{"id":1763,"date":"2023-07-31T15:09:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T19:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/?post_type=inductees&p=1763"},"modified":"2024-01-10T16:45:16","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T21:45:16","slug":"val-ackerman","status":"publish","type":"inductees","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/inductees\/val-ackerman\/","title":{"rendered":"Val Ackerman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cTry to leave this world a little better than you found it.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s a sentiment that rings more like advice given to you by your grandfather when you\u2019re too immature to appreciate it, but spend enough time on this planet, and it becomes apparent that it might just be the best mantra to live by.<\/p>\n
Few people in the history of sports business and media have built a more successful and impactful career on making the sports world better than she experienced it than Val Ackerman.<\/span><\/p>\n Founding president of the Women\u2019s National Basketball Association (WNBA). President of USA Basketball. An executive behind the iconic \u201cDream Team.\u201d Commissioner of the Big East Conference. Val Ackerman\u2019s life has taken her across the executive offices of her beloved game of basketball and forever reshaped the world of sports \u2014 for athletes, for fans, for television, for women, for all of us.<\/p>\n \u201cVal has helped shape men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball at every level of the game,\u201d says NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. \u201cHer steady leadership combined with her unflappable persistence has elevated so many aspects of the sports media and has left a profound impact on the coverage and scope of the sports industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Born and raised in New Jersey, Ackerman was a multi-sport athlete in high school and went on to be a four-year starter and three-time captain for the University of Virginia Women\u2019s Basketball Team. In the immediate afterglow of Title IX, she was one of the school\u2019s first female scholarship athletes. When she graduated, there wasn\u2019t much available to her in the way of a professional basketball career in the U.S., so she played overseas in France for a year before returning stateside to pursue her law degree at UCLA.<\/p>\n After a short stint at a law firm, Ackerman knew her athletic world and her academic career were meant to unite. She was hired as a staff attorney at the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1988.<\/p>\n She credits the early growth in her career to working with an impressive set of mentors, including current NHL commissioner and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Gary Bettman (who first hired Ackerman), former NBA deputy commissioner and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Russ Granik, and, of course, iconic former NBA commissioner and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer David Stern.<\/p>\n In 1990, Ackerman became special assistant to the commissioner, working directly with Stern. \u201cThat gave me proximity to the life of a commissioner, what crossed David\u2019s desk, all the things he had to manage,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n Her tenacious work ethic and intelligence had her moving up quickly through the ranks at the NBA. Her career took its first unique turn in 1989, when the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) voted to allow professional players to participate in the Olympic Games. The U.S. was reeling from a devastating loss to the USSR in 1988, and work on assembling the iconic \u201cDream Team\u201d had begun. Ackerman was one of the NBA\u2019s original appointees to the USA Basketball Board of Directors in 1989 and served as an organizational liaison with USA Basketball during the early years of NBA participation in national-team competitions, including the 1992 and 1996 Olympics and the 1994 World Championships.<\/p>\n