CT Women’s Hall of Fame’s newest inductees paved the way for future athletes
For her two daughters, Connecticut professional golfer Suzy Whaley wants to leave behind a sports industry that is better than she found it.
This was the thought that went through her mind when she qualified to compete in the 2003 Greater Hartford Open, becoming the second woman to ever qualify for a PGA Tour event and the only woman at the 2003 event. She wanted to show them she could play her best in a risky situation.
“I took the opportunity when it was put in front of me,” Whaley said. She became the first woman president of the Professional Golfers’ Association of America in 2018 and served until 2020. “It doesn’t mean it didn’t have enormous challenges. It doesn’t mean I didn’t get hate mail...But at the end of the day, it’s something I never regretted and only look back on with great fondness because I worked tremendously hard. And my daughters got to witness that.”
Whaley is one of the four women who were inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame at the 29th Annual Induction Ceremony and Celebration last October. The Women in Sports-themed ceremony honored the 50th anniversary of Title IX and four women: Whaley, The Connecticut Sun president Jennifer Rizzotti, Mountain climber and world-record holder Lhakpa Sherpa and the late Cora Lee Bentley Radcliffe, founder of the first Black female basketball and softball team, who received the award posthumously.
The organization not only honored women who’ve overcome gender barriers to become “firsts” in their fields, but whose impact is currently opening doors for other women athletes in a male-dominated industry, Sarah Lubarsky, executive director of the CT Women’s Hall of Fame, said. The organization educates Connecticut residents about the women who came before them, in hopes it will guide the next generation in the right direction and empower them to fight existing gender inequalities.
In regards to sports, while the disparities have shrunk, professional women athletes still make significantly less than their male counterparts. On the college level, male athletes receive over $250 million more in athletic scholarships and have a larger percentage of athletic opportunities, despite making up less than half of the student population, according to a Women’s Sports Foundation 2020 report. Women of color and LGBTQ athletes in high school feel more discouraged from participating in sports.
“It’s all about value, right? You feel like you’re valued if you’re paid attention to and if people care about how they’re treating you, that you’re getting what you’re worth and that you’re getting paid equitably for your talents,” Lubarsky said.
Meet the four newest inductees into the CT Women’s Hall of Fame:
Jennifer Rizzotti, President of the Connecticut Sun
As the president of the Connecticut Sun, Rizzotti aims to see women’s basketball programs receive equal promotion on television and the same financial investment as men’s, whose programs were formed 50 years earlier. Yet women’s sports receive only 5% of media coverage, according to a 2019 study by the University of Southern California and Purdue University.
“If people decide to put their sponsorship dollars towards women’s athletes and put women’s sports on TV, will we then see the kind of growth in ticket sales and merchandise and in all the ways that the men were able to thrive?” she said.
In 1995, she experienced experienced the impact of increased exposure firsthand. She helped bring the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team into the national limelight as the starting point guard for the Huskies’ national championship team that year.
Donna Lopiano, president of Sports Management Resources and CWHF inductee, said the promotion from Connecticut Public Television, which broadcasted the championship, played a significant role in making UConn women’s basketball publicly visible to the rest of the country. UConn was one of the first women’s programs to break through in the media because they were winning national championships like their male counterparts, she said.
Since assuming the role of president in 2021, Rizzotti has focused on gaining sponsorships and partnership deals for the Sun. She and CT Sun officials have also expanded outreach to youth organizations and schools to make the sport more accessible for the next generation.
Cora Bentley Lee Radcliffe, founder of the Hartford Tigerettes
Radcliffe, a special education teacher and college track star, founded the Hartford Tigerettes, the first all-Black female basketball and softball team, in the 1940s.
Radcliffe died in 2010, and her honor was accepted on her behalf by her daughter Claudia Bentley Radcliffe Rose and granddaughter Anika Noni Rose, a Tony Award-winning actress and 2018 CWHF inductee who created a fund for special needs children in her grandmother’s memory.
Decades before Title IX passed, Radcliffe advanced Black women’s leadership in the Greater Hartford area. She not only helped lead her Tigerettes teammates to victory in their first season but helped them deal with racism and popularized basketball among Black community members in Hartford and other major Connecticut cities, even after they disbanded in the 1950s, according to CWHF.
“Growing up in Hartford, everyone knew about the Tigerettes. Whether you were born during that era or not, you knew about the history of the Tigerettes,” Francine Austin, cousin of Tigerette Ruth Shorter Thompson, said in her tribute video.
Lhakpa Sherpa, recordbreaking mountain climber
Sherpa, a Nepali native and resident of West Hartford broke her own world record in 2022 by climbing Mount Everest for the 10th time, the most ascents ever achieved by a woman.
Apart from her part-time job at Whole Foods, she runs guided climbs in New England and Nepal through her business, Cloudscape Climbing. Her work aims to increase women’s presence in Sherpa culture and among Nepali climbers, she said in 2022. Women make up about 4% of mountain guides in Nepal, as of 2021.
“All the Nepali women, I give the opportunity to them,” Sherpa said. “It’s a gift I can give to Nepali women. Now a bunch more women love the outdoors. I look like a teacher and a good leader.”
While her mother discouraged her from becoming a climber, Sherpa is guiding her daughters into the sport. Her daughter, Shiny, a Conard High School student has accompanied her to Mount Everest.
“I hope that I can inspire my daughters to be their own leaders and to carve their own path through life,” she told TheTravel. “I want the world to know that women can be professional mountain climbers and that women are able to pursue their passions.”
Suzy Whaley, First woman president of the PGA of America
After assuming the role of president in 2018, Whaley helped establish an all-girls PGA Junior Championship and PGA Women’s Cup Team.
Through the PGA Lead initiative, she helped mentor PGA members from diverse backgrounds and expose them to the inner workings of the organization. She also focused on recruiting more members at the college level and educating them about the various job opportunities in the $84-billion-dollar golf industry.
While more women and people of color are occupying PGA leadership positions, 95% of the members are white males. She hopes to get to a point where all golfers have idols and teammates who look like themselves, so that it’s not as intimidating when they start.
“I always wanted for our female athletes to be known for their accomplishments, their hard work, their perseverance, their grit determination, just like males were. And I’d love it to be called just sport instead of us having to differentiate between the two all the time,” she said.
Whaley served as president until 2020, and is now an analyst for ESPN and is the new head of Golf Nation, an entertainment and ecommerce platform that will showcase games available on various devices and streaming platforms. In her new role, she’s aiming to help change the narrative around women’s sports and provide women athletes more television coverage.
“I think it’s very difficult to create fan bases when the media doesn’t give you coverage,” she said. “I’m going to change that in our channel. And I’m going to showcase women playing the game at all levels. I’m going to showcase men playing the game at all levels. We’re going to showcase everyone that loves golf, not just what’s typically seen on your television.”