NEW YORK — The newly reconstituted Big East Conference hired former WNBA president Val Ackerman, a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, as its commissioner Wednesday.
Ackerman, 53, was the founding president of the WNBA and also was the first female president of USA Basketball, with both the men’s and women’s teams winning gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. She was most recently a consultant for the NCAA, and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
The Big East will be headquartered in New York City and begin official operations on July 1. Terms of Ackerman’s deal were not immediately announced.
“The Big East is incredibly fortunate to have Val Ackerman lead us into this exciting new chapter for our conference,” Providence College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley said in a statement. “Val is exactly what the Big East needs: She embodies the highest personal and professional values of the sports industry, and is a hard-charging and innovative leader who can shepherd the conference to continued success.”
The revamped conference announced in March that it would include the Big East’s so-called “Catholic 7” basketball schools Georgetown, DePaul, Marquette, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Villanova as well as Creighton from the Missouri Valley Conference, and Butler and Xavier from the Atlantic-10.
The Big East had tasked executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates to find its first commissioner. Former Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe also served as a consultant to the league as it prepared for its first season.
Ackerman said in a statement that she was “honored” to have “this incredible opportunity” and said the conference has a simple mission.
