2020 WNBA Champs to be first women’s team invited to White House under President Biden
SEATTLE — The Seattle Storm will be honored at the White House on Monday as President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will meet with the team and celebrate the Storm’s WNBA record-tying fourth WNBA Championship in 2020.
The Storm is the first women’s team to visit the White House under President Biden and the first WNBA squad to be honored with a White House ceremony since the 2015 Minnesota Lynx.
The President is expected to host the team in a ceremony beginning at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time (12:30 p.m. Pacific Time) at the White House South Lawn. The 2020 WNBA Champion Storm players, coaches and staff will be joined by the Storm ownership group, Storm President and CEO Alisha Valavanis and WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert at the event.
In addition to the team’s impressive season on the court, the President will honor the work done by the team off the court including the creation of the Storm’s Force4Change Initiative. Crystal Langhorne, who was a member of the 2020 championship team and is now the Storm’s Director of Community Engagement, was one of the Storm players instrumental in the team’s social justice efforts from the WNBA “Wubble” in Florida. She will provide remarks about Force4Change and how the Storm are using the social justice platform to continue working to effect social justice change in the Seattle area and beyond.
Before the ceremony, Storm players will participate in a conversation with members of the White House Gender Policy Council and work with the White House to record messages of support for gender, racial and LGBTQ+ equality, voting rights, and pro-vaccination.
The White House ceremony will be broadcast on NBA TV and streamed on WhiteHouse.gov and WNBA.com.
—— StormBasketball.com ——