She’s won the WNBA’s MVP award and led the LA Sparks to a championship, but Nneka Ogwumike is making an even bigger impact as a leader off the court in unprecedented times
Earlier this month, Kelly Loeffler, a
Republican senator from Georgia and co-owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, addressed a letter to commissioner Cathy Engelbert expressing concerns over a pattern of political behavior. Natasha Cloud and LaToya Sanders of the defending champion
Washington Mystics had recently announced their intentions to sit out the upcoming season to focus on social justice issues. Players had advocated to wear the names of black
Women victimized by
police violence on their uniforms. “To subscribe to a particular political agenda undermines the potential of the sport and sends a message of exclusion,” Loeffler wrote, denouncing the Black Lives Matter movement by name. “The truth is, we need less – not more politics in sports.”
Related: US sports are embracing social justice. The WNBA was doing it before it was cool