on film.\u201d<\/p>\n
A couple of days earlier Fowles and this longtime reporter spoke on Zoom. I first spoke to Fowles during her introductory press conference after she was traded to Minnesota from Chicago in the middle of the 2015 season. After that we regularly talked, whether for a story or just chit-chatting about life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I asked her why we had such a player-reporter relationship and she said, \u201cI\u2019m very big on energy. I felt like you were probably one of the most honest ones that I can sit and have a heart-to-heart with without taking stuff and writing about it or putting it in the media.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI always appreciated that about you, and when you showed me that I can trust you, then it was smooth sailing from there.\u201d Fowles last weekend gave me a couple of her patented hugs that she always gives to people she likes. She said she likes me.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Miami native is no different from most typical HOFers, openly admitting that getting into the Hall was far from her mind. \u201cIf I\u2019m being honest, I just want people to understand that I\u2019m all too human outside of all these great things that I did in the basketball world,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She recalled in her WBHOF speech that she was pushed into basketball because she was tall for her age as a pre-teen. \u201cI just didn\u2019t think I was good. The potential that I was showing other people, I couldn\u2019t see it in myself. It took some time for me to really hone in on what I was really good at, what I can get better at, and how can I be a menace on the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took me a while to get there\u2026 It probably didn\u2019t click for me until probably after my third, fourth year in the league where I was like, I can definitely play with this group of young women, and I can be better if I can just lock in and learn these things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fowles\u2019 post-athletic career of becoming a mortician still is on her radar: \u201cYes, we\u2019re just on pause right now because we were in this wave of doing all these amazing things that\u2019s in the moment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A couple of Hall of Fame inductions in 2025 can do it to her, I guess.<\/p>\n