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The inspiration behind Elena Delle Donne’s latest shoe design

Elena Delle Donne holds the “Together We Fly” version of her Nike Air Deldons.

Few people have accomplished more in a pair of basketball shoes than Elena Delle Donne. The two-time WNBA MVP will be remembered one day as one of the greatest to ever lace them up.

And after her latest venture, she’ll also be remembered for the shoes she designed.

This fall, Delle Donne released the Nike Air Deldon. On Friday, her latest colorway, “Together We Fly,” launched as part of the release. It’s the third of six colorways, each with a special significance to Delle Donne’s life and career.

“I hope people really look into the meaning behind each colorway,” says Monique Currie, the product line manager for the Nike design team behind the Air Deldon and Delle Donne’s former WNBA teammate. “They’re all unique, and they’re really powerful stories.”

The first colorway, the “Lyme,” dropped on Oct. 6, and the “Be True” followed five days later. Each represents Delle Donne in its own way, which Currie says was one of her favorite aspects of the process.

“That was probably one of the most exciting parts, was really trying to work with Elena and come up with stories that can speak through her shoe,” Currie says.

The “Lyme,” which appropriately features lime green accents throughout, is a nod to Delle Donne’s years-long battle with Lyme disease.

“Elena has been really open with bringing awareness to how [Lyme disease] affects her and her game and so many people around the world,” Currie says. “It’s telling an important story of how people are managing their physical health as well as performing at the top or the highest level possible. So that was really fun to come up with that story and [for] that to be the first colorway to come out, because that’s just such a huge part of who Elena is.”

Delle Donne’s coming out story was the inspiration behind the “Be True,” which celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community with a gradient pattern of colors and rainbow speckles on the laces.

“When I was younger I felt like something was wrong with me because I was different,” Delle Donne says. “So I feel like this shoe can inspire every single person, whatever your story is.”

While the first two colorways tell parts of Delle Donne’s own story, the next is dedicated to one of her closest loved ones. Delle Donne has a special relationship with her older sister, Lizzie, who has cerebral palsy and autism and is deaf and blind. After committing to UConn out of high school, Delle Donne transferred to the University of Delaware before her freshman season so she could be closer to Lizzie.

“The ‘Together We Fly’ colorway is very much the story of my sister with special needs who has never had a shoe for her,” Delle Donne says. “She’s had several disabilities, [she’s] had a lot of doctors say she would never walk, she would never do this. But because she has had the support of my family and a team around her, she’s been able to fly.”

The colorway pays homage to Lizzie with purple accents on the tongue and the heel.

“The color purple has always just been a color that looks really cute on my sister,” Delle Donne says. “We all have our colors – I think Lizzie looks great in everything, but purple and pink are her colors.”

For Lizzie, the process of putting on a standard basketball shoe has never come easily. The Air Deldon also comes with Nike’s FlyEase technology, which utilizes a collapsible heel and fold-down tongue for easy, hands-free entry.

“We wanted to make sure that they were accessible to all athletes, regardless of your mobility or physical stature or anything like that,” Currie says.

Delle Donne, Currie, and the Nike design team began working on the shoe in 2019, Currie’s first year with the company. They spent the next two years making sure every detail of the shoe was true to Delle Donne, from the colorways and stories to the performance and physical features.

“We really put a lot of thought into the way Elena plays, the areas that she likes to get to, what’s important in her movements,” Currie says. “We tried to include technology that really supports making those movements in those places as easy as possible for her.”

“I wanted it to be where once it’s on, I really don’t feel it or think of it,” Delle Donne adds. “It’s just kind of part of me.”

There’s also the style component, which Delle Donne says was as important to her as the performance.

“I needed it to work with me so I can do my job and play basketball, but I also wanted it to be a shoe that you don’t just wear on court— you wanna wear it and make a fashion statement with it,” Delle Donne says. “I wanted it to be one of those shoes that, you’re walking a red carpet, you wanna wear the Deldons.”

Both style and performance, Delle Donne says, are key factors in selling the shoe, and those sales will be critical to creating more opportunities for more women down the road.

“I know the importance of this moment, and for what it needs to do and how it needs to sell in order for this to be a catalyst for other women to get their own shoes,” Delle Donne says.

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Delle Donne is a WNBA champion, two-timeMVP and six-time All-Star. (Barry Gossage/NBAE via Getty Images)

Delle Donne counts that as one of the many reasons why having Currie, her former Washington Mystics teammate, on board for the design process meant so much to her. Both of them remember shopping for basketball shoes as a kid and often not feeling represented in the options that were available to them.

“I do remember that there weren’t many female shoes that I could go get, and the time that there was a Sheryl Swoopes shoe on the shelf, I was elated,” Delle Donne says. “I didn’t even care how that thing fit. It was like, ‘If Sheryl has it and it’s her shoe, I’m getting it.’”

Currie believes Delle Donne can be to young hoopers what Swoopes was to a young Delle Donne.

“So many young girls love Elena, and this is like getting a little piece of her,” Currie says. “Girls need people that look like them to look up to, to have as role models, to see themselves in them, and to know, ‘Hey one day, I can have a shoe named after me.’”

Ultimately, Delle Donne hopes her shoe will be the most inclusive one on the market. No matter your abilities, gender, sexuality, or anything else that’s part of your story, Delle Donne says, this shoe is for you.

“If that shoe’s dope and I want it, it shouldn’t have a label,” Delle Donne says. “This shoe is for everyone.”

Calvin Wetzel is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports, covering basketball and betting. He also contributes to Her Hoop Stats, CBS SportsLine and FiveThirtyEight. Follow him on Twitter at @cwetzel31.

Oklahoma Wins 2025 NCAA Gymnastics Championship Title

Oklahoma gymnast Danae Fletcher lifts the 2025 NCAA championship trophy with her teammates.
Oklahoma has three of the last four NCAA gymnastics titles. (C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

No. 2-seed Oklahoma won their third NCAA gymnastics championship in four years on Saturday, topping fellow finalists No. 4 Utah, No. 5 UCLA, and No. 7 Missouri with an overall score of 198.0125.

With seven titles since 2014, Oklahoma regains its reputation as the sport's current dynasty, finishing atop the podium after falling short of a three-peat last year.

"Our theme wasn't redemption this year at all," Oklahoma head coach K.J. Kindler told reporters after Saturday's victory.

"Does it make it sweet? Yes, but this team was capable of this last year. We just failed. And people fail all the time. They fail every day. And we talk about [it] all the time that the glory is in getting back up again."

Freedom allowed Oklahoma to reclaim NCAA gymnastics crown

Last year, the then-defending champion Sooners stumbled in a shocking loss in the national semifinals, a fate the 2024 champion LSU squad similarly suffered last Thursday, when the top-seeded Tigers failed to advance to the final meet of 2025.

Between overcoming the semifinals hurdles themselves and seeing LSU ousted — arguably Oklahoma's biggest competition entering the weekend — the Sooners were able to breathe easier and enjoy their last competition of the season.

"After advancing, and we got to today, we were free," said senior Audrey Davis. "We had no weight on our shoulders. We were free to do our best gymnastics."

That freedom had the Sooners leading the charge, finishing their first rotation on beam tied with eventual runners-up UCLA before taking full control of the meet — Oklahoma grabbed a second-rotation lead on the floor and never relinquished it.

As for the rest of the field, Missouri earned a program-record third-place finish in their first-ever NCAA final, while nine-time champions Utah closed their season in fourth.

For Oklahoma senior Jordan Bowers, the final weekend of her collegiate career was one for the books.

In addition to the team title, Bowers won the individual all-around competition during Thursday's semifinals — a day that also crowned LSU’s Kailin Chio (vault), Missouri’s Helen Hu (beam), and UCLA's Jordan Chiles (uneven bars) and Brooklyn Moors (floor) as national apparatus champions.

"Just truly a fairytale ending," Bowers said on the ABC broadcast. "I'm so freaking proud of this team, and I'm so proud to be a Sooner."



Stanford Breaks NCAA Softball Attendance Record with ‘Big Swing’

An NCAA record crowd watches Stanford softball host Cal in the school's football stadium on Saturday.
Stanford welcomed over 13,000 fans to their record-setting Saturday game against Cal. (Eakin Howard/Getty Images)

Stanford shattered the NCAA softball attendance record this weekend, welcoming 13,207 fans inside the university’s football stadium for Saturday's "Big Swing"  game against Cal.

In the most-attended non-football contest in Stanford Athletics' history, the Cardinal softball crowd surpassed the sport's previous attendance record of 12,566, set on the first day of the 2024 Women's College World Series (WCWS) in Oklahoma City.

The history-making game also blew past the NCAA softball regular-season record of 9,259 fans, a feat reached less than two weeks ago when reigning champions Oklahoma defeated local rivals Oklahoma State on April 9th.

"It was kind of like a mini College World Series experience," Stanford junior outfielder Kyra Chan said after the game.

Despite dropping the record-breaking matchup 10-8 to their new ACC rivals, No. 16 Stanford ultimately secured the three-game series against the Golden Bears with wins on Thursday and Friday.

Friday's 9-3 victory was particularly impactful, clinching the Cardinal a spot in their first-ever ACC championship tournament next month — the first postseason stop as Stanford hunts a third-straight appearance in the WCWS semifinals.

Nebraska volleyball lines up on the court for the August 2023 Volleyball Day in the university's football stadium.
Nebraska volleyball broke the overall US women's sports attendance record in 2023. (Steven Branscombe/Getty Images)

Stanford softball fuels argument for larger women's sports venues

Softball isn't the only sport leading the recent surge in record-breaking NCAA women's sports crowds.

After shifting a volleyball match into its football stadium in August 2023, Nebraska welcomed not just the sport's biggest crowd, but the largest to ever attend any women's sporting event in the US.

Shortly thereafter, Iowa's "Crossover at Kinnick" blasted through the NCAA women's basketball attendance mark by moving an exhibition game featuring the Caitlin Clark-led Hawkeyes into the university's football venue.

Though the move to massive football stadiums was intentional to snag both Nebraska's and Iowa's respective records, Stanford's venue shift was not initially an attendance-hunting move.

The Cardinal's entire 2025 softball season is being played on the gridiron as the team's new $50 million stadium and state-of-the-art training facility is under construction.

Taking advantage of that added capacity was a no-brainer, with Stanford specifically branding and marketing their rivalry "Big Swing" game to capitalize on their temporary digs — and to continue making the overall case for expanding women's sports' venues.

"I think that you see a consistent theme that there aren't big enough venues for women's sports to be able to draw the fans that they can draw," Stanford softball head coach Jessica Allister pointed out.

"Hopefully, a lot of people who showed up to Stanford for the first time to watch a softball game will come back and see us in our beautiful stadium."

Missing Rodman, Injury-Struck Washington Downs 2024 NWSL Champ Orlando

Washington Spirit forward Makenna Morris celebrates striker Gift Monday's game-winning goal against Orlando on Saturday.
Gift Monday scored the lone goal in Washington's Saturday. win over Orlando. (Rich Storry/NWSL via Getty Images)

The Washington Spirit scored another unlikely victory on Saturday, snapping the Orlando Pride's 22-game home unbeaten streak with a narrow 1-0 win — fueled by newly signed Nigerian striker Gift Monday's debut NWSL goal.

"We knew it was going to be a fight," Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury said after the game. "We know they're physical, so we came [and] we matched that."

Washington continues to eke out wins despite a depleted roster, with a full 11 players unavailable for Saturday’s 2024 NWSL championship rematch due to injury.

At the top of that injury list is star forward Trinity Rodman, with the 22-year-old's agent telling The Washington Post that she's "taking time away from team activities" to meet with a club doctor in London about her lingering back issues.

Other noteworthy absences to the Spirit's current lineup include 2024 NWSL Rookie and Midfielder of the Year Croix Bethune (hip), defensive midfielder Hal Hershfelt (ankle), veteran defender Casey Krueger (knee), and French forward Ouleye Sarr (SEI – back).

Washington, however, continues finding ways to win, with the Spirit sitting third in the league standings, where they're tied with second-place Orlando on points.

That said, despite flipping the script against the reigning champs, the Spirit's roster woes — and, in particular, Rodman’s uncertain timeline — casts a shadow over the club's 2025 redemption tour.

Kansas City's Kayla Sharples celebrates a goal with her teammates on Saturday.
Kansas City is the only remaining unbeaten team in the 2025 NWSL season. (Jamie Squire/NWSL via Getty Images)

Kansas City rises atop the NWSL

Also benefitting from the Spirit's win was the Kansas City Current, who used both Washington's victory and their own comfortable 2-0 result against the 10th-place Houston Dash on Saturday to leapfrog the Pride and claim first place on the NWSL table.

With five wins in as many matchdays, the Current are now the league's only undefeated team remaining this season.

Angel City Falls to Gotham, Ends NWSL Unbeaten Streak

Alanna Kennedy and her Angel City teammates react to their first 2025 NWSL loss on Friday.
Angel City fell to Gotham in their first loss of the 2025 NWSL season on Friday. (Harry How/NWSL via Getty Images)

After a red-hot start to the 2025 NWSL season, Angel City saw their unbeaten streak squashed by a Gotham side that defeated the LA club 4-0 on Friday.

Failing to register a single shot on target against the NJ/NY club, ACFC's loss dropped their goal differential to -1, dropping the team to fifth on the NWSL table despite sitting tied with the now fourth-place Gotham on points.

Angel City's unexpected moonshot in the season's first four matchdays is still a strong sign for the 2022 expansion club, but Friday’s stumble underlines just how much more progress they’ll look to make under incoming manager Alexander Straus.

"We have a really young squad right now," said Angel City captain Sarah Gorden following the game. "And we just played a really experienced team. This is part of the process, and it's part of a long season."

Gotham's Esther and Jessica Silva high-five after defeating Angel City 4-0 on Friday.
Esther notched a brace in Gotham's 4-0 Friday victory. (Harry How/NWSL via Getty Images)

Gotham snags momentum with second major 2025 win

Bolstered by star forward Midge Purce's return — not to mention a brace from striker Esther — Saturday's win returned 2024 NWSL semifinalist Gotham to the league's upper echelon following an offseason roster overhaul and a mediocre 2025 season start.

Along with a victory over North Carolina last week, the NJ/NY club now holds significant season momentum with their two straight statement wins.

"We've been working very hard in training, and it's showing in the matches," said Esther. "Everyone is giving their all, and we're really united as a group."

Ultimately, while Angel City’s growing pains were perhaps inevitable, Gotham’s sudden surge after a slow start is shaking up the NWSL standings.

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