Influential Alumni in Sports

1. Val Ackerman (Col ’81)
A three-time captain and two-time Academic All-American basketball player at UVA, Ackerman was the president of the WNBA from 1996-2005. She became the first female president of USA Basketball in 2005 and was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.

2. Tim Finchem (Law ’73)
Finchem has been the commissioner of the PGA tour since 1994. Before his involvement with professional golf, he served as deputy advisor to the President Jimmy Carter in the Office of Economic Affairs in 1978 and 1979.

3. Bill Hofheimer (Col ’94)
Hofheimer has been a senior director of communications at ESPN since 2005. He works on Monday Night Football, soccer coverage, Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption.

4. Jonathan Mariner (Com ’76)
Mariner is executive vice president and chief financial officer of Major League Baseball. Previously, he served as executive vice president and chief financial officer for the Florida Marlins baseball team and vice president and CFO for the Florida Panthers hockey team.

5. DeMaurice Smith (Law ’89)
Smith is the executive director of the NFL Players Association, a position he has held since 2009. Smith was a central player in negotiating the collective bargaining agreement that ended the 2011 NFL lockout.

Historical Bonus:

Bowie Kuhn (Law ’50)
Kuhn was the commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1969 to 1984.