Nneka Ogwumike Sends Powerful Message to Aspiring Female Athletes

The Seattle Storm forward is a leading voice in the movement to elevate women’s sports.

Nneka Ogwumike / Arturo Holmes/Getty Images

For the past several months, “everyone watches women’s sports” has been the anthem in the sporting world as female sporting events have gained greater attention from the media and fans alike. Printed on T-shirts released by TOGETHXR—the female athlete-founded media company dedicated to elevating the stories of women in sports—the phrase has come to represent a new movement that has given female athletes more attention than ever before.

At the forefront of the movement are athletes like Alex Morgan, Sue Bird (two of TOGETHXR’s cofounders) and Nneka Ogwumike, the WNBA veteran and current president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association. The athlete has also taken part in several events sponsored by TOGETHXR, supporting their mission to bolster women’s sports.

Recently, she traded the typical anthem for a new one—and we felt we had to amplify her message. Ogwumike posted a handful of photos from a team trip to Atlanta to her Instagram on Aug. 19, wearing a white T-shirt by Playa Society that read “Girls who play sports become women who lead.”

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It was a simple, but effective message, and only the latest step in the larger sporting world movement. “Be a voice, not an echo,” she wrote in the accompanying caption, proving her dedication to being a leading force in the WNBA and beyond.

Ogwumike is as much a force off the court as she is on it. The forward is one of the leading scorers on the Storm’s roster, helping the team to the No. 5 spot in the league standings heading into the latter half of the season. She and the rest of the squad will return to the court to take on the Mystics on Aug. 20 at 7 p.m. ET.