Sue Bird

Sue Bird is an American-born professional basketball player who played her entire Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) career for the Seattle Storm. She also holds Israeli citizenship. Bird was drafted by the Storm first overall in the 2002 WNBA draft and is considered to be one of the greatest players in WNBA history. She held a front office position for the NBA's Denver Nuggets as their Basketball Operations Associate. She has also played for three teams in Russia.

In high school, she was the New York State Player of the Year, the New York Daily News Player of the Year, and a WBCA All-American. In her senior year at undefeated UConn in 2002, she won the Wade Trophy and the Naismith Award as College Player of the Year. She finished her UConn career ranked first in three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage, second in assists and steals, and as a three-time winner of the Nancy Lieberman Award as the top point guard in the nation, while leading her team to a record of 114–4.

Bird has won a joint-record four WNBA championships with the Storm (2004, 2010, 2018, 2020), five Olympic gold medals (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020), two NCAA Championships with UConn (2000, 2002), and four FIBA World Cups (2002, 2010, 2014, 2018). She is one of only 11 women to attain all four accolades. She is also a five-time EuroLeague Women champion (2007-2010, 2013). During her WNBA career, she has been selected to thirteen WNBA All-Star teams and eight All-WNBA teams. Additionally, she was voted by fans as one of the WNBA's Top 15 Players of All Time in 2011, was voted into the WNBA Top 20@20 as one of the league's top 20 players of all time in 2016, and was voted into The W25 as one of the league's top 25 players of all time in 2021. Her fifth Olympic gold medal, at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, makes her one of only two Olympic basketball players—of either gender—ever to win five gold medals, with the other player being her UConn and U.S. Olympic teammate Diana Taurasi. (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

• Wikipedia: Sue Bird

Family background

From http://www.wnba.com/features/bird_russia_4.html:

Some background - my father's name is Herschel Bird and his family is originally from Russia. In fact, our last name is really "Boorda." My great grandfather brought his family through Ellis Island in the early 1900's and we were soon known simply as Bird. This makes me half-Russian (not Czech!).

From http://www.wnba.com/features/bird_russia_4.html:

Bird's grandparents emigrated from the former Soviet Union, so when she played for Dynamo in Moscow the previous two winters, that team's management asked whether she would be interested in applying for a Russian passport. That would have allowed her to negotiate an even better contract. She did not. For one thing, her grandparents were from Ukraine, so it was unclear whether she could get a Russian passport.