Kara Braxton, who won two WNBA championships during a 10-year career, died at age 43 after a car crash in Atlanta on Saturday.
“It is with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of 2x WNBA Champion Kara Braxton,” the WNBA said in a statement Sunday. “Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and former teammates at this time.”
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Born in Jackson, Mich., along with twin sister Kim, Braxton played at Jackson High for one season and at Westview High in Portland, Ore., for three seasons.
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Braxton, a 6-foot-6 center-forward, played at the University of Georgia from 2001-04, earning SEC freshman of the year and first-team all-conference honors in 2002. She averaged 15.4 points and 7.3 rebounds a game during three seasons with the Bulldogs.
“Rest in peace Kara,” Georgia basketball posted on X.
Braxton was selected by the Detroit Shock at No. 7 overall in the 2005 draft. She spent 5½ seasons with the team (which moved to Tulsa in 2010), winning the WNBA championship in 2006 and 2008 and earning her only All-Star nod in 2007. She also played for the Phoenix Mercury from 2010-11 and the New York Liberty from 2011-14, finishing with career averages of 7.6 points and 4.7 rebounds.
The New York Liberty’s Kara Braxton grabs the ball between Indiana’s Tammy Sutton-Brown and Tamika Catchings on Sept. 17, 2011. (Mel Evans / Associated Press)
“We mourn the loss of Kara Braxton, a former Liberty player whose presence and passion left a lasting impact on our organization and the women’s game,” the Liberty wrote Sunday on X. “Our hearts are with her family, friends, teammates, and all who were touched by her spirit. Her impact will not be forgotten.”
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Braxton is survived by her husband, Jarvis Jackson, and two sons, Jelani Thurman and Jream Jackson.
Thurman, a tight end who played three seasons at Ohio State before transferring to North Carolina last month, posted tributes to his mother on his Instagram Story, including a photo of her kissing him as a baby at a Shock media day photo shoot.
“imma miss my queen,” Thurman wrote to accompany another photo, which appears to show him as an older child wearing his mother’s No. 45 jersey to school.
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Thurman also posted an interview from around the time Ohio State won the 2024 national championship in which he was asked what lessons he learned from his mother that helped get him to that point.
“Man, she taught me always go hard,” Thurman said. “There’s one goal, you know what you need to go do.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
