UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) — Dawn Staley and the 1996 Olympic women's basketball team paved the way for the WNBA and players such as Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne and Chamique Holdsclaw.
The team that started the Americans' 30-year Olympic dominance will be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday along with Parker, Delle Donne and Holdsclaw They will be joined by NBA player Amar’e Stoudemire, longtime NBA official Joey Crawford, NBA coaches Doc Rivers and Mike D’Antoni and Gonzaga coach Mark Few in the Hall of Fame.
“It's taken a long time for that particular team that set the stage for everything that's happened since,” Staley said. “There were players that came before us that didn't strike while the iron was hot. I thought we struck when the iron was hot and provided a way for us to see professional basketball come into existence after. Then for the last 30 years we've had it. ”
Parker and Delle Donne were young, but remembered that Olympic team and its importance.
“The '96 (team) inspired an entire generation of women,” Parker said. “They were the catalyst for all of women's sports to me and professional leagues to go around for an entire year, commit and understand that it’s like gold or nothing and for them to come away with the gold in the fashion they did with the great amount of eyeballs."
It's the second consecutive year that a stellar class of women will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame as Sue Bird, Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles were inducted in 2025. Parker won three titles in the WNBA with three different teams: Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas. She is the only player in league history to win both the MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season.
She also won two titles while playing in college for Tennessee under Hall of Fame coach Pat Summitt, plus two Olympic gold medals and two WNBA MVP awards.
Delle Donne won two league MVP awards in 2015 and 2019, the second of which came when she led the Washington Mystics to their lone WNBA championship. Delle Donne became the first player in league history to shoot more than 50% from the field, 40% from behind the 3-point line and 90% from the free-throw line.
Holdsclaw won three straight titles at Tennessee from 1996-98, the first team to accomplish that. The 1998 championship was Tennessee’s first undefeated season at 39–0 and the Vols also set an NCAA record for the most wins in a season. Holdsclaw went on to have an 11-year WNBA career.
Crawford’s numbers were incredible: He officiated more than 2,500 regular-season games, nearly 400 more in the postseason and 50 of those were in the NBA Finals during his 39-year career.
Rivers won 1,194 regular-season games as an NBA coach, which is the sixth most in league history. He also led the Celtics to a championship in 2008.
Stoudemire, who was the only NBA player in this year’s class, was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2003 and six-time All-Star. He spent the first eight years of his career with the Phoenix Suns, where he teamed with D’Antoni.
Few has won more than 770 games at Gonzaga in his career at the school. He set the NCAA Division I men’s coaching record by winning 81 games in his first three years with the Zags.
Rivers believes his last great coaching feat was to get Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce to present him at the Hall of Fame ceremony Saturday night. The trio led Boston to the 2008 championship that Rivers coached. Garnett and Allen had issues when the sharpshooter left in 2012 to join LeBron James in Miami. They officially made up in 2022 at Garnett's jersey retirement ceremony which Allen attended.
“Those three in particular have had their ups and downs now and the fact that all three agreed to be together on the stage is just absolutely amazing,” Rivers said. “It wasn’t hard. That’s what was so shocking. it wasn’t hard. All three of them immediately, and I called separately they all were quick to be at it.”
Holdsclaw and Parker both know that their Hall of Fame coach from Tennessee is smiling down on them as the pair of Lady Vols greats will get inducted together. Summitt passed away in 2016 following a battle with Alzheimer’s.
"I think Coach definitely wrote this in the stars for us to go in, in the same class," Parker said. “So I think she definitely will be around. I know she would be on stage.”
Holdsclaw agreed with Parker on her former mentor.
“She would be so proud of us,” Holdsclaw said.
See AP’s full sports coverage here
FILE - Los Angeles Sparks' Candace Parker, right, blocks a shot by New York Liberty's Epiphanny Prince during the second half of a WNBA basketball game, Aug. 4, 2017, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
FILE - Coach Dawn Staley talks with players and assistant coaches during a practice for the U.S. women's basketball team in Seattle on April 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
FILE - Washington Mystics forward Elena Delle Donne, left, goes to the basket against Seattle Storm forward Natasha Howard during the second half of a WNBA basketball game, Aug. 14, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty on Friday to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, admitting matter-of-factly that he trailed the executive to an investor conference and gunned him down on a New York City street in 2024.
Mangione, 28, said he made a gun with the aid of a 3D printer, traveled to New York and used a ruse — posing as an investor at a multibillion-dollar firm — to contact the company for details on the event.
"On the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan, and he died,” Mangione told the Manhattan federal court, which he entered shackled at the feet but not handcuffed in his beige jail uniform.
Listening in the audience, Thompson's wife, Paulette, took several deep breaths and repeatedly wiped tears from her eyes.
Prosecutors plan to seek a life prison term at Mangione's sentencing, set for Dec. 18. When U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett asked whether he understood that he could spend the rest of his life behind bars, Mangione answered neutrally: “Yes.”
In a statement, Thompson’s family called the plea “an important step toward justice” and noted that Mangione still faces other cases, including a New York state murder prosecution. It carries the potential for a separate long sentence.
Federal prosecutors didn’t give Mangione any deal or incentive to plead guilty, they and his lawyers said. Nor did Mangione plead guilty to avoid a potential death sentence. That possibility was taken off the table when a federal murder charge was tossed out this winter.
Mangione’s lawyers didn’t explain why he choose to plead guilty now, but after he entered the plea at Friday’s hastily scheduled hearing, they quickly sought to have the New York case thrown out on double jeopardy grounds. The state’s double jeopardy protections can kick in if a prior prosecution ends in a guilty plea.
“Mr. Mangione has accepted full responsibility for the death of Brian Thompson,” defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo said outside court, arguing that her client shouldn’t face two prosecutions over a “single tragic event.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is handling the state prosecution, said it remains committed to its case and would contest the defense’s efforts to shut it down.
Surveillance video of the ambush showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson, 50, from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
That detail — and revelations that Mangione's private writings lambasted health insurers as greedy, according to authorities — made the case a fulcrum for debate about the industry and made Mangione a cause célèbre for some of its critics.
A University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, Mangione told the court Friday that he pursued Thompson “after years of enduring severe pain from a broken back, navigating the obstacles of the health insurance system and witnessing similar experiences of countless others.”
Friedman Agnifilo later said her client “believed that the system had failed him and destroyed his life.”
Mangione never was a UnitedHealthcare customer, according to police and the company.
“To those who idolize Luigi Mangione, I say this. Violence is not a cause. Murder is not a message. And a killer is certainly not a hero,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said outside court Friday.
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald, whose office handled the federal case, added: “There can be no celebrity in assassination."
Thompson led one of the United States' largest health insurers, but he wasn't well known outside the industry. Trained as an accountant, he worked at parent company UnitedHealth Group Inc. for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm, UnitedHealthcare, in 2021. He and his wife had two sons, who were in high school when their father was killed.
Thompson's violent death “devastated everyone who knew and loved him,” the company said in a statement Friday, thanking law enforcement for bringing Mangione to justice.
Mangione was arrested five days after the shooting, when he was spotted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. Police had released various images of the suspected shooter, including one showing his face as he checked into a hostel.
Although his lawyers got the federal murder charge dismissed, Garnett also delivered some setbacks to the defense, ruling in January that prosecutors could use items collected from Mangione’s backpack during his arrest as evidence against him. They included a 3D-printed pistol that investigators said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to kill an insurance executive.
Similarly, the judge in the state case threw out terrorism charges against Mangione but agreed to let the gun and notebook be used as evidence. The case has been heading toward a September trial, but his lawyers' new bid to dismiss it could complicate the timeline.
Associated Press writers Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed.
In this courtroom sketch, Luigi Mangione, center, sits between his attorneys, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, left, and Marc Agnifilo, right, before pleading guilty to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, in New York. (Jane Rosenberg via AP)
Defense attorneys for Luigi Mangione, Marc Agnifilo and Karen Friedman Agnifilo exit Manhattan federal court after Mangione pleaded guilty on to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Friday, Aug. 14, 2026 in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Paulette "Pauley" Thompson exits Manhattan federal court after Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty on to federal stalking charges in the killing of her husband, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Friday, Aug. 14, 2026 in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
FILE - Suspect Luigi Mangione is taken into the Blair County Courthouse on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, in Hollidaysburg, Pa. (Benjamin B. Braun/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP, File)
Luigi Mangione attends a pre-trial hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (David Dee Delgado/Pool Photo via AP)
Members of the media wait in line outside of Manhattan Federal Court on the day of a hearing for Luigi Mangione on Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Luigi Mangione appears for a pre-trial hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (David Dee Delgado/Pool Photo via AP)
A man holds a sign outside of Manhattan Federal Court on the day of a hearing for Luigi Mangione on Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Luigi Mangione appears for a pre-trial hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)
