Sue Bird, the retired point guard of the Seattle Storm and a four-time WNBA champion, has become the first-ever LGBTQIA+ athlete to be honored with a statue.
From Babe Ruth to Kobe Bryant, stadiums have spent decades using statues to honor the retired legends who played under their roofs. However, they’ve mostly given to male athletes, and exclusively straight ones, until that changed on Sunday, August 17.
In front of Climate Pledge Arena, tributes were shared by Councilmember Girmay Zahilay and former teammates Lauren Jackson and Swin Cash before a black cloth was dramatically lifted, unveiling a bronze Bird in the midst of a layup. After the big reveal, it was time for Sue Bird to speak about her legacy on her own terms.
“Twenty-three years ago, I stepped off a plane in Seattle as a 21-year-old kid from New York, fresh out of college, wondering what my life was gonna be like…,” said Bird. “Honestly, that 21- year-old would never have believed this moment was possible, and that Seattle would become everything she didn’t know she needed.”
Bird’s loyalty to the Storm, never traded nor signed elsewhere in the WNBA across her 20-year career, is as undoubtable as her impact on the team itself. She was everything you could ask for in a point guard, an anchoring force that her teammates could rely on for passes and easy points. The all-time leader in assists, every night she could consistently bring ten points and five assists to the table. In the league’s current era of explosive plays and half-court shots, that sounds quaint. For a WNBA team in the 2000s still trying to find its footing, it was revolutionary.
Her bedrock consistency allowed her teammates, all-stars like Lauren Jackson and Brianna Stewart, to become the best versions of themselves. Together, with Bird as their guiding compass, the Seattle Storm would become four-time champions across two decades. Only two other players, across all of professional basketball, have brought that many trophies to the town they were originally drafted to.
Bird always did what she could to serve her communities, even off the court. She was also the vice president of the players union. When Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, then owner of the Atlanta Dream, criticized the WNBA for supporting Black Lives Matter during the 2020 season, it was Bird’s idea for players to wear “Vote Warnock” shirts before games. Loeffler would eventually sell her ownership of the Dream, whereas the WNBA continues to be progressive and inclusive, an attitude set by Bird and her peers.
Bird’s monument is just the latest in a chain of recent tributes to hometown heroes. Bird’s wife, soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe, had her number retired in 2023. Lenny Wilkins, the SuperSonics coach who inspired the team to a championship in 1979, had his statue unveiled last June. Wilkins’ and Bird’s bronze doppelgängers are right next to each other, side-by-side facing the arena’s southern entrance.
At the ballpark, meanwhile, Mariners legend Ichiro Suzuki was celebrated in early August, culminating in the announcement of his own statue, to debut in 2026. Next year, Suzuki will share his retired number with Randy Johnson, the Mariners’ Hall of Fame pitcher, who also wore 51.
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