Valerie B. Ackerman (born November 7, 1959) is an American sports executive, lawyer, and former basketball player. She is the current commissioner of the Big East Conference. She is best known for being the first president of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), serving from 1996 to 2005. She was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021.
Early life
Ackerman was born in 1959 in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, but grew up in Pennington, New Jersey, United States. Her 1466 points set the school's varsity basketball career record for points scored by any basketball player, male or female, and she set the school's career scoring record as a halfback in field hockey, topped off by graduating second in her class. She also ran on her school's track team.
College years
Ackerman was a 1979 student initiate of Omicron Delta Kappa from the University of Virginia, where she graduated in 1981. She was among the school's first female students to receive an athletic scholarship. In 2003, she was named a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference's 50th Anniversary Women's Basketball Team. She earned a J.D. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),
Career
Ackerman played professional basketball in France for one season.
On August 7, 1996, she was named president of the WNBA. Over the course of her historic eight-year term, she would become the first woman ever to successfully launch and operate a women's team sports league.
In May 2005, she became the first female president of USA Basketball for the 2005–2008 term,
In 2006, she was named the U.S. delegate to the Central Board of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), which is basketball's worldwide governing body, and was elected for a second four-year term in 2010. She is also a member of FIBA's Competition Commission. and both the NCAA's Women's Basketball Competition Committee and its Honors Committee.
Awards and honors
Ackerman's honors have included the Brandweek Co-Marketer of the Year Award in 1997, which she shared with Rick Welts, then President of NBA Properties; the New Jersey Sportswriters Association Executive of the Year Award in 1998; the March of Dimes Sports Achievement Award in 1997; induction into the GTE Academic All-America Hall of Fame in 1999; She has also been inducted into the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame,<!-- please leave the redlink to remind me to create the article (or you can create it) --> and received the National Women of Distinction Award from Girl Scouts of the USA.
In 2006, she was named a recipient of the NCAA's Silver Anniversary Award, which is awarded to former student athletes who have achieved personal distinction since graduation. In 2008, she received the IOC's Women of Distinction diploma, and the John Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
In 2010, she was named an inductee of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame's Class of 2011. The Women's Sports Foundation named her one of its "40 for 40" honorees as part of its celebration of the 40th anniversary of Title IX in 2012. and is a "Life Trustee" of the Hall, which is the "highest honor a Hall of Fame Board member can receive".
Ackerman report
In November 2012, Ackerman was hired by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to study the women's game and come up with recommendations for improvement.