Sue Bird was an American professional basketball player of the Seattle Storm of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about her life and career.
- Her full name is Suzanne Brigit Bird
- She was born on October 16, 1980
- She is an American former professional basketball player of the Seattle Storm of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA)
- Bird was drafted by the Storm first overall in the 2002 WNBA draft
- She is considered to be one of the greatest players in WNBA history
- As of 2021, Bird is the only WNBA player to win titles in three different decades
- She held a front office position for the NBA’s Denver Nuggets as their Basketball Operations Associate
- She has also played for three teams in Russia
- She holds both U.S. and Israeli citizenship
- In high school, she was the New York State Player of the Year, the New York Daily News Player of the Year, and a WBCA All-American
- In her senior year on the undefeated University of Connecticut team in 2002, she won the Wade Trophy and the Naismith Award as College Player of the Year
- She finished her UConn career ranked first in three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage
- Second in assists and steals
- And as a three-time winner of the Nancy Lieberman Award as the top point guard in the nation
- While leading her team to a record of 114–4
- Bird has won a joint-record four WNBA championships with the Storm (2004, 2010, 2018, 2020)
- It is a historic five Olympic gold medals (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020)
- She has won two NCAA Championships with UConn (2000, 2002)
- And four FIBA World Cups (2002, 2010, 2014, 2018)
- She is one of only 11 women to attain all four accolades
- She is also a five-time EuroLeague Women champion (2007-2010, 2013)
- During her WNBA career, she has been selected to twelve WNBA All-Star teams
- And eight All-WNBA teams
- Additionally, she was voted by fans as one of the WNBA’s Top 15 Players of All Time in 2011
- She was voted into the WNBA Top 20@20 as one of the league’s top 20 players of all time in 2016
- And was voted into The W25 as one of the league’s top 25 players of all time in 2021
- Her fifth Olympic gold medal, at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, makes her one of only two Olympic basketball players—of either gender—ever to win five gold medals
- With the other player being her US Olympic teammate Diana Taurasi
- Bird publicly confirmed on June 16, 2022 that she will retire from playing professional basketball after the 2022 WNBA season
- Bird was born in Syosset, Nassau County, New York, on Long Island to Herschel and Nancy Bird
- She has one sibling, an older sister named Jen
- Her father’s ancestry is Russian-Jewish
- Their original last name was “Boorda”
- She is also an Israeli citizen since 2006, on account of her Jewish father and paternal grandparents
- But she represents her birth country, the United States, in international competitions
- Bird was interested in sports from an early age, which was partly influenced by her athletic older sister
- Besides basketball, she played soccer and tennis and ran track
- Bird started playing Amateur Athletic Union basketball in the sixth grade
- While only 11 years old, she played during halftime of a St. John’s basketball game
- Her play was so impressive that a security guard asked for her autograph
- Bird publicly came out as a lesbian on July 20, 2017
- Revealing that she had been dating soccer player Megan Rapinoe for several months
- In 2018, she and Rapinoe became the first same-sex couple on the cover of ESPN The Magazine’s “Body Issue”
- They announced their engagement on October 30, 2020
- She was included in the 2022 Queer 50 list
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