Sylvia Fowles Is as Dominant as Sue Bird. Why Isn’t She Better Known?
Sylvia Fowles Is As Dominant As Sue Bird. It’s safe to say that Sylvia Fowles is one of the greatest American athletes of all time.
US national women’s basketball team won four gold medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The Minnesota Lynx have won two W.N.B.A. championships.
A total of eight W.N.B.A. All-Star teams were selected. The league’s most valuable player award. She has the best lifetime rebounding average in the league and the highest career field goal %.
At Louisiana State, Fowles had a stellar college career. Across the pond in the continent. In Russia, to be precise. China is where it’s at.
If you’re not a huge fan of women’s basketball, how much of the above did you already know before reading this? In all likelihood, you’ve missed out on greatness, which is a shame.
How good is Fowles?
To quote Cheryl Reeve, “the best-all-time classic centre in our league’s history,” Fowles has been with the Lynx and Olympic teams since 2015.
Maya Moore, a longtime rival and foe of Fowles’, gushed, “Better than 99 percent of players who have ever played. Moore described Fowles as “the personification of an ideal teammate” because of her combination of graceful strength and emotional intelligence.
Prior to the start of the current season Fowles, 36, stated that she was retiring due to the terrible beating her body had suffered throughout a long career. Next Sunday’s game against the Connecticut Sun in Minneapolis is expected to be the final of her 15-year W.N.B.A. career unless there is a dramatic change in the playoff situation.
It’s not just Fowles who will be retiring at the end of this W.N.B.A. regular season. Sue Bird, the Seattle Storm’s longtime point guard, will retire at the end of the season.
Even if you don’t pay attention to women’s sports, chances are you’ve heard of Bird. With a name like that, it’s no surprise that she was a household name when she left the W.N.B.A. after a stellar career at the University of Connecticut, where she was known as “the girl next door.”
Fowles can hold his own with the best of them. Many experts agree. However, she has remained mostly unknown despite the admiration she has from her colleagues and the growing fan base for women’s basketball.
Last week, Fowles told me that she had to learn to deal with the fact that she wasn’t a household name. The fact that a player of her quality is routinely neglected is something she has had to come to grips with during the course of her career, which she estimates took her around half her career to reach.
Fowles stated that she has never been on national magazine covers or been the subject of large-scale advertising efforts. The only attention she gets at large airports is the curious stares of passers-by who are taken aback by the sight of a lovely 6-foot-6 woman striding down the concourse.
According to Fowles: “It has been hard to do everything perfectly and consistently throughout the years and not receive the credit.” You have to let go at some time because if you don’t, you’ll always be angry.
Both Bird and Fowles can be considered equals in every way. They are two of the greatest players in the history of the sport, whose careers largely overlapped. It was during Fowles’s early years as a professional footballer in Russia that he and his Russian teammates became close friends.
Sponsorship deals, popularity, brand recognition, and even post-career broadcast chances are vastly out of reach for many athletes. This is in part due to the characteristic dynamics of sports. Low-post players don’t get as much attention as point guards. When it comes to posing for the camera, Bird has no problem. Fowles is a low-key guy.
Fowles’s voice seemed muffled when he paused.
In order to get seen, why should I be putting in more effort?
If only the W.N.B.A. could find a way to promote all of its players as she had hoped, the next generation of greats who looked like her would be as well recognized as she was. “Eighty percent of us are Black women, and you have to find a way to sell those Black women,” she remarked. … “I don’t think we’re doing a good job of it.”
In order to help bring about these adjustments, Fowles has done her part.
She averaged over 15 points and nearly 10 rebounds per game as an on-court coach for a youthful and struggling Lynx team during Minnesota’s 81-71 triumph over Atlanta Sunday.
Fowles’ departure means that other players will now have to compete for the respect of the team since Bird described Fowles’ personality as “motherly.”
When he’s not battling on the court, Fowles has been studying to become an undertaker. The term “undertaker” was not a typo. This is how it all began: Since attending her grandmother’s funeral as a child, she’s been fascinated with funerals and the depth of emotion they evoke. It is important to her that the loved ones of the lately deceased know that everything was done right up until the very last, with tremendous care.
As a result, one of the best women’s basketball players in history has announced her retirement to assist with the burial of the deceased. Indeed. Many people don’t know about this wonderful story. And this is an issue.