Indiana Fever guard sparked nationwide conversation and debate, and also reached unprecedented levels of celebrity, after her comments on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,'” she told ESPN in a July profile. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
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Recently, Cunningham spoke about how she plans on continuing to voice her opinion, but also wants some of the focus to remain on the high-level basketball being played every night in the WNBA.
“People are like, ‘You have a platform. Use it,’ and then once you use it, it’s like, ‘Go back to playing basketball.’ I think the reason why I stated that is because you go into media, and it’s not anything even about basketball,” she told USA Today. “I think I could do both,” she said. “Ask me about what’s going on and what I said. And also ask me how great my teammates are doing, how great our team is doing, how great the league is doing. We can be a great example of how to do both.”
Cunningham also addressed the league potentially needing to move on from commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
“You do have to have a person in power who is bold, who is confident, who wants the best for the players and not maybe for themselves all the time. So I do feel like, as a whole, that could be a position that’s maybe open at the end of the year, but that’s not my call,” she said.
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“(Cathy Engelbert’s) done a lot of good things, but with where our league is trying to go, I feel like you just want someone who also wants that. That’s just a hard position to be in, in her shoes, us as players ― we always want more, more, more because we see how good it can be, but … that’s up to Adam Silver at the end of the day.”
Dan Dakich agrees
For his part, Outkick’s Dan Dakich feels Cunningham’s take on Engelbert hit the nail on the head.
Sophie Cunningham is right again,” Dakich said in a video posted to X. “She is. New leadership is probably needed in the WNBA, I believe. And I’ve said an iron-fisted David Stern-type leader that gets everybody on the same page. But the most interesting part: the WNBA needing who? Adam Silver, the commissioner of what? The NBA, to figure it all out.
“And they’re right. Never forget that the WNBA is subsidized by the NBA, loses money every year, but it doesn’t need to be that way. This is what I’ve said. The golden goose is here. Caitlin Clark is the golden goose, but you better find somebody that leans into it instead of fights it and acquiesces to the squad. And you all know who the squad is.”
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Engelbert’s contract is up after this year. Only time will tell if she returns as the league’s commissioner or if Cunningham and Dakich will get their wish.
The post ‘Sophie Cunningham is right again’: Analyst stands by Fever star’s latest stance appeared first on The Comeback: Today’s Top Sports Stories & Reactions.
