Aging & Wisdom Quote by Sue Wicks

Growth, in Sue Wicks's framing, isn't a gentle, inevitable tide. It's a contested opportunity that will reward the people who walk into the room already convinced they belong there. By tying the WNBA's next surge to "the women who believe they're worth it", she’s naming a truth veterans of women’s sports know too well: the league’s ceiling has never been set by talent alone. It’s been set by confidence, leverage, and the willingness to demand more than gratitude.

The line does two things at once. On the surface, it’s motivational - a call to players, staff, and stakeholders to see the current moment as expandable, not fixed. Underneath, it’s a critique of the conditions that make "believing you're worth it" feel like a radical act for women athletes. Wicks is gesturing at the long-standing expectation that women should be thrilled just to have a league, to treat visibility as payment, to accept underinvestment as normal.

Context matters: the WNBA is in a phase where attention, media rights, and cultural relevance are rising, and "room to grow" can quickly become code for "be patient while others cash in". Wicks flips that dynamic. She implies that progress won't be delivered from above; it will be negotiated, pressured, and built by women who refuse to internalize scarcity.

The intent is bracingly practical: empowerment as strategy. If the next era is going to be different, it won't be because the league got lucky. It will be because women decided they were worth the inconvenience their ambition causes.