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Tara S

Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Names WNBA Trio to Class of 2025

April 9, 2025 by Tara S

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced this year’s inductees on Saturday, with WNBA legends Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles, and Maya Moore headlining a star-studded Class of 2025.

The Hall of Fame mandates a two-year post-retirement waiting period for eligibility, with both Bird and Fowles qualifying for the shortlist following their 2022 retirements from the WNBA.

Moore officially retired from the WNBA in early 2023, despite stepping away from professional basketball in 2018.

2025 Hall of Fame class highlights WNBA accolades

This year’s class is the first to ever feature three WNBA players, proving the iconic trio’s monumental contributions to the sport.

All three players won multiple Olympic gold medals with Team USA in addition to competing in at least three NCAA Final Fours, with UConn alums Bird and Moore counting two national championships among their accolades.

Moore is a four-time WNBA champion with the Minnesota Lynx, earning her last two titles with Fowles as her teammate, while Bird won four WNBA titles with the Seattle Storm.

Both Moore and Fowles have picked up WNBA MVP awards, while Bird retired as the league’s career assists leader.

How to attend the Hall of Fame’s 2025 Enshrinement Weekend

The Naismith Hall of Fame’s 2025 Enshrinement Weekend tips off on September 5th, with both weekend packages and single event tickets currently available for purchase online.

Filed Under: Women's Basketball

2026 Expansion Team Denver Breaks NWSL Ticket Sales Record

April 9, 2025 by Tara S

Dee Lab | Just Women’s Sports

Less than two months after winning the bid to become the 16th NWSL team, 2026 expansion franchise Denver has already sold over 10,000 season ticket deposits, setting a new league record.

This week’s sales record comes after Denver became the fastest expansion franchise in NWSL history to surpass 5,000 season ticket deposits, with 5,280 snapped up in the first three days following the league awarding a team to the Mile High City.

“This milestone showcases that our community is passionate about women’s professional soccer and what we are building in Denver and across the front range,” said the club’s controlling owner Rob Cohen in a statement on Monday.

Denver continues plans for top-tier facilities

The incoming NWSL club has been busy outside the box office, too, as Denver dropped plans for a new 14,500-seat, purpose-built stadium last month.

With the team’s permanent competition digs aiming to open for the 2028 season, the club is also constructing both a purpose-built, 12,000-seat temporary stadium for the squad’s 2026 and 2027 season.

That stadium, as well as the team’s permanent state-of-the-art training and performance facility, will be located approximately 14 miles southeast of Denver in nearby Centennial, Colorado.

“There is still a great deal of work to be done,” said Cohen. “We are excited to continue collaborating with our community to create a club that is representative and inclusive of all of Colorado.”

How to secure NWSL Denver season tickets

With inventory flying off of Denver’s proverbial shelves, those interested in snagging season tickets to the NWSL’s 16th franchise can do so by submitting a deposit online.

Filed Under: Soccer, Women's Soccer

UConn Women’s Basketball Wins 12th NCAA Championship

April 9, 2025 by Tara S

Claire Watkins | Just Women’s Sports

The No. 2-seed UConn Huskies are atop college basketball once again, winning a record-extending 12th NCAA championship in a 82-59 blowout victory over No. 1-seed South Carolina on Sunday.

The title ends a nine-year drought for the dynasty program — the longest stretch without hoisting the trophy since the Huskies’ first-ever national championship in 1995.

Trio of Huskies fuel UConn’s championship grab

After dominating overall No. 1-seed UCLA 85-51 on Final Four Friday, UConn earned a season finale face-off against the defending champion Gamecocks, who punched their spot in Sunday’s championship showdown by taking down No. 1-seed Texas 74-57 — South Carolina’s third win over their SEC rival this season.

The big day, however, belonged to the Huskies, as UConn’s “Big Three” of star senior Paige Bueckers, standout guard Azzi Fudd, and freshman phenom Sarah Strong posted a combined 65 points to outscore South Carolina.

Fudd and Strong led the game’s stat sheet by scoring 24 points each, helping Fudd snag the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player honor — and earning Strong a new NCAA record.

After finishing March Madness with 114 total points across UConn’s six-game run, the newly crowned 2024/25 Freshman of the Year broke the NCAA tournament’s freshman scoring record, as Strong surpassed 2011 WNBA MVP Tamika Catchings, who posted 111 points in Tennessee’s 1998 championship run.

As for graduating superstar Bueckers, her 17 points made her the Huskies’ all-time NCAA tournament scoring leader, while Sunday’s title cements her legacy, capping her college career by adding her name to the litany of UConn greats in the Storrs rafters.

“It’s been a story of resilience, of gratitude, of overcoming adversity and just responding to life’s challenges,” said Bueckers after her last game as a Husky.

“This is one of the most emotional Final Fours and emotional national championships I’ve been a part of since that very first one,” echoed head coach Geno Auriemma.

All in all, UConn overcame years of close calls, injury woes, and buzzer-beating heartbreak to restore their March Madness dynasty. With Fudd returning next season alongside Strong, the Huskies’ future looks brighter than ever.

South Carolina's MiLaysia Fulwiley takes a shot against Texas in their 2024/25 NCAA tournament semifinal.
South Carolina’s MiLaysia Fulwiley is primed for a breakout season. (Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

Final Four teams eye 2026 return

On the other side of the championship coin, the Gamecocks never quite hit their stride on Sunday, falling one game short of a back-to-back title after snagging a spot in their third championship game in four years.

“We lost to a very, very good basketball team,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said after the defeat. “They beat our ass, but they didn’t make us like it. There’s a difference.”

Though Sunday’s loss stings, South Carolina’s youthful core means the Gamecocks — like the young squads from Final Four teams UCLA and Texas — will be back, packing both March Madness experience and a hefty dose of vengeance next year.

“I hope they’re crying,” Staley said of her returning players. “I hope they’re boo-hoo-ing because from crying they have emotion about losing, makes you work hard in the offseason.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by the 2024/25 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, UCLA star Lauren Betts.

“We have the same team coming next year,” Betts said of the Bruins’ underclass core after Friday’s Final Four loss. “I hope this fuels us, and I hope that we come out angry after this.”

After faltering in their own Final Four matchup on Friday, Texas head coach Vic Schaefer offered a similar silver lining.

“It won’t be easier tonight or tomorrow, but it will be easier knowing them three are around,” Schaefer said of Longhorn underclassmen Madison Booker, Bree Hall, and Jordan Lee. “They are competitors. And again, they’re kids that invest in their craft.”

The Final Four squads unable to seal the deal this season will rue an opportunity lost, but with another year of development, expect the same names to dominate the news cycle next March.

Filed Under: Women's Basketball

Can U.S. figure skating carry this momentum to the Olympics?

April 2, 2025 by Tara S

D’Arcy Maine | ESPN

BOSTON — Alysa Liu couldn’t believe it.

As she sat on the white couch, flanked by her two coaches, and with the eyes of everyone in the TD Garden firmly on her, she said — or mouthed, it was impossible to hear much of anything with the enthusiastic noise of the crowd vibrating around the arena — “What?” in disbelief. Her free skate score had just been announced to the crowd — a 148.39 for a 222.97 total score — and the realization hit her in an instant.

She was the 2025 world champion.

The 19-year-old then audibly said, “What the hell?” with a wide, expressive smile, still in apparent shock over what she had done.

Liu’s triumph was perhaps the most unexpected result of a memorable weekend. In addition to knocking off reigning three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan and becoming the first American woman to claim the title since 2006, Liu had done it less than a year after returning to the sport following a two-year retirement.

“I’m not going to lie, this is an insane story,” Liu said on the television broadcast moments later. “I don’t know how I came back to be world champion.”

And Liu’s victory was just the start of a dominant, statement-making weekend from the American contingent, who collectively proved they were yet again the world’s top skating power after relinquishing that claim in recent years. On Saturday afternoon, Madison Chock and Evan Bates captured their third straight ice dance world championship and hours later, Ilia Malinin closed the event — with yet another high-flying performance that he’s become known for — to clinch his second consecutive title as the men’s world champion.

It marked the first time in history the Americans won three of the possible four world titles at a single world championship.

“I feel very happy to be one of the three winning in [front of] a home crowd in America,” Malinin said on Saturday night. “I’m really proud of the team that we were able to put up.”

Before the end of Malinin’s skate, which included a crowd-deafening quad axel and a near fever pitch-inducing backflip, the home crowd was on its feet and roaring with an ovation usually only heard in the building in the postseason for the Celtics and Bruins. It was the culmination of four storybook days for the Americans, and the fans, and with less than a year until the sport’s pinnacle at the 2026 Olympic Games, it was as if everyone believed it was a sign of what was yet to come.

“To have three world champions in an Olympic season is so exciting,” Gracie Gold, a member of the 2014 bronze medal-winning American team and two-time national champion, told ESPN at TD Garden on Saturday. “I’m feeling super optimistic [about Olympic medal chances]. … It’s such an important year. I think everyone is feeling optimistic. Who wouldn’t be?”


The United States has had no shortage of superstars in figure skating over the decades. The most decorated skaters, such as Michelle Kwan, Kristi Yamaguchi, Dorothy Hamill and Brian Boitano, remain well-known names in the country’s sports landscape and collectively accumulated Olympic medals, world championships and various other titles from the sport’s biggest events.

But while Americans have continued to have strong podium success in ice dance, and Nathan Chen and the U.S. team earned gold medals in 2022 in Beijing, the Americans overall simply haven’t had the same consistent results across the board. No American woman has claimed an Olympic singles medal since Sasha Cohen won silver in 2006, and the gold medal drought dates even further to Sarah Hughes in 2002.

Liu, a prodigious talent with an impressive array of difficult skills from an early age, looked to be the best hope to reverse those fortunes, but she initially retired in 2022 as a burned-out 16-year-old following a third-place finish at the world championships.

Perhaps in large part because of the struggles of the women — once the most recognizable among all of the country’s Winter Olympians — interest in the sport, from viewership to participation, has waned in recent years.

But the weekend in Boston seemed to prove the country had turned a corner. The combination of talented American skaters, buoyed by the partisan and sold-out crowds, and the absence of the Russians (the country has been barred from competition since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022) paved the way for a staggering showing.

And it goes beyond those who earned world titles. All three American women finished in the top five on Friday — something that hadn’t happened since 2001. Isabeau Levito, who won silver at the 2024 worlds, finished in fourth place. Amber Glenn, who had been among the favorites entering the competition after a previously undefeated season, clawed her way back to fifth place after a challenging short program Wednesday.

“I mean, ‘Go Team USA,’ that’s kind of all I can say,” Liu told reporters later. “I’m so proud of both Isabeau and Amber for putting up such great performances, such a great fight, and they were really fun to be with this week.”

She later added they all cheer each other on and feed off one another’s success. (And even, in Liu’s case, borrow Glenn’s yoga mat ahead of competition.)

“All of that just drives us to be better also for each other,” she said.

Chock, 32, and Bates, 36, have perhaps been the glue of the American contingent since the Olympics three years ago. The pair were members of the 2022 Olympic team that originally won silver and was upgraded to gold after the Russian Olympic Committee team was stripped of the top prize following a doping scandal. Chock and Bates have also won six world medals, including the past three world titles. And they have followed in a line of strong American duos. The country has medaled in the event in every Games since 2006.

While neither of the country’s other ice dance teams made the podium, both finished in the top 10. Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko briefly held the top spot during the competition and finished fifth. Caroline Green and Michael Parsons ended in ninth place. Bates praised both duos after the event Saturday, and said there was an “incredibly strong” pipeline in the discipline in the U.S.

“Our goal is to be on top of the podium in Milan,” he said. “This [victory] doesn’t really change that.”

And following his rout at TD Garden, there is perhaps no one more assured of Olympic glory than Malinin.

The 20-year-old is unassuming off the ice and was spotted throughout the week walking around the concourse at TD Arena during other events and cheering on his American teammates. But he is a certified superstar on the ice — a “QuadGod” as his Instagram handle suggests, with degrees of difficulty so stratospheric that, like Simone Biles in gymnastics, he seems impossible to catch.

After his mind-blowing short program Thursday, in which he took a three-point lead over eventual bronze medalist Yuma Kagiyama and more than a 15-point edge over the rest of the field, Malinin had received a adoring reaction from the crowd before he was even finished, and dazzled with his dizzying array of quad jumps and his signature “raspberry twist” move.

Even Kagiyama couldn’t hide his admiration.

“I feel like his skating and his artistry, his expressions [are] getting better year by year,” he said through a translator. “I’m starting to think he’s invincible.”

On Saturday, Malinin further separated himself from Kagiyama and the rest with another mesmerizing and gravity-defying skate. With virtually every jump and skill lighting up the jumbotron in green, indicating it had been successful and earning bonus points for execution, the numbers piled up so fast it felt more like a video game than an artistic endeavor. His free skate score of 208.15 was over 15 points higher than anyone, and his final total score of 318.56 was 31.09 better than second-place finisher Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan.

With one year to go before the Milano Cortina Olympics, Malinin seems to be in a league of his own, with everyone else battling for second place, and he will almost undoubtedly be among the faces of the Games and perhaps the face of Team USA. He has spoken about his desire to further popularize the sport, at home and across the globe, and will likely do just that with every viral performance and high-profile endorsement he secures. He did a backflip — again — on the ice after being introduced to the crowd as the world champion during the victory ceremony.

Jason Brown, the 30-year-old sentimental fan favorite beloved for his artistry and passion but lacking some of the most difficult elements of his top-placing peers, had a nearly flawless free skate to finish eighth. Andrew Torgashev, the 2025 national runner-up, had a more challenging outing, falling twice during an error-prone free skate to land in 22nd place.

The pairs competition was the weakest spot for the Americans in Boston, but even that can be considered a win. Because Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov finished in sixth, and Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea in seventh, their combined result of 13 gives the country a chance to qualify three teams for the Olympics — something that hasn’t been done since 1994.

“That would mean a lot,” Mitrofanov told NBC Sports on Thursday. “It’s bigger than us. That’s something, actually [that] we kind of set a little goal in our heads [coming into worlds].”

So now, the biggest question for the Americans in the sport is a simple one: Can they keep it up and dominate on the world’s biggest stage in February in Italy?

It certainly seems as if the country’s top skaters, across disciplines, are capable of doing just that. But of course, the participation status of the Russians remains unclear, and there are still 313 long, unpredictable days until the Olympic team event gets underway.

“A lot can happen in skating,” Gold said to ESPN on Saturday. “Ice is slippery.”

Filed Under: Olympics, Skating

Sienna Betts is Morgan Wootten National Girls High School Basketball Player of the Year

April 2, 2025 by Tara S

Mitch Stephens, Myckena Guerrero, SBLive Sports 

What a great day it was for Grandview (Aurora, Colo.) senior girls basketball standout Sienna Betts.

The 6-foot-4 post was named the Morgan Wootten National Girls High School Basketball Player of the Year on Sunday, two days before the McDonald’s All-American Games in Brooklyn (N.Y.).

Betts is the No. 2 ranked senior in the nation according to ESPN after she averaged 23.0 points, 16.5 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 3.4 blocks per game while shooting 60% from the floor. Her Grandview (Aurora) Wolves finished 25-3 and won a Colorado 6A state title.

While her accomplishments on the court are well known by those who have followed her prestigious basketball career, what really set her apart from other finalists were off-the-court actions. They included:

  • Every other week during the season, Sienna and her team works with a Special Olympics basketball team, creating an inclusive positive environment for athletes of all abilities.
  • She tutors students in math, offering academic support and assisting with executive functioning skills for those in need.

Additionally, she has volunteered at youth basketball camps, served meals with her team at the Ronald McDonald House and helped elderly individuals with tasks around their homes 

The same day Betts won the award, he future school UCLA earned its first entrance to the NCAA Final 4 with a 72-65 win over LSU in Spokane, Wash. Betts’ sister Lauren, a 6-7 junior, fought off foul trouble and finished with 17 points and seven rebounds.

Morgan Wootten, 88, is the chairman of the McDonald’s All-American Games Selection Committee. The award recognizes players who embody both on- and off-court accomplishments.

Among previous winners for the award, which has been presented since 2002, were Paige Bueckers (2020), Breanna Stewart (2012), Chiney Ogwumike (2010), Maya Moore (2007) and Candace Parker (2004).


Bookmark High School on SI for all of the latest high school sports news.

Filed Under: Women's Basketball, Women's Sports, Youth Sports

NFL Considers Backers for Pro Flag Football Leagues Ahead of LA28

April 2, 2025 by Tara S

Flag football was already a significant priority for the NFL. Now, the sport is about to get another boost in that accelerating development.

By Eric Fisher | Front Office Sports

ALM BEACH, Fla. — The National Football League is actively fielding inbound interest from multiple potential business partners that would be involved in a professional flag football league, sources said. The most probable structure at this point would be an entity that would be heavily supported by, but not operated by, the NFL.

NFL-supported professional flag football leagues, for both men and women, are unquestionably forthcoming. It’s just a matter of when, with soon after the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles becoming an increasingly likely timetable. 

The league has made no secret of its intense interest in promoting flag football, both in a youth participation context and a professional one—particularly in the wake of the inclusion of the sport in the 2028 Games and the potential involvement of NFL players there. Now, further steps are beginning to take shape. 

“Flag is real. All levels of flag are real. I’m really, personally, bullish on this,” said Chiefs president Mark Donovan. “When you add in all the pieces that are coming, including the things happening around women’s sports, the investment going into that, I think flag is poised to be enormous.”

Donovan continued in his view that the 2028 Olympics will be a watershed moment for the development of flag football, with “rumblings and the creation” of the pro leagues likely preceding that event, and the actual entities following. 

“I think the Olympics piece is a compelling point for any [NFL team] owner,” Donovan said. “You’re going to see us get aggressive in establishing the organizing bodies, the accreditations. … There are plenty of people who would want to invest in [this].”

Flag football is a prominent part of the NFL annual meeting being held here this week, with the three-day session kicked off in part by a session focused on women’s sports and flag football that included WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark, women’s tennis icon Serena Williams, and former Giants quarterback Eli Manning. 

“It was interesting to hear Caitlin say, ‘If flag football was around when I was growing up, I might not be a basketball player,’” said Chiefs owner Clark Hunt. 

NFL EVP of club business Peter O’Reilly similarly reiterated on Monday the importance of flag football to the league. 

“It’s an entry point and the way we can scale our game. It’s girls and boys in schools,” O’Reilly said. “Since that Olympic announcement a couple of years ago, investment around the world in flag programs is huge. That obviously has a participation impact, but it also has a fandom impact in a very real way.” 

The establishment of professional flag football leagues will also very likely be joined by media contracts fetching interest from multiple bidders. 

Filed Under: Flag Football

Naismith Awards Names 2024/25 NCAA National Player of the Year Finalists

March 27, 2025 by Tara S

Dee Lab | Just women’s Sports

The Naismith Awards sliced their already elite 10-athlete National Player of the Year (POY) list down to four finalists on Tuesday, narrowing the race for the 2024/25 NCAA basketball season’s top individual honor.

Earning spots in the final tally are two sophomore phenoms, USC’s JuJu Watkins and Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, as well as UCLA junior Lauren Betts and UConn senior Paige Bueckers.

“The brilliance of these athletes and their unrelenting passion for college basketball are evident in their outstanding accomplishments,” noted Atlanta Tipoff Club president Eric Oberman, whose organization bestows the annual award.

Three of the finalists have already claimed some POY hardware for their 2024/25 performances, with Hidalgo, Bueckers, and Watkins all earning the honor for their respective conferences. Hidalgo and Betts also bagged Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) awards from the ACC and Big Ten, respectively.

Double-dipping on the national stage are Betts, Hidalgo, and Watkins, whose POY finalist status comes just four days after the Naismith Awards named the trio to its four-athlete DPOY final list.

Buoyed by their individual contributions, all four players have helped their programs become veritable contenders to claim the 2024/25 national championship trophy.

Betts’s Bruins entered March Madness as the overall No. 1 seed, with Watkins’s Trojans also claiming a top spot in the 2025 NCAA bracket. Behind team-leading contributions from Bueckers and Hidalgo, UConn and Notre Dame snagged No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, respectively.

“Their efforts have been instrumental in their teams’ successes this season. Recognizing any of these extraordinary student-athletes with the Jersey Mike’s Naismith Trophy would be a fitting tribute to their excellence.”

POY race reflects parity-filled NCAA season
Unlike past seasons with arguably clear-cut frontrunners, the 2024/25 NCAA season is stacked with both parity and standout performers, giving each member of the exclusive POY finalist quartet a strong case to snag the prestigious award.

With her third time as a POY finalist, Bueckers — a playmaking guard who shoots over 54% from the field — could add a second Naismith trophy to her shelf, bookending her UConn career after becoming the only freshman winner in the award’s now 42-year history in 2021.

That said, she’ll have stiff competition from fellow 2023/24 finalist Watkins, whose prolific scoring surpassed the two-season tally notched by the all-time Division I points leader, back-to-back POY winner-turned-WNBA Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark.

Star center Betts has anchored the Bruins in the paint all season, setting a UCLA record for blocks while shooting over 64% from the floor and averaging a near double-double with 9.7 rebounds per game.

As for Hidalgo, who currently sits third in the league with over 24 points per game, the Irish guard has yet to register a single collegiate appearances with less than 10 points.

The four finalists will have one final weekend of March Madness competition to impress voters before the POY winner is announced on April 2nd — two days before the NCAA tournament’s Final Four tips off.

Unfortunately, after suffering a season-ending ACL tear on Monday, Watkins’s POY bid rests on her already complete 2024/25 campaign.

How to vote for the 2024/25 National Player of the Year
While the majority of the Naismith Awards’ final counts rest with coaches, conference commissioners, journalists, and former winners, fans account for 5% of the total vote.

With POY candidates, DPOY finalists, and Coach of the Year nominees on the ballot, fans can vote once per day online for the NCAA’s top basketball personnel. Voting closes at 12 PM ET on April 1st.

Filed Under: Women's Basketball

Aaliyah Chavez, top-rated women’s hoops recruit in the county, commits to Oklahoma

March 27, 2025 by Tara S

By: Associated Press

Aaliyah Chavez, the top-rated women’s basketball recruit in the county, committed to Oklahoma on Tuesday.

She made her announcement the day after the Sooners advanced to the women’s NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013.

Chavez, a 5-foot-11 point guard who recently led Lubbock Monterey High School to a Texas state championship, picked the Sooners over power programs South Carolina, Texas, LSU and her hometown university Texas Tech.

“I’m ready to give my all to make this my home and bring a national championship to the city of Norman,” Chavez said in a televised news conference from her high school campus.

Chavez is rated by ESPN HoopGurlz as the No. 1 recruit in the nation in the class of 2025. She was the Naismith and Gatorade national player of the year and a McDonald’s All-American. She averaged 34.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.7 steals as a senior. She scored nearly 4,800 points in her high school career.

Oklahoma has a legacy of success in the NCAA Tournament with 11 trips to the Sweet 16 and three Final Fours in 2002, 2009 and 2010. The No. 3 seed Sooners continue their March Madness run against No. 2 UConn on Saturday in Spokane, Washington.

Filed Under: Women's Basketball, Youth Sports

Vienna native named first female Division I college baseball general manager

March 27, 2025 by Tara S

John Domen | WTop News

Only a few colleges nationwide have elected to have a baseball general manager on staff. Now, a 25-year-old woman from Fairfax County, Virginia, is stepping up to the plate.

Sam Gjormand became the first general manager of the baseball team at the College of Charleston in South Carolina earlier this year.

She’s believed to be the first woman to join a college baseball coaching staff.

The Virginia native has been around baseball diamonds her entire life. Well, at least since she was two days old.

Her dad, Mark, was the head varsity baseball coach at James Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia, since well before she was born. As such, she’s always grown up around the game.

Sure, she tried softball when she had to give up baseball, but it wasn’t something she was passionate about. Gjormand admitted she always found herself wandering back to her dad’s field every chance she got.

Gjormand served as a team manager of the baseball team at James Madison University while she was a student there.

That’s how she got on the radar of College of Charleston’s head baseball coach, Chad Holbrook, who quickly hired her upon graduation.

The college announced her promotion to general manager late last month.

Even though college sports are becoming more professionalized, a GM at the collegiate level still carries different responsibilities compared to what you see from a GM in Major League Baseball.

“I’m helping out with our support staff, making sure everybody has what they need, kind of as a liaison between our coaching staff and them,” Gjormand said. “I’m overseeing equipment, travel. I’m overseeing, basically, everyday team needs, making sure everybody is taken care of, from the baseball staff outward.”

Those are the same responsibilities she had in years past. But as times change in college sports, her ability to help discern talent gives her added responsibilities.

“With this new GM title, I’m going to take over some of the ‘NIL’ (name, image and likeness payments) responsibilities, working with our collective, the Charleston Edge, to get our players taken care of, and working with some of our donors to make sure we’re bringing it in on that end as well,” she added.

Working behind the scenes with the Northern Virginia College League, as well as the prestigious Cape Cod League, gave her a lot of practice handling administrative roles.

“I really like being the cog that makes the motor turn, is how I put it to people,” Gjormand said. “I like being behind the scenes. I don’t need to be the face of a program, but I like knowing that when I show up every day, I have the opportunity to really make something special happen with this program.”

‘Get your foot in the door’: Breaking new ground on college baseball diamonds

It’s an opportunity that’s much more common in professional baseball, especially at the minor league level, though more and more women have been hired for front office roles in the major league, too.

In fact, Gjormand always figured if she was going to work in baseball, it might have to be on the pro ball side of things. She certainly hadn’t imagined a career in college baseball before she was offered one.

She said other women are now seeing there are footsteps they can follow as well.

“When I get to hear from young women trying to break through the game or seeing what I’m doing on the college side of things, and saying, ‘I didn’t know there was a spot for me in college baseball. I just thought it was big league or bust,’” Gjormand said. “That is cool for me to hear.”

Only one other college program has its own general manager. When Gjormand’s new position was announced, Coach Holbrook offered the kind of praise anyone would want to hear from their boss, regardless of their job or gender.

“Sam has proven to be invaluable to our baseball program,” Holbrook said in a February statement. “She is much more than an administrator; she has an incredible and vast knowledge of the game and provides our coaches incredible baseball insight to all things Cougar Baseball. She is simply great at her job and these new responsibilities will only make our program much better. We are lucky to have her at The College.”

Asked what advice she’s given other women who are trying to work their way into college baseball, Gjormand said, “Just get your foot in the door, and then that’s your opportunity to start running.”

“Once you start running, nobody’s telling you when you have to stop or how far you’re allowed to go. You just keep on going,” she added.

And while the overall number of women involved in baseball is minimal, the bond and sisterhood that exists between them is strong.

“I think the cool part about it is seeing how different all of our stories are,” Gjormand said. “But the one common theme is … our ambition and just knowing that there’s a place for us, and not taking no for an answer.”

Filed Under: baseball, Women in Sports

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Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Names WNBA Trio to Class of 2025

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2026 Expansion Team Denver Breaks NWSL Ticket Sales Record

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