Maya Moore - The Caregiver
BASKETBALL - WNBA - MINNESOTA LYNX - TEAM USA
ARCHETYPE: THE CAREGIVER
Day 133/135
Athletic Accomplishments
Maya Moore is one of the winningest basketball players of all time and a social justice advocate who received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2021 ESPYs.
At age 16, Maya Moore had already dunked. She was a four-year starter at her high school in Georgia, earning USA Today Freshman and Sophomore All-American status. She is a three-time Georgia Player of the Year . As a junior and senior, she won the Naismith Player of the Year award. Moore led Collins Hill High to four state championship appearances, winning three of them. In 2007, her senior year, Moore cleaned up the state and national awards, winning Miss Georgia Basketball, the WBCA National Player of the Year, Parade Magazine All-America of the Year, and Morgan Wootten Award, while leading her team to win a National Championship.
Moore attended UConn, where she was once again a four-year starter. As a freshman, she was the team’s leading scorer and was named Big East Player of the Year (the first freshman of any gender to win the award), USBWA National Freshman of the Year, and First Team All-American.
In her sophomore year, Moore led the Huskies to an undefeated 39-0 season and an NCAA Championship. Her junior year, she backed up the performance with a second 39-0 season. By her senior year, Moore had become UConn’s all-time leading scorer—no small potatoes given the caliber of player at UConn—and the only women's basketball player in Division I history to record 2,500 points, 1,000 rebounds, 500 assists, 250 steals, and 150 blocked shots.
She finished her career with countless championships and individual honors, including:
4× AP All-America First Team (2008-2011)
3× Wade Trophy (2009–2011)
2× Naismith College Player of the Year (2009, 2011)
2× John R. Wooden Award (2009, 2011)
2× AP College Player of the Year (2009, 2011)
2× USBWA Women's National Player of the Year (2009, 2011)
2x Honda Sports Award for basketball (2010, 2011)
3× Big East Player of the Year (2008, 2009, 2011)
NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player (2010)
In the 2011 WNBA Draft, Moore was selected as the No. 1 pick by the Minnesota Lynx, where she had an immediate impact on the team and the league. In her first year, she was selected as an All-Star and Rookie of the Year.
Throughout her entire career as a pro, Moore has stayed winning:
4× WNBA champion (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017)
2× EuroLeague Women champion (2012, 2018)
Liga Femenina champion (2012)
3× WCBA champion (2013–2015)
And she has been racking up the individual honors, too:
WNBA Finals MVP (2013)
WNBA MVP (2014)
6× WNBA All-Star (2011, 2013–2015, 2017–2018)
3× WNBA All-Star Game MVP (2015, 2017, 2018)
5× All-WNBA First Team (2013–2017)
WNBA steals leader (2018)
WNBA scoring leader (2014)
FIBA World Championship MVP (2014)
Like I said, she’s a winner. Which is why it has been so mind-blowing and difficult for fans, players, coaches, and the media to understand how anyone at the peak and prime of her career could step away from basketball. But that is what makes Moore so special. Because though she is great at basketball, it’s not the only thing that drives her. Her work is bigger than buckets.
Character Archetype: The Caregiver
We first met Maya Moore because of her sheer dominance on the basketball court, where she has been nothing but a winner. Moore is UConn’s all-time leading scorer and a two-time NCAA champion, leading the Huskies to an undefeated season in 2009. She’s also a four-time WNBA champion, a league MVP, and five-time All-Star.
Last Saturday night, Moore accepted the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2021 ESPYs, after dedicating two years of her career to pursuing justice for Jonathon Irons. She wants her legacy to be more than basketball, stepping away from the WNBA before the 2019 season to focus on ministry and justice work, when she found Irons's case, who had been sentenced to 50 years in a maximum security prison for a robbery and assault that he did not commit. After two years of tireless work and appeals, his conviction was overturned and he was released. Today, Moore and Irons are married and committed to continuing the long, hard fight for justice reform.
Moore reminds us that sports are the vehicle. Sports teach us to be better humans. They are not the pinnacle of human achievement, nor the most important thing about a person. Moore’s dedication, focus, and intelligence make her a phenomenal basketball player, but they also make her an even better human.
She has made no announcement about returning to or retiring from basketball. But Moore won a man’s freedom. There is no trophy, no win, no nothing bigger than that.