Valerie B. Ackerman (born November 7, 1959) is an American sports executive, former lawyer, and former basketball player. She is the current commissioner of the Big East Conference. She is best known for being the first president of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), serving from 1996 to 2005. Ackerman was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. Early life Ackerman was born in 1959 in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, but grew up in Pennington, New Jersey, United States. She was raised Roman Catholic. Her grandfather was director of athletics for Trenton State College, and her father was director of athletics at Ackerman's own high school. Ackerman graduated in 1977 from Hopewell Valley Central High School in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey. Ackerman's 1466 points set the school's varsity basketball career record for points scored by any basketball player, male or female, and she set the school's career scoring record as a halfback in field hockey, topped off by graduating second in her class. In addition to basketball and field hockey, Ackerman also ran on her school's track team. She was inducted into the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 1997. College years Ackerman was a 1979 student initiate of Omicron Delta Kappa from the University of Virginia, where she graduated in 1981. She was among the school's first female students to receive an athletic scholarship. She was a starter all four years, captain three years, and twice named Academic All-American for the women's basketball team; she was the school's first basketball player to score 1,000 points. She earned her B.A. in Political and Social Thought. In 1997, Ackerman received U. Va.'s Distinguished Alumna Award from the University's Women's Center. In 2003, she was named a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference's 50th Anniversary Women's Basketball Team. Ackerman also earned a J.D. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and worked for two years as a corporate and banking associate at the New York City law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Career Ackerman played professional basketball in France for one season. In 1988, she was hired as a staff attorney for the National Basketball Association and later served as special assistant to NBA Commissioner David Stern, before being promoted to vice-president of business affairs, prior to her appointment to head the WNBA in 1996. In 1989, Ackerman was one