JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — There are people who live among us in Jacksonville whose life’s work has impacted countless lives in our city and far beyond. Donna Orender has been recognized as one of the top 10 most powerful women in sports. She has changed the game both on and off the basketball court.
The New York native has called Jacksonville home for decades. Orender is a trailblazer who served six years as president of the WNBA accepting the role in 2005. Prior to that she spent 17 years at the PGA Tour and worked her way up the ranks as a top executive. She launched the non-profit Generation W and Generation WOW in 2011 and continues to motivate women and young girls.
Growing up in Long Island, Orender played numerous sports including field hockey, volleyball, softball, and tennis. But it was basketball that enabled her to make history participating in the first women’s college basketball game played at Madison Square Garden in 1975. She would go on to become a professional athlete playing for the Women’s Professional Basketball League for three years.
"How do you plan to be a professional athlete when you grow up and there is no professional sport or league for you to play in,” Orender asked. “There wasn't. How do you plan to be the president of the WNBA when the league didn't exist most of my adult life? You don't."
The Queens College Sports Hall of Famer played pro ball with the New York Stars, New Jersey Gems and Chicago Hustle. She had become extremely familiar with the game but when stepping into her role as president of the WNBA Orender says she was surprised by many of the uphill battles she faced.
“I was shocked by the attitudes and the bias and the racism and the sexism and homophobia,” Orender recalls. “I was shocked by how much disregard I mean, there's a lot of love and affinity for women's sports, but just how dismissive people were how people told me every single day that this would never work.”
It took time but Orender says she had no choice but to perform and win.
"Everything they said we could not do literally, we did," Orender said while reflecting on her time with the WNBA.
She recalls attendance at the games increasing during her tenure, numbers moving from the red to black, merchandise sales, TV ratings- all going up.
"When I got to the WNBA it was very personal and I didn't understand how personal it was,” Orender said. “I felt it was a litmus test on my life."
Orender knew firsthand what it took to perform on a professional level and wanted female athletes to be accepted, embraced, and respected for their talent.
“I didn't want to let them down,” Orender said. “When I was in the arenas, and there's all these families, there's dads with daughters, there's single men, there's single women-all of it. This sport not only brought them joy, because the entertainment value was fantastic but also brought them meaning about opportunity, equity, and equality. I felt a heavy load to make sure that this lived to the next day. And the day after that, the day after that."
She did her part then and continues to make waves now. Orender helped to close the gender pay gap in the World Surf League. In 2018 the league announced equal prize money to male and female athletes.
“I always remember saying in college, I was in some kind of session, because I was a psychology major and I remember saying I want to make a difference in the world,” Orender said. “And I remember the professor laughing at me. I wasn't sure how it was going to happen but I knew if I was going to spend time on this earth, I wanted to make it have value.”