Valkyries offer WNBA, other Bay Area teams lessons on supporting fans, winning with grace

Thirty-six hours after they flung their exhausted bodies toward each other in celebration, after they lifted a trophy and drank champagne and finally ate some food and were feted at a Warriors game and dug through their text messages (including one from Michael Jordan) and got some sleep, what they had accomplished was still hard to process.

"It hasn't really hit yet," Kayla Thornton said Monday morning, sitting beside the silver WNBA Championship trophy that was still waiting to be engraved with this phrase:

It's going to take days, months, maybe years, to process the full impact of what these women, this team accomplished.

But some lessons are immediately obvious.

First of all, the Valkyries have taught the entire Bay Area sports world how to do it: how to be inclusive and represent the very best of the Bay Area. How to welcome all fans, sprinkle joy via sports, and make the community feel connected and invested and welcome. There's a baseball team down the street from Chase Center whose players should sit down with the Valkyries for a lesson on how to fully represent our diverse, unique land.

As Natalie Nakase said, "Sports is about belonging. It's about inclusivity. It's about allowing everyone to be their authentic self."

After a win on Valkyries Pride Night, Gabby Williams joyously shouted, "This is for the gays!" She frequently said that Ballhalla "became my safe space." And she needed that sanctuary this season.

When Fever player Sophie Cunningham and clowns like Enes Kanter Freedom helped turn the WNBA into a toxic battleground over the nonexistent – but politically flammable – issue of transgender women in the league, Williams caught shrapnel. Someone unearthed an innocuous quote from earlier in the season when Williams said "I would welcome a trans athlete on my team or against my team anytime. I don't think it's a problem in the world. It's just another way to attack trans people." It got posted on social media, months later and out of context, and Williams was suddenly in the cross-fire of the culture wars.

On Monday, Williams said she would never stop fighting for those who can't always fight for themselves but acknowledged that voicing her belief was "scary."

"I was getting death threats, there were some security issues and there were moments when I was like, 'How are you doing this?' and then I would walk into Ballhalla and say 'Oh that's how, that's how.'" she said. "So I want to thank our fan base for just being themselves because it allowed me to be myself and that's huge. This is what the Bay Area is all about. The Bay Area is the pioneer in these kinds of issues and topics. So I'm proud to represent the Bay."

The Valkyries also sent a clear message to the rest of the WNBA about how to build and run a team. They gave a master class on not only what is possible, but what should be expected. No more second-class citizenship. No more half-assing it. The Valkyries raised the bar for the entire league.

Get out of those rinky dink arenas – that includes the three-time champion Aces who play in an auditorium in the bowels of a casino – and get deals with the real arenas in your cities. If we learned anything from the ridiculous saga of the location and timing for the Atlanta Dream home games during this Finals series, it's that fans will show up for the product even with only a few days' notice.

And, for God's sake, hire women. For too long, the people who run WNBA teams have plugged men into the top jobs because they didn't have the will or connections to find top women to run their teams. In the women's collegiate game, as the prestige grew and the jobs became more attractive, we've seen men taking the plum jobs and pushing women out. The same should not happen in the rapid acceleration of the W's profile and profitability.

Joe Lacob deserves a ton of praise for hiring three brilliant women for all of his top jobs: president Jess Smith, general manager Ohemaa Nyanin and Nakase as head coach. None had held those positions before. All have excelled, to put it mildly, in their roles.

Also: Expand the playoffs, and get rid of the dumb "best of three" first round. This was the first time a WNBA Finals went seven games and it was compelling theater every step of the way.

"Seven games is a long series," Kiah Stokes said. "To play the same team seven times in a row is tough mentally and physically. My body hurts so bad right now. It was grueling, it was physical, it was tough. And once it's over and you take a step back you realize, damn, everything hurts."

The ratings for Game 7 weren't out yet when the Valkyries were speaking, but they're sure to be great.

"My rookie year, we were wearing shirts that said 'Put Women's Sports on TV,'" Stokes said. "We just needed to get attention. So to actually be able to showcase what we can do when we get attention and have a great product on the floor, that shows what we can accomplish."

The Valkyries also taught a lesson in togetherness. Tiffany Hayes said it was unlike anything she'd ever seen before in her 14 years in the league.

"Just that type of camaraderie in that time span," she said.

The connectivity went throughout the organization.

"I'm so proud of this whole organization, all the people in this building that helped us through the season, coming to work with a smile every day and making us feel safe and understood," Cecilia Zandalasini said. "It's just a great joy to share this with everybody."

Veronica Burton said she was most proud of the way the Valkyries won their championship.

"I think we won with grace, and lost with grace and that's not easy to do in these moments because you don't know what the outcome is going to be," Burton said. "I think our attitude and approach never shifted. And who we are and our character never wavered.

"We won and lost with a lot of grace and a lot of love."