WNBA exec Bethany Donaphin is helping shape the future of the league

For a brief moment, Bethany Donaphin was able to be still.

Against the backdrop of the historic Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City, the site of the 2024 WNBA draft, Donaphin, who oversees the planning of the annual event, sat on a stool in the mezzanine section as preparations were completed. As the WNBA prepared to welcome in the next cohort of college basketball stars on this April evening, Donaphin reflected on how far the game has come since she first suited up as a freshman for the Stanford women’s basketball team in 1998. Back then, the WNBA was still in its infancy.

“There’s always been generational talent, but you now have generational talent met with corporate organizations knowing that they need to invest in this area,” Donaphin said. “It is a growth property.

“If I had known in 1998 that I would work in sports, I’d be thrilled to see what I’m seeing right now.”

As head of league operations, Donaphin is one of the WNBA’s most powerful stakeholders. She’s regarded as the league office’s jack-of-all-trades. As a former WNBA player who also has an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Donaphin said she’s viewed as the “translation layer” between WNBA players and its executives – the intersection of business and basketball, as WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert says.

“She does a little bit of everything,” Atlanta Dream guard Rhyne Howard said. “I feel like if you need something that has to do with the league or if you’re talking to somebody they’ll [say], ‘oh, you should talk to Bethany, or, Bethany can get it done.’ ”

Oftentimes when Engelbert takes to a WNBA podium, Donaphin can be spotted, but is rarely in the spotlight herself. With the exception of the WNBA draft lottery, typically the only front-facing public appearance Donaphin makes each year, her work is largely done behind the scenes.

As the WNBA moves through one of the most important points in its history for growth and popularity, Donaphin will play an outsize role in helping to mold the league’s future on and off the court.

On the evening before the draft, Donaphin met with the parents of the invited college prospects, becoming their first connection to the league. Some would ask what their daughters could expect as rookies, others playfully prodded her for information on who would select their daughters.

It’s an aspect of Donaphin’s job as a WNBA executive that she never anticipated. Little about Donaphin’s journey to this point in her career, however, has been unexpected. Instead, it’s been the result of a path Donaphin charted at a young age built on intentionality and determination.

“This is not the ceiling for her,” her former Stanford teammate Lindsey Yamasaki said. “It’s almost like she knew her purpose from the moment she started and that has been a guiding force for her.

“She just excels in everything that she does.”

In the summer of 1997, following Donaphin’s junior year of high school, she played at AAU Nationals as a member of the Liberty Belles, one of New York’s top teams. Despite being a standout performer at her high school – Horace Mann, a prestigious private high school in the Bronx – Donaphin was a late bloomer to college recruiting. While her team “did OK” on the court, Donaphin says, she never received much national attention as a recruit.

During one of her games at nationals, Donaphin recalled seeing Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer in the stands. At the time, VanDerveer had led the 1996 women’s basketball team to Olympic gold in Atlanta, a feat often seen as a turning point in women’s pro basketball in the United States. VanDerveer was present as coach of a Cardinal team that won titles in 1990 and 1992 and was fresh off a Final Four run.

VanDerveer wasn’t there to watch Donaphin, though. Donaphin’s teammate on the Belles was a highly touted and heavily recruited point guard out of Christ the King High School in Queens.

“I was there to see [Sue] Bird,” VanDerveer said, laughing.

Donaphin, however, caught the eye of the legendary Cardinal coach, as well as representatives from a number of national programs who had watched her at nationals.

“She moved really well,” VanDerveer said. “She was a skilled player, had great size and was really intelligent.”

The summer of 1997 would also mark the first season of the WNBA, which began with eight teams in its inaugural season, including the New York Liberty.

“I was a huge Liberty fan,” said Donaphin, who quickly added that she’s now impartial. “As a New Yorker, I remember those first days and the fervor in the city around Teresa Weatherspoon.”

Donaphin ultimately chose Stanford over Duke, Harvard and Notre Dame.

Donaphin spent much of her first season on “The Farm” in awe, a member of the Cardinal program learning from a famed coach.

“The shock was being a part of Tara’s program. … I can’t believe I’m on this team,” Donaphin said. 

As a player, Donaphin was relied on for her consistency while also exhibiting a competitive edge.

“She was just a steady force,” said Yamasaki, who played with Donaphin at Stanford from 1998 to 2002. Yamasaki is now a product manager at Nike. “I would trust that she would take anyone out, that she saw blood when she saw her competitor. I think that’s how she approaches her work and her challenges. ‘I’m going to win, there’s nothing that can take me down.’ ”

What impressed Yamasaki most about Donaphin was her relentless pursuit of growth – on the basketball court, in the classroom. Yamasaki says that commitment to growth has never left.

“Bethany never stopped, not a single day, working to improve herself. She’s always had a long-term vision for what she wanted to do and accomplish,” Yamasaki said. “She modeled that if you put in the time and you’re focused and you’re consistently aligned to the mission, then it will work. She started out [at Stanford] playing a little bit here and there, and then more and more. She became a more steady force as her time went on.”

As a senior starter, Donaphin averaged 8.7 points and 4.9 assists as Stanford went undefeated in Pac-10 regular-season play and reached the Sweet 16. Donaphin went undrafted following her senior season. She was invited to New York Liberty training camp two years in a row, but was cut in both seasons and went to play overseas in Turkey and Spain.

Near the end of the 2003 WNBA regular season, she signed with the Liberty. After idolizing Weatherspoon in high school, Donaphin was now a teammate of the WNBA legend. 

In 2004, Donaphin started 16 games for New York, averaging 5.0 points and 2.7 rebounds. She sank the winning shot in Game 3 of the opening round of the playoffs to eliminate the defending champion Detroit Shock with the assist coming from guard Becky Hammon, now coach of the Las Vegas Aces.

For Donaphin, the experience of playing in New York, and the opportunity to play in Madison Square Garden in front of her friends and family was a dream realized.

“What a blessing to be able to play in the city where I was a fan and where I grew up,” Donaphin said. She was the first New York native to play for the Liberty.

Following the end of her pro basketball career in 2008, Donaphin earned her MBA in 2012 and became a consultant. In 2016, she joined the NBA as an associate vice president of basketball operations before being named head of WNBA league operations in May 2018.

“As [the WNBA has] driven a business transformation, I’ve gotten to utilize both – having been a player, having been on NBA basketball outside, having been in business school, and having worked as a strategy consultant,” Donaphin said. “I like that various parts of my background get married into what I do day to day.”

In her role, Donaphin oversees all on-court matters for the league, including officiating, and rules and regulations. Over six years, Donaphin’s responsibilities have been expanded to include aspects of the WNBA’s business and growth, from participating in collective bargaining agreement negotiations to league expansion. She runs the league’s player marketing program and oversees social justice, mental health and community engagement platforms.

“It’s really just what’s the priority of the moment,” Donaphin said. “It has expanded, but in ways that I’m really thankful for because it’s meaningful work to me. ”

“She’s really multidimensional,” Engelbert said. “I would kind of frame that as [her being] a critical cog in everything we do.”

When Engelbert became the league commissioner in 2019, she assigned Donaphin to diversify the league’s coaching staffs.

“When I came into the league, we had three or four women leading teams,” Engelbert said. “It was a really important initiative that I put in Bethany’s lap.”

Donaphin emphasized creating a pipeline for former players looking to join the coaching ranks. When WNBA teams came to the league asking for an additional seat on their coaching staff, Donaphin utilized her experience from her time in the NBA, where she ran programs for former players, to develop a solution. She ultimately proposed a policy that would require that extra coach to be a former WNBA player.

“If they hired a former WNBA player, it’s a woman, and most likely a woman of color,” Engelbert said.  

When Engelbert originally brought the coaching issue to Donaphin, she did so assuming that the league would potentially see some kind of improvement in five to 10 years.

“We moved our numbers in 2 to 3 years,” she said.

In 2022 women held 58.3% of head coaching positions (compared with 41.7% in 2019) and 64.7% of assistant coaches (compared with 61.5% in 2019). In the same year, 50% of head coaches in the WNBA were coaches of color (compared with 25% in 2019) along with 61.7% of assistant coaches (42.3% in 2019), according to the 2022 TIDES Racial and Gender Report Card.

Excellence and defying expectation has been a standard for Donaphin and her family for multiple generations. Her mother, Alexa, attended historically Black Howard University, became an architect in New York City, and succeeded as one of the few Black women in her field. As a kid, Donaphin attended Howard’s homecoming with her mom, a Washington native.

Alexa Donaphin has a lifelong love of the arts. One of VanDerveer’s lasting memories of recruiting Donaphin was seeing a number of paintings in the Donaphin family’s brownstone in Harlem.

Alexa Donaphin passed her passion for the arts to her daughter, placing Bethany in ballet at age 3. By age 9, Donaphin was dancing on Broadway in Cinderella. As Donaphin started to grow taller in a room of shorter ballerinas, her mom taught her to be comfortable in her skin.

“It was a mixture of her loving the arts and her wanting me to be someone who stands up tall,” said Donaphin, who trained with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in high school.

Donaphin’s grandfather was Samuel Barnes, a former track star at Oberlin College. He was a member of the Golden Thirteen, 13 African American enlisted men who became the first African American commissioned and warrant officers in the U.S. Navy in 1944. Barnes fought in World War II, where he commanded a Black stevedore battalion on Okinawa. He was the athletic director at Howard from 1956 to 1970. In 1970, Barnes became the first Black person to serve on the executive committee of the NCAA. Two years later, he became a member of the board of directors of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

“He had a deep love for sports,” Donaphin said of her grandfather, who died when she was 16. “His influence played out in the career path that I’ve chosen. I hope he’d be proud. I think he would be.”

“[It’s important] for me to be an advocate for things that players care about in the league office, particularly because our league is full of women of color and people I see myself in and people I hope see themselves in me. For all those reasons, it’s a true honor to be in this role.”

— Bethany Donaphin

As a Black woman in an executive role in a league in which almost 64% of the players are Black, according to the 2023 TIDES report, Donaphin feels a sense of pride in her work and a responsibility to succeed in her position.

“[It’s important] for me to be an advocate for things that players care about in the league office, particularly because our league is full of women of color and people I see myself in and people I hope see themselves in me,” Donaphin said. “For all those reasons, it’s a true honor to be in this role.”

In 2020, as the country grappled with a racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota and the killing of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky by police, the WNBA and Women’s National Basketball Players Association dedicated their season to social justice. The result was the creation of the social justice council, composed of several WNBA players who were advised by leaders in social justice and civic engagement. Donaphin oversaw discussions and action items between the council and the league.

“That’s where my ability to translate was really critical,” Donaphin said. “To be able to go to the players and say, ‘what do you want this to be about, how can I facilitate it,’ being able to translate those messages to Nike and our apparel team and making sure that Breonna Taylor’s name was on the back of the jersey.”

Donaphin worked with players to incorporate programming by the social justice council throughout the season, from highlighting the African American policy forum to highlighting Black women killed by police.

“She listens,” New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart, a member of the 2020 council, said. “She lets us know what’s possible and what’s not. Obviously she’s working on the W side, but, as a former player, understanding the things that we’re wanting and asking for, then being able to communicate that to both sides. … She is the bridge between the players and the league.”

For Donaphin, the creation and completion of the 2020 bubble season during the coronavirus pandemic remains some of the most meaningful work she has done since joining the league. Many in the league office, including Engelbert and Donaphin, believed that if they were unable to play in 2020, it’s entirely possible that it could have been a death sentence for the league.

“Bethany was really keen on getting that season done,” Engelbert said. “If we don’t get that season done, it’s pretty existential for us. A lot of people doubted us.” 

At the time, Engelbert had been the league commissioner for less than a year, and the working relationship between her and Donaphin was still in its early stages. The two quarantined together as they made final preparations for the bubble, working to create a field of play and environment that hadn’t been done before.

Donaphin wasn’t afraid to challenge Engelbert during times of uncertainty, a quality Engelbert said she valued in the moment.

“I admired Bethany because she came to me and she was really worried. Like, ‘are we going to pull this off, Cathy?’ I appreciated that because she didn’t know me that well and I’m sure it took courage for her to say. … I said, ‘Bethany we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it together.’ She trusted me. She killed it in the bubble, building the trust with the players.”

“There was so much uncertainty and so much that we were rightfully concerned about,” Donaphin said. “When you have these two global crises happening at the same time with the pandemic and a racial reckoning, it really tests your mettle.” 

The WNBA completed its abbreviated season and crowned a champion without having a single positive confirmed COVID-19 case recorded among players and staff during both the regular season and playoffs. WNBA players were seen as leading athlete activists for their social justice and political advocacy.

“My role in that means a lot to me,” Donaphin said.

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Donaphin says she’s been increasingly focused on how the league uses technology to advance the game. In March, the WNBA announced that it will become the first women’s pro league in the United States to incorporate leaguewide optical tracking, which will give players, coaches and front offices deeper insight into a team’s on-court performance.

“These are things that had been in play in the NBA and G League for years. There’s no reason why a league like ours shouldn’t have that technology in place and the insights that it provides,” Donaphin said. “Being able to advance the game is also an important part of business transformation within this industry.”

The WNBA has begun its 28th season with perhaps its largest audience and public attention the league has ever seen. It’s the outcome of a historic college basketball season bookmarked by the star power of players such as Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese and national champion South Carolina. The result has been an explosion of interest in women’s basketball. With that comes a pressure on the league to meet the moment and the demands of new and returning fans.

“There’s a lot of eyes on us that have never been here before. What we would like to be able to deliver is an excellent on-court product, excellent player stories, things that allow fans who may be tuning in for the first time to get an appreciation for something that’s been here for decades,” Donaphin said. “There’s certainly pressure.”

Donaphin’s day-to-day requires her to switch her attention between player program initiatives and league innovation to on-court matters. Occasionally, Donaphin reflects on where she stands in WNBA history, allowing herself to feel gratitude for the position she holds.

“Just like these players feel they are standing on the shoulders of greats … I feel like I’m standing on the shoulders of those leaders who believed that a league like this could exist and wanted to promote it and grow it,” Donaphin said. “We’re starting to realize the potential that they saw in 1997.”

When asked about her desire to one day lead the league as commissioner, Donaphin began her answer by relaying what she told the 2024 draft class and their families the previous evening.

“What’s for you is for you,” Donaphin said. 

“Where I am is exactly where I’m supposed to be. … If at some point an opportunity to do more presents itself, we’ll see, but I don’t really think about that. I think about what’s needed of me in the moment, where can I have impact that’s unique to me because of what I bring to the table and because of what my background is. I don’t try to be anybody else.” 

As families of draft hopefuls gathered on the Brooklyn Academy of Music stage and excited fans lined up the length of Lafayette Avenue, Donaphin continued.

“As long as I’m able to do that and continue to see [draft] classes like this come through our league and see us grow to a venue like this, I’m satisfied,” Donaphin said.