Sky’s Delle Donne to Be in Shooting Stars Event

February 6, 2015 @ admin → No Comments

There will be an additional Chicago presence at the NBA’s all-star weekend. And, no, it will not involve any active Bulls, although it will involve an active star player. If you said, “Elena Delle Donne” as the player in question, congratulations.

Video below of 2015 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model Hannah Davis.

If you said, “Who’s Elene Delle Donne?” then you must not pay much attention to the Chicago Sky or the WNBA. Delle Donne is one of the players that league is depending on to build the women’s professional league.

She will team with Bulls legend Scottie Pippen and Chicago native/New Orleans Pelicans standout Anthony Davis to participate in the Shooting Stars competition Feb. 14 in Brooklyn as part of all-star festivities. The contest involves four teams in a two-round, time shooting event.

Chris Bosh, Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins and four-time WNBA All-Star Swin Cash of the New York Liberty (and a former member of the Sky) will seek their third consecutive Shooting Stars title.

Stephen Curry will team with his father Dell Curry and eight-time WNBA All-Star Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm. Russell Westbrook partners with Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway and Tamika Catchings of the Indiana Fever.

And now a few words (OK, many actually) about the Sky, which celebrates its 10th season in 2015. The quotes come from the team because some of us cannot always be where we might like at any given moment. They were from a Feb. 4 press conference:

* WNBA president Laurel J. Richie: “I am thrilled to be here celebrating. I think it is somehow very, very fitting that we’re doing this on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, I think it’s really important, and I think it’s also very true to the WNBA brand and the Chicago Sky brand that we would not only mark the 10th anniversary but we would do it in a way that engages young women in the sport of basketball and also related opportunities for careers that go beyond the court. I think as much as we know what happens on the court it takes a lot of people off the court to make these things successful so I love the way the Sky has chosen to mark this anniversary.”

* Chicago Sky Principal Owner Michael Alter: “It is hard to believe that it’s been 10 years. In some ways it feels like 100 years, in other ways it feels like it’s been 10 seconds, so it’s been, as they say, a long, strange and wonderful trip. It was 10 years ago when then-commissioner David Stern came to Chicago. He also had with him the current NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who came along as well. At that time, I spoke about what it was that motivated me to get involved in this league and those memories are still very real to me because really not much has changed in terms of that motivation. I got involved with this league because I thought it was really important that Chicago have a team. In fact, I was quite shocked and embarrassed that the league had been around at that point I think it was about 9 years in other cities and Chicago, which is in my view as a Chicagoan the best sports town in the country, if not the world, and to think that Chicago wasn’t part of this league…I really felt that we needed to do something about that. I met some of these young women and I was unbelievably impressed with their passion and their abilities and I just knew and felt that they would be such phenomenal role models. Not just for young girls but for young boys, for all of us. We had to have that team here in Chicago.”

* Chicago Sky chairman and minority owner Margaret Stender: “Isn’t it great? 10 years. I am so thrilled to be a part of this decade celebration. Thank you so much for including me. It’s also the 29th anniversary of National Girls and Women in Sports Day so as we reflect on sports, I think we should be asking ourselves what is so important about sports for girls and for women and why should we care. Sports is so much more than a game. The visibility of sports in our society and the joy that it brings to so many people allow it to serve as a guardrail for equity in our education system and for a beacon for social change. I think those of us that have been involved with this team for a decade have seen that happen over, and over, and over again. Do we remember that prior to the passage of Title IX in 1972 it was perfectly legal to discriminate against women? Girls were discouraged from the study of math, science and technology. The nation’s law schools, medical schools, business schools, they all had quotas on how many women they were allowed to admit. There were no sports programs for girls in 1974, 1972. Maybe a little tennis, maybe a little swimming, absolutely no team sports. Prior to the passage of Title IX only one in 34 girls even had access to high school sports. It’s a competitive world, right, so how are we to learn to compete if we can’t play? We can’t learn how to compete. We can’t learn how to lead. How do we learn how to take risks?

* Sky guard/forward Elena Delle Donne: “Ever since I picked up a basketball, I was lucky enough to have women to look up to. I’d be in the backyard beating up on my brother and his friends and I’d be like “Yeah, I just Sheryl Swoopes’d you” and I wasn’t talking about the guys. I had women like that to really look up to so it’s a special era that we’re coming from and like you said we do have to remember where it came from and how important it is to continue to grow. Just having that dream with one single basketball I was able to work really hard to get to where I am today and I have a women’s professional basketball league that I can play in and that’s where I stand right now. It’s amazing that if you can dream it, you can now attain it.”

* Sky coach & general manager Pokey Chatman: “Last year when we reached the WNBA playoffs, we coined it ‘Our Moment,’ and this year in conjunction with our 10-year celebration we’re going to do our best to be there again. The goal is going to be everything that we do is going to be for our town. We’re going to compete for 40 minutes, every second of the game, for our town. We’re going to do community outreach for our town. We’re going to cultivate and inspire youth, young girls, for our town, and ultimately we want to win a championship for our town.”

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