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Obviously, it starts with basketball, hoping to get people to buy into the team and show up to games, but just using our platform as a women’s basketball player to do more than just that.

-Sabrina Ionescu

Sabrina Ionescu

Her Story & Influence Sabrina Ionescu is an university of Oregon alumna who is currently part of the New York Liberty basketballl team in WNBA league. She is a legendary college basketball person who has only made an impact on popularizing women’s basketball but also Women’s sport in general. University of Oregon has never been in the top of the standings in women’s basketball until Sabrina had signed that Letter of Content with them for a 4 years scholarship. They have won 4 straight years in a row in their conference and also made it to March Madness which made the history of the schools. Amongst that all she has been named the MVP of the conference each year.

She had won such amazing awards which drew people to watch more basketball as she was and still is an amazing basketball player with a really high basketball IQ. Today, she uses her popularity to increase the population of watching and supporting women’s sports because it is well known that women’s basketball, soccer, etc are the sports that are usually called “men’s sports”.

She had accomplished an award of the most triple doubles in her NCAA career which broke the record of mens and womens basketball. With that she had proved that females are as capable of doing the same things as men if not even more. University of Oregon and WNCAA league as well as, WNBA league -especially New York Liberty are counting much more audience on their live games as well as on television. Women in sports has stopped fighting for their appreciation in sport for years but then Sabrina made such an amazing impact which also awoke many other famous players, from men and women sports, to Popularize it and appreciate it more.

Some famous people in sports that she had drawn attention to that helped her in her goals are Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, Candace Parker, Stephen Curry, Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, and many others.

She has inspired many other famous basketball players to promote women’s basketball even more. Majority of female players were simply used to women’s sports not being encouraged; however, Sabrina had expanded those stereotypes and widened the boundaries.

An average college women’s basketball player that gets to experience not more than 300 people in the gym on the important home games compared to men who most of the time get the full arena.

It gets frustrating that both teams put the same amount of work, if not females even get more work because they are not as tall and strong but dimensions of the courts are the same as men- that being said, women’s sports have to condition more and work on their skills more. So, Sabrina Ionescu deserves a monument because she had made an impact in this world that I thought was almost impossible.

Sabrina Ionescu during her first year in the WNBA league and already being on the New York Liberty newspaper covers as a person who is continuously fighting for equality in sports through all her basketball achievements.

She was all over the news for 4 years of her college career and even continues being right now with her great performances in WNBA that people are more exposed to watching and following womens basketball, her work and her passion about popularizing women’s sports in general. I believe that she should be acknowledged for all she has done, is still doing and only being 26 years old.

The monument would look like this: there would be a darker color, most likely black stone in the shape of a rectangle with Sabrina’s name indented in it as well as “University of Oregon 2016-2020”. On the darker stone covered and nicely polished, lacquered marble stone there will be bronze color Sabrina in a shape of shooting the ball to the basket. The place of this monument on campus would be in front of the entrance of Eagle Bank Arena as she had such an impact on GMU women’s basketball games as well where we experienced more audience then before her career. Also, EBA arena is the most adequate with her impact in this world.

Statue of Sabrina Ionescu