Cheryl Reeve, Elena Delle Donne join Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame: ‘I ate, drank, and slept everything WNBA’

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — With Tennessee’s Candace Parker, the Lady Vols’ equivalent to Michael Jordan in the men’s game winning NCAA, WNBA and Olympic titles, being one of eight inductees as part of the 28th class this past weekend into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, the site of Tennessee Theatre, which opened in 1999, seemed perfect.

But Philadelphia could have worked equally as well as a magnet attraction, considering the number of individuals at the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame with various ties to the area.

South Jersey native and former La Salle star Cheryl Reeve, the long-running successful coach of the Minnesota Lynx, who with 379 victories is one away from being the all-time league leader in a 17-year career, became the second WNBA mentor to gain induction.

She already is the combined leader when playoff appearances are factored.

Reeve is tied with former Houston Comets coach Van Chancellor, with four WNBA titles and is in the hunt again this season. She also guided the 2024 USA Olympic team in Paris to its eighth-straight gold medal.

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The former high school hoops star at Washington Township was presented by one of her assistants, former Lynx great Lindsay Whelan, and among her supporters were recently retired Northwestern coach Joe McKeown, a Father Judge graduate who had Reeve as an assistant at George Washington, and Taj McWilliams-Franklin, who played for her in Minnesota and was also on the ABL Philadelphia Rage.

“She always treated everyone the same,” McWilliams-Franklin said of playing for Reeve.

University of Delaware grad Elena Delle Donne, out of Wilmington, now retired and the first managing director of USA 3x3 women’s national team, was also in the class and was introduced by former Immaculata star Marianne Stanley, who was an assistant coaching her on the WNBA Washington Mystics champions of 2019.

Delle Donne was the overall No. 2 pick of the Chicago Sky in 2013, earning WNBA rookie of the year that season, and was twice league MVP as well as being the first member of the 50/40/90 club in 2019 shooting 51.5% from the field, 43% from three-point range, and 97.4% from the line.

“That’s a whole season,” Stanley said of Delle Donne’s shooting accuracy.

Acclaimed ESPN broadcaster Doris Burke, earning induction as a contributor but who could not attend, has lived in Ardmore since 2018. She has been a pioneering woman on NBA broadcasts besides having done WNBA and NCAA national women’s games earlier in her career as an analyst.

The late Barbara Kennedy-Dixon out of Clemson, whose husband accepted, was presented by all-time Kentucky great Val Still, who lives in Palmyra, N.J.

Kennedy-Dixon, one of eight players in NCAA history with 3,000 points and 1,000 rebounds, still holds a slew of ACC single season marks, and in 1982 playing against Penn State, she scored the first basket in the inaugural NCAA women’s tourney.

Meanwhile, taking over as the Hall’s executive director this year is former Tennessee star Michelle Marciniak, known as “Spinderella” in her high school days as a point guard in Allentown, and who also played on the Philadelphia Rage at the same time as Dawn Staley.

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Parker and Delle Donne are also headed for Springfield, Mass., in August as part of the Naismith inductee class as is former Tennessee notable Chamique Holdsclaw, who was Parker’s presenter.

“She changed the game,” Holdsclaw said of Parker, who then saluted likewise in her acceptance speech.

The other inductees Saturday night were Amaya Valdemoro, a former WNBA star in Houston and the first Spanish star inducted here, former Colorado star Isabelle Fijalkowski, the first French player into the WNBA, drafted in the inaugural 1997 season and whose daughter 6-foot-7 Alicia Tournebize now plays for Staley at South Carolina, and recently retired Kirkwood Community College coach Kim Muhl, who is the NJCAA leader with a 1,108-178 record and nine titles. He holds the NJCAA D-II women’s record of 39 straight wins.

One of the more opinionated individuals in the WNBA, Reeve during Friday’s media session got emotional, shedding a few tears talking about playing for Speedy Morris at La Salle and how much of his coaching she has taken with her to her career.

Taking about her high school coach Dawn Schilling, later married to Eagles star John Bunting, Reeve, who also played softball, credited Schilling for steering her to continue basketball “with more opportunities.”

In Saturday’s speech, she made references on working Immaculata coach Cathy Rush’s camps and mentioned John Miller, who also coached her at La Salle.

Reeve, who was taking a 5 a.m. flight Sunday to rejoin the Lynx at Dallas, has had her share of controversy with WNBA officials and talking about seeing some listed as inductees here, quipped “I can’t wait to get one.”

Talking about her first WNBA job as an assistant to Anne Donovan at a $5,000 salary and later with Dan Hughes and Bill Laimbeer before hired with the Lynx, Reeve said, “From 2001 until today, I ate, drank, and slept everything WNBA. I experienced teams folding, I collected unemployment, and hearing my dad wonder when I was going to get a real job.

“This game has given me a fulfilling lifetime of joy. To share the Hall with so many women’s basketball greats makes me glad I never got a real job.”

Marciniak, doing her first welcome, noted her number was retired.

“I had No. 3 before Parker, so yes my number is retired.”

Delle Donne, who had a short commitment at UConn before landing home at Delaware to be closer to her sister Lizzie, who was born deaf, blind and cerebal with cerebral palsy, brought the house down in her opening remarks, expressing the warmth she felt from Knoxville.

“I’m not sure if it’s because of this Hall of Fame honor or because I left UConn after 24 hours.”

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Saluting her sister, Delle Donne was emotional, saying, “Although you can’t hear me, I hope you can feel the impact you made on me. For the challenges most people couldn’t begin to understand … you’ve shown me that the hardest battles are met head-on without self-pity.”

On her recent retirement after dealing with back issues late in her career, dealing with the pain, she decided it was time and was at peace with herself.

She described her career as “a love story, that even had a brief divorce for volleyball until I came back.”

Parker wore a suit designed as a tribute to her coach, the legendary Pat Summitt, who 10 years ago Sunday, succumbed in her battle with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

“My continued desire to imitate Pat and how she attacked life every day proves there’s nobody like her,” Parker said. “Though she’ll be gone 10 years ago tomorrow, she’s still leaving a lasting impact that we all can and should draw from.”