NORFOLK, VA (WTKR)- Amid guiding her Monarchs, Old Dominion head coach DeLisha Milton-Jones still gets shots up every now and then.
She also vividly remembers the shots she used to take as a professional. Milton-Jones began her career in the American Basketball League after graduating from Florida in 1997 and would be drafted into the WNBA two years later after the ABL folded. It's there she encountered a world full of experienced players.
"In the WNBA then, it was a lot of grown women playing in the game," she recalled. "There weren't a lot of rookies. Your best players were already overseas and had started their careers for five or ten years."
Milton-Jones arrived in the WNBA two years after the league launched. Her first salary was $50,000 and, like many players, she would seek supplemental income in the offseason by playing overseas.
"I supplemented my income by finding teams within Europe to go and play for and made very good money over there," she said. "I felt like they valued us more in Europe then they did in the states."
Fast forward and the WNBA has built upon the foundation put down by Milton-Jones and others. The head Monarch pointed out that rookies now make upwards of $75,000, healthcare has improved, especially with regards to child birth, marketing opportunities have surged and teams can travel using charter flights. These are gratifying steps to see for those who have laid the groundwork.
"We knew we weren't going to win monetarily in this moment, but we were planning for the future," she recalled. "We wanted the bridge that we were building to be sturdy enough for generations of players to travel across."
Much has gone into increasing the WNBA's popularity and player welfare. For starters, strong voices representing players are present and heard during collective bargaining, but social media has been another big factor.
"No one wants that negative publicity," Milton-Jones noted. "Because the players understand this and the league understands that they're not afraid to use their voices, things are happening. They're willing to sit down at the table, have the hard-hitting conversations to make good change come."
The influx of new young talent like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese that could sellout college venues is seeing fans follow those stars to the professional ranks. That is pulling in new fans to the WNBA game.
"To see the support, to see them selling out arenas, to see the followings they have from a social media perspective, to see the personalities as vibrant as they are, now you add them into this machine called the WNBA," noted Milton-Jones. "Everything multiplies."
Energy for the WNBA is at an all-time high. The Power Five women's college game is more popular than ever before and Milton-Jones thinks that wave can trickle down to mid-majors like Old Dominion.
"More people are falling in love and taking an interest for ODU women's basketball," the head coach noted. "I feel like it's a direct result of what Caitlin Clark and her effect and Angel Reese and her effect has had on women's basketball overall."
WTKR's sister station, ION, is your home for the WNBA throughout the season. Catch games every Friday night in Cox channel 49 and DirecTV channel 305.
