Two Long Island basketball stars — Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm and Chicago Bulls Coach Billy Donovan — were inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., on Saturday, Sept. 6. The Hall of Fame, which celebrates over 450 inductees, draws over 200,000 visitors a year.
“For me, the Hall of Fame is the ultimate capstone — not for the ‘fame’ part, but for the ‘hall’ part. It’s about being forever connected to this group of peers,” Bird said in her acceptance speech.
“Friends and family, coaches, players: thank you so much. It’s an incredible honor, and I’m very, very grateful,” Donovan said in his speech.
The Naismith Hall of Fame Class of 2025 included Bird and Donovan, as well as Carmelo Anthony, Danny Crawford, Sylvia Fowles, Dwight Howard, Maya Moore, and the 2008 USA Basketball Men’s National Team.
Bird, a four-time WNBA champion and Syosset native, played with the Seattle Storm from 2002 to 2022, and has earned five Olympic Gold medals. Her induction came just weeks after the installation of a statue of her at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. She is the first WNBA player in history to have a statue in her honor.
Bird attended Syosset High School before transferring to Christ the King Regional High School in Queens. In her senior year of high school, she earned New York State Player of the Year.
Donovan, the Chicago Bulls head coach and a Rockville Centre native, played on the New York Knicks before he began his coaching career. Notably, he coached at the University of Florida for 19 years and led their basketball team to four Final Four trips and back-to-back NCAA championships in 2006 and 2007. He has coached with the Chicago Bulls since 2020.
In high school, Donovan played basketball at St. Agnes Cathedral High School in Rockville Centre.
“I’ve loved the game of basketball ever since I could remember,” he said.
At the induction ceremony, both Long Island inductees emphasized the importance of community.
“Faith and belief have been incredibly powerful in my life. And it’s not the faith and belief in myself, but it’s been the faith and belief that others have had in me,” Donovan said.
“This honor really boils down to one word that Maya, Sylvia and I know doesn’t come easy, especially in the career of a female athlete: belonging. I learned its importance early, because no matter how tough the odds, I found my footing by finding my people,” Bird said.
Both of the players acknowledged their roots on Long Island.
“We grew up in a great environment, back in Rockville Centre, New York…it was a great place to grow up in and I’ll always cherish my childhood there,” Donovan said.
“Growing up on Long Island, our fifth-grade elementary school yearbook asked us to predict what we’d be when we grew up. I said: a doctor, a lawyer, or a professional soccer player…But one of the things that was pretty obvious then was that the odds of a kid from Syosset, New York, growing up to be a professional soccer player, let alone a professional basketball player, were stacked against me,” she said.
Bird said growing up she played on the boys’ soccer team because there wasn’t a girls’ team, and there was “no obvious place for someone like me.” She said at the time she wrote down her fifth-grade aspirations, the WNBA hadn’t even existed.
“What a wild journey in 30 years, to go from no league at all to a league of our own. And today the ultimate place of belonging here in Springfield,” she said.
Bird said her induction into the Hall of Fame represents more than a single achievement.
“This Hall of Fame induction isn’t just about individual achievement. It’s about joining a community that I’ll always belong… In other words, I’ll close with something that point guards don’t often get to say: Thank you for the assist,” Bird said.
Donovan thanked his players for their hard work and dedication to the sport as well.
“You know as a coach, you’re not going to go very far if you don’t have good players. And I’m standing up here because I coached some really, really good players. But not only good players; I coached high-character competitors,” he said.
