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Swin Cash has been honored with a spot in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for 2022 as a four-time WNBA All-Star, two-time All-Star MVP and three-time WNBA champion.
Cash will be recognized along with 12 other top players at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
For her part, Cash was shocked and pleased by the announcement. The former two-time NCAA champion and mom learned the news while changing her son’s diaper.
“This is my life now,” she said with a laugh in an interview with ESPN. Cash is also a vice president of basketball operations for the New Orleans Pelicans, yet another trailblazing position for a woman whose career has defied all the odds.
Such ambition has always been part of Cash’s personal and professional life. As the highest-ranking woman in the NBA, her position with the Pelicans is a rarity for women in sports leadership, yet emblematic of her determination.
But that is just the start for Cash. According to Teresa Weatherspoon, an assistant coach with the Pelicans, “she (knows) how to take a team to the next level… she’s doing a hell of a job.”
David Griffin, executive vice president of basketball operations for the Pelicans, agrees with that assessment. “She’s a multiple-time champion on multiple levels. She understands what that level of sacrifice looks like. She’s good at realizing who is going to be willing to make that sacrifice.”
Cash has a history as a champion, beginning with her high school basketball team in Pennsylvania, where she dreamed of being an All American. She achieved that goal at college, where she played for the University of Connecticut, winning two chips in the process.
Meanwhile, her goals now are to move the Pelicans forward into the championship role that she experienced as a player. She also has aspirations of being the first woman to lead an NBA front office.
But first, she will be feted as a Hall of Famer, along with Isiah Thomas, Tamika Catchings, Tina Thompson and more. The ceremony for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame will take place this Saturday.
Cash will be honored by one of her friends and mentors, fellow Hall of Famer Teresa Weatherspoon.
Weatherspoon, who is an assistant coach of the Pelicans, knows that this is just one step forward for Cash’s career. “Even greater things are ahead,” she said.