Founded in 1980, the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame honors history-making female athletes and coaches. International athletes are selected based on personal achievements, breakthroughs, innovative style and ongoing commitment to the development of women’s sports.

The Women’s Sports Foundation is owner and operator of the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Criteria:

The Hall of Fame recognizes the athletic achievements of those who have competed at least 25 years prior to the present year in the Pioneer category. Athletes whose accomplishments came within the past 25 years are inducted into the Contemporary category. In 1990, the Coach category was added and honors both active and retired coaches.

P = Pioneer
C = Contemporary
H = Coach

40th Annual Salute to Women in Sports
October 16, 2019
New York, N.Y.

Key Moments

Grand March of Athletes: 1:18:25

Awards Presentation: 2:57:20

Megan Rapinoe

When the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) captivated the world during the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, Megan Rapinoe, the team’s co-captain, was front and center both on and off the pitch.

The Olympic gold medalist, two-time Olympian and two-time FIFA World Cup champion, is a driving force for change. It was during the lead up to the tournament, the spirited matches in France, the highly-debated goal celebrations, and the animated media scrums where Rapinoe cemented her legacy as one of the greatest soccer players to ever play for the USWNT and champion for equal rights.

Heading into the 2019 FIFA World Cup, all eyes were on the USWNT after the team filed a wage-discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation. The stakes were high. When the tournament kicked off, the athletes were motivated to win, and fans around the world were inspired.

Rapinoe and her teammates rose to the occasion, leaving their mark on the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup. With six goals and three assists in seven games, Rapinoe was awarded the Golden Ball as the most outstanding player at the World Cup, while also earning the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer. She scored the team’s only two goals against Spain in the round of 16 and went on to do the same against France in the quarterfinals.

While the World Cup may have provided the biggest stage for Rapinoe to shine, her performance in France followed an impressive season in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), during which she played for the Reign FC in Seattle. During the 2018 season, she scored seven goals with six assists, finishing fourth in the league for assists. She was also named the July NWSL Forward of the Month and announced as the 2018 NWSL Best XI. In addition, Rapinoe helped win the 2018 CONCACAF Women’sChampionship with the USA.

Rapinoe’s reach goes far beyond sport. From the “U-S-A! Equal pay!” chant that permeated the sold-out stadiums to the team’s on‐field statements and the all-out celebration of female athletes with a ticker tape parade through New York City, Rapinoe continues to be at the helm of the conversation.

The Players of the WNBA

For their bold courage and unity in the face of some of the most turbulent times in this country’s history, the Players of the WNBA have shown grace, poise and power in an unconventional 2020 season by dedicating themselves and their season to social justice and racial equality. For their strength, unity and bravery, the Players of the WNBA as a collective are this year’s Wilma Rudolph Courage Award recipient, to be awarded at the Women’s Sports Foundation annual Salute to Women in Sports livestream event on October 14. The Players of the WNBA are joining a long list of accomplished past honorees that includes Marta Vieira da Silva, Caster Semenya and Tatyana McFadden. The award will be presented during the live broadcast 2020 Annual Salute to Women in Sports on October 14 at 8 PM ET.

In early July, just a few weeks before the teams entered the ‘Wubble’ at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., for their shortened season, the league and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association announced The WNBA Justice Movement and the creation of the WNBA/WNBPA Social Justice Council, setting the stage for a bold, first-of-its-kind commitment from the players to advocating for social justice.

In a league that is comprised of 80% Black women, players utilizing their voices and platforms is nothing new. WNBA players have historically been at the forefront of issues they are passionate about and have been unapologetically themselves as they continue to speak out about issues facing the LGTBQ+ community, racial and gender equality and mass incarceration, among other causes.

Though the season is dedicated to the Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name campaigns, the mission of the Social Justice Council — led by players like WSF Ambassador Layshia Clarendon, Breanna Stewart, A’ja Wilson, Satou Sabally, Tierra Ruffin-Pratt and Sydney Colson — is to be a driving force of necessary and continuing conversations about race, voting rights, LGBTQ+ advocacy and gun violence, as well as other societal issues.

The players have taken the initiative and put it into action. “Black Lives Matter” shirts are worn during warm-ups at every game — Clarendon’s New York Liberty have also worn “Black Trans Lives Matter” shirts — and players’ jerseys display Breonna Taylor’s name to “seek justice for women and girls who have been the forgotten victims of police brutality and racial violence.” Also, a moment of silence and remembrance is held before each game to honor Black women who have been killed as a result of the systemic, race-based violence that is the center of the Black Lives Matter movement.

In addition to the league-wide initiatives, teams and individual players have begun their own movements. The Indiana Fever players led the #Rebounds4Change campaign as a fundraiser for fans to donate to social justice causes for each rebound this season. The Atlanta Dream, Phoenix Mercury and Chicago Sky wore “Vote Warnock” shirts to support the Senate campaign of Raphael Warnock in Georgia, who is running against Dream owner Kelly Loeffler, an outspoken opponent of the Black Lives Matter movement. Maya Moore, Natasha Cloud, Renee Montgomery and others have taken the bold step of opting out of the season, in effect pausing their WNBA careers, to fight for social justice off the court. Further, several players, including Candace Parker, Devereaux Peters, Jonquel Jones, Wilson and Clarendon have penned pieces in The Players’ Tribune about their experiences as Black women in this country, and others such as Katie Lou Samuelson, Elena Delle Donne and Natalie Achonwa have publicly spoken out about their struggles with health, both mental and physical.

In 2020, the Players of the WNBA have set the bar for other professional sports leagues — men’s and women’s — looking to add their voices to the momentum around combatting police brutality and race-based oppression.

Ursula Burns

After an influential career in which she demonstrated a commitment to diversity while breaking down barriers for the next generation of women leaders, Ursula Burns, retired Chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation and VEON, Ltd., is the 2020 Billie Jean King Leadership Award recipient. The award will be presented at the Women’s Sports Foundation 2020 Salute to Women in Sport event on October 14.

Burns, the first Black woman to head a Fortune 500 company, has spent her extraordinary career breaking down barriers for the next generation of women leaders and advocating for gender and racial diversity in major companies.

Burns joined the Xerox Corporation as an intern in 1980 and spent most of her career with the company, rising to Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, roles in which she served from 2010-2017 and 2009-2016, respectively. She had held additional leadership roles in the company spanning corporate services, manufacturing and product development. As CEO, Burns led the company’s transformation from a global leader in document technology to the world’s most diversified business services company serving enterprises and governments of all sizes.

Since Burns retired from Xerox in 2016, there have been no other Black women and only four Black men Fortune 500 CEOs – a clear paucity of diversity at the highest echelons of corporate America, and the impetus for Burns’ continued advocacy for more women and Black voices at the table. She also helped launch The WomanMakers initiative, an outgrowth of The HistoryMakers, the nation’s largest African American video oral history collection.

Burns, who regularly appears on Fortune’s and Forbes’ list of the world’s most powerful women, is a board director of Exxon Mobil, Nestlé and Uber. U.S. President Barack Obama appointed her to help lead the White House national program on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) from 2009-2016, and she served as. Chair of the President’s Export Council from 2015-2016 after service as vice chair from 2010-2015. In 2008, Burns was also named to the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Board of Directors.

Applying her knowledge and expertise beyond the C-Suite, Burns also provides leadership counsel to several community, educational and nonprofit organizations including the Ford Foundation, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Corporation, Cornell Tech Board of Overseers, the New York City Ballet, and the Mayo Clinic, among others. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineers and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Burns is the 51^st recipient of the Billie Jean King Leadership Award, which recognizes an individual or group who demonstrates outstanding leadership and makes significant contributions to the advancement of women through achievements in sport and the workplace.

Bruce Arians

Under the leadership of head coach Bruce Arians, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers franchise has grown into one of the most inclusive and diverse organizations in the NFL. At its helm, Arians has fostered inclusion not just on the field — where he has assembled the most gender diverse coaching staff in the league — but also at the grassroots level, where he leads the organization in creating opportunities in football for girls in the Tampa Bay area and across the country.

Hired in January 2019 after serving as the Arizona Cardinals head coach from 2013-2017, Arians was quick to bring the same culture he had created in Arizona to Tampa Bay. While with the Cardinals, Arians made history by hiring Dr. Jen Welter, the first woman to coach in the NFL, as a training camp and preseason coaching intern.

With the Buccaneers, Arians has taken his commitment to progress even further. Under his team mentorship and the organization’s leadership, Tampa Bay became the first in NFL history to hire two female coaches in full-time assistant roles — Maral Javadifar and Lori Locust serve as assistant strength and conditioning and assistant defensive line coaches, respectively. Additionally, the Buccaneers recently hired Jacqueline Davidson as director of football research, further diversifying the team’s front office staff.

Throughout his career, Arians has held the belief that everyone deserves a seat at the table, and that it is well past time to dismantle the diversity problem in NFL coaching, which has historically been largely occupied by white men. Case in point, the Buccaneers are the only NFL franchise to have three coordinator positions, as well as the role of assistant head coach, filled by minority coaches.

Arians’ influence also extends to the grassroots level, where he is ensuring that the next generation of girls grow up in a world in which they are welcomed in the traditionally male-dominated sport of football. This year, the Buccaneers hosted the second annual Girls High School Flag Football Preseason Classic, the largest girls flag football competition in the country. The team has also implemented girls flag football curriculum into local communities, including establishing the Jr. Buc’s Girl’s Flag Football League to help grow the game at the youth level.

Arians’ coaching accolades speak for themselves. He is a two-time Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year, earning the award in 2012 (Indianapolis Colts) and in 2014 (Arizona Cardinals). He is the only coach in NFL history to earn the award multiple times in a three-year span with different teams, and is one of only 12 coaches in NFL history to win the award multiple times.

Arians joins John Burke, the president and CEO of Trek Bicycle Corporation, as the two recipients of the Women’s Sports Foundation Champion for Equality award, which began in 2019.

Claressa Shields, Boxing — USA

Claressa Shields continues to make history in 2019. At arguably the biggest women’s boxing bout of all time, the 24-year-old American emerged as the first undisputed women’s middleweight boxing world champion in the sport’s history, beating Germany’s Christina Hammer in Atlantic City, N.J., on April 13, 2019. Following her victory, she became one of the only seven boxers to simultaneously hold all four major world titles in boxing (IBF, WBA, WBO and WBC) in addition to claiming the inaugural Ring Magazine female middleweight title.

Shields’ professional career record is nine wins and no losses with two victories by knockout. In the last 12 months she not only notched three wins and remained undefeated, but also became world champion in her second weight division. She kept a remarkable professional winning streak as she entered 2019 after being named to the USA Boxing Alumni Association’s Hall of Fame in August 2018 and the Boxing Writers Association of America Female Fighter of the Year in December 2018.

These historic accomplishments have earned her the 2019 Sportswoman of the Year, becoming the first two-time recipient of the award since 1995. Shields was previously honored in 2016.

Shields became the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing at the 2012 Olympic Games, where for the first time the 10 men’s boxing events were joined by three women’s events: flyweight, lightweight and middleweight. Four years later, Shields won a second gold medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. She is the only American — male or female — to win back-to-back gold medals in boxing. Shields is also a two-time World Championship gold medalist and a Pan American gold medalist.

Shields points out that she has had strong influences who helped guide her along the way, and she has never let circumstances dictate her actions. The first member of her family to graduate from high school, her story of overcoming adversity to become the greatest female boxer in the world fuels her advocacy work in her hometown of Flint, Mich., and her passion to inspire more girls to participate in sports.

On April 27, 2019, the Women’s Sports Foundation, ESPN Women’s Group and SOMOS volunteers combined forces to host a basketball clinic for 60 girls from our Sports 4 Life community program, Hispanic Coalition. WSF President and three-time Olympic medalist in bobsled Elana Meyers Taylor, WSF Athlete Ambassador and WNBA All-Star Layshia Clarendon, ESPN Reporter and Host Jen Lada and Waterbury Police Detective Andréa Saunders made up our stand-out panel prior to the clinic.

April 2 – Equal Pay Day – marks the day U.S. women have finally earned the same amount of money as the average man did in 2018. Sports have long mirrored society, and the gender pay gap has persisted in athletics just as it has in the professional realm. And in sport, just as in society, women are fighting back, working towards the day when pay equality is achieved.

Here are five athletes, teams and leagues that are leading the charge:

The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT)

The USWNT has long been associated with leading the way in the fight for gender equity in soccer. Most recently, in advance of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France, the United States women’s squad took a stand against “institutionalized gender discrimination” against the team. Twenty-eight members of the current national team pool announced in March that they are suing U.S. Soccer, seeking equitable pay and treatment, including damages for back pay.

The women’s team has far exceeded the success of their male counterparts, who failed to even qualify for the FIFA Men’s World Cup in 2018. Meanwhile, the women have placed in the top three teams in every Women’s World Cup since 1991 (when the women’s tournament began) and has three titles. In the six Olympic Games that have included women’s soccer, the U.S. has captured four golds and a silver.

“It’s a heavy responsibility, but it’s one that we gladly take on,” Becky Sauerbraunn told ESPN following the 2019 SheBelieves Cup. “And it’s something we’re going to keep trying to push and push and push until we feel that everything is equal. That’s far away from here, but that’s what we’re fighting toward.”

At the same time, The Guardian recently reported that in the 2018 fiscal year, USWNT head coach Jill Ellis was paid less than several U.S. Soccer men’s coaches, including U-20 coach Tab Ramos.

The U.S. Women’s National Ice Hockey Team

Before winning a historic gold medal in the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games, the U.S. Women’s National Ice Hockey Team was battling off the ice for equal pay. In 2017, the team threatened to boycott the 2017 IIHF World Championships if a settlement was not made with USA Hockey for equal treatment to the men’s team. Per The New York Times, the women’s players were barely making living wages and were left out of pre-Olympic marketing plans despite their success on the ice.

Ahead of the 2017 IIHF World Championships, after a yearlong battle, USA Hockey conceded to many of the players demands. The team went on to earn the gold at the world championships, then captured its first Olympic gold in 20 years by defeating Team Canada in PyeongChang.

Of her team’s fight for equal treatment, star forward Hilary Knight said: “We’re passionately pursuing something for the greater good.”

WNBA Players

WNBA stars including A’ja Wilson, Brittney Griner, Liz Cambage and Skylar Diggins-Smith have all spoken out about WNBA salaries compared to their NBA counterparts. In order to make a living playing basketball, most WNBA players compete overseas during the offseason to supplement their WNBA income.

It is important to note that the WNBA athletes are not asking for the multimillion dollar contracts that are prevalent in the NBA; they are simply asking for equity. Where the NBA pays its players between 49-51 percent of the league’s revenue, WNBA players take home a maximum of 22.8 percent.

“As athletes, we have to fight. As women, we have to fight,” Diggins-Smith told Bleacher Report. “And we need more people at our table to fight with us,” she told Wealthsimple. “There need to be more women and more people of color hired so we can curate our own sports stories. And we need men speaking out about these things.”

Big Wave Surfers

In 2016, six female big wave surfers – Andrea Moller, Bianca Valenti, Keala Kennelly, Paige Alms, Karen Tynan and Sabrina Brennan – founded the Commission for Equity in Women’s Surfing (CEWS). The organization exists to increase “the number of events and the number of awards for women, as well as offering equal prize money … to achieve meaningful equity in competitive surfing.”

In 2018, much of CEWS’ work paid off, as the World Surf League announced equal prize money for all WSL-controlled events in 2019 and beyond, a huge step for what has been a traditionally male-dominated sport.

“”We feel strongly that if it hadn’t been for our consistent advocacy, the WSL would not have made that announcement,” Brennan told ESPN. “But we are so glad they did, and we’re thankful because they could have done less … But they did the right thing and did it across all of their events.”

Venus and Serena Williams

While all four of the major Grand Slam tennis tournaments have awarded men and women equal prize money since 2007 when Wimbledon finally evened its pay gap, the game’s biggest female stars have not held back when it comes to speaking out about equal pay.

As with so many other female athletes – and despite being two of the highest paid women athletes in the world – Venus and Serena recognize that they are fighting not only for themselves, but for the generations of women to come.

“We might not get it today, but we want a future better for maybe my daughter, or her daughter, and so that’s what we really are fighting for,” Serena told CNBC. “I feel like we’re getting there.”

Photo credit (from L to R):

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

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Julian Finney/Getty Images

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