TOKYO
OLYMPICS
76 TIME July 19/July 26, 2021
BIRD AND OTHER WNBA
PLAYERS HAVE BEEN
LEADERS IN THE SPORTS
ACTIVISM MOVEMENT
co-owner of the Atlanta Dream, criticized the
WNBA for supporting Black Lives Matter, Bird
suggested that players wear VOTE WARNOCK T-
shirts in support of Loeffl er’s opponent Raphael
Warnock, who ultimately won the Georgia elec-
tion and helped fl ip the Senate to the Demo-
crats. The WNBA players also took a stand when
Jacob Blake was shot in Kenosha, Wis., and the
Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court. In
a scene in the recent ESPN documentary 144,
a WNBA player asks union leaders what the
league would do if the NBA canceled its season.
Bird raises her hand to respond. “It is important
to understand that we are not them; they are not
us,” she said. “If we had canceled our season, do
you think they would have?” The WNBA held a
vigil in Blake’s honor and took a two-day pause.
“I just wanted to challenge, especially younger
players, to really view themselves as their own
entity. And their own league,” Bird says now.
Not that she doesn’t see the double standards.
Bird is quick to note that while men have been
head coaches in the WNBA, the NBA has never
hired a woman to lead a team. Former WNBA
star Becky Hammon, who has spent seven sea-
sons as an assistant coach for the San Antonio
Spurs, has again been passed over so far this hir-
ing cycle. “If you took away her name and you
took somebody else’s résumé, and you put them
next to each other, you would see how qualifi ed
she is,” Bird says. “You would be shocked she
hasn’t gotten a job already.”
THESE ARE BOOM TIMES for older athletes—
especially those at the top of their sport: Tom
Brady won a seventh Super Bowl at 43; Phil
Mickelson became the oldest golfer to win a major
championship, at 50. At 35, Allyson Felix made a
fi fth U.S. Olympic team; at 39, Serena Williams
is still a threat to win majors. Is it rare talent,
smarter training, insatiable drive? Yes, yes and
yes. “Maybe 50 will be the new 40,” Bird says, not
wholly implausibly. But she’s realistic about how
many more seasons she can race up and down a 94-
ft. court against people half her age. “Where I am
now, I don’t know that I’m going to want to do this
for 10 more years,” she says.
Sometimes it hits her just how long she’s
been playing. Bird recently learned that she’s the
same age as a teammate’s mom. “I knew, with
this draft class, I’m approaching ‘I could be their
mom,’ ” Bird jokes. “And not in like an ‘Oops,
I got pregnant when I was super young’ way, but
in an ‘I got married and planned my family’ way.”
Bird is not ready to think about what’s next,
but others have begun talking about her place in
history. “She’s a life point guard,” says Staley, the
Olympic teammate turned coach. “She gives as-
sists to justice causes; she gives a voice to women
who are underpaid and underappreciated. She’s
unapologetic and unafraid. Once a point guard,
always a point guard. That’s her legacy.”
Bird will look to build on that in Tokyo.
The U.S. women carry a 49-game winning streak
into the Olympics; the team has won the last
six gold medals and hasn’t lost since 1992. But
the rest of the world is getting better—and the
bull’s-eye on the back of Team USA is getting
bigger. Over the past two decades, Spain, now
ranked third in the world, has emerged as a le-
gitimate challenger; second- ranked Australia
has medaled in fi ve of the past six Games. And
because of the demands of the WNBA season,
the U.S. team—whose roster is pulled entirely
from the league—has less time to practice to-
gether than other nations.
“We’re going to have to put it together quick,
and it’s not comfortable,” says Bird. “And yet you’re
never going to know by the way we play. We’re
going to make it look easy. And it’s not easy.”
— With reporting byALEJANDRO DE LA GARZA □JULIO AGUILAR—GETTY IMAGES
SUE BIRD
SPORT
BasketballAGE
40COUNTRY
U.S.TROPHY CASE
All-time WNBA
assists leader;
four-time WNBA
champion; 11-time
WNBA All-Star; four-
time Olympic gold
medalist; four-time
FIBA World Cup winnerOLYMPIC
APPEARANCES
5
(includes Tokyo)