Tamika Catchings came home from Rio de Janeiro last week with another gold medal around her neck, 10 games left in her Hall of Fame career, a little jet lag, a sore throat and a lot of work to be done.
Catchings, the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association, is the representative face of players in a league that is too often an easy punchline in the professional sports universe—and now an undeniable leader in the social justice conversations happening around the country during a tumultuous summer that coincides with the WNBA's 20th season.
"We are on the right side of this, and we need to keep talking," Catchings said.
In July, WNBA players made statements encouraging discussion of the issues surrounding recent police shootings, wore T-shirts with messages supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and honoring victims of anti-police violence and quickly jumped from athletes to activists in front of the entire country.
While the Minnesota Lynx had four off-duty police officers walk off their security jobs at the Target Center in objection to the players' stance, NBA colleagues and celebrities lauded their courage and willingness to speak their minds and their truths.
When the WNBA fined players who continued to don black shirts during pregame warm-ups as a protest against racial injustice, the public backlash focused not on the players' actions but on the league's.
The WNBA backed away from those fines, and the players officially became catalysts for action.
Funny thing, timing. The WNBA then went on a five-week hiatus to give the best players in the league—and the world—a chance to win Olympic gold in Brazil.
But as United States national team players return as conquering heroes—they won all eight of their games in Rio by an average of 37.3 points—and the league's schedule picks up again for the final weeks of the season, the conversation gets a reboot.
Will the WNBA players have the attention they captured more than a month ago when they took a public stand in a tumultuous time? Do they need it? Do they require such a bright spotlight as they go about the hard and sometimes unglamorous work of being community organizers?
"So many of us are so passionate about the issues that are going on: women's rights, social injustices," New York Liberty guard Tanisha Wright told B/R. "People have been affected by what they've seen, and we want to explore what's next in terms of advocacy."
The U.S. women's national team arrived in Los Angeles on July 23 for its first pre-Olympics game, and Catchings joined NBA star Carmelo Anthony in a forum with members of the Los Angeles Police Department, community leaders and youth from around the city.
Catchings said the event was a model for those she'd like to see held in cities around the WNBA. During the Olympics, she and NBA counterpart Paul George of the Indiana Pacers talked of sponsoring a similar forum in Indianapolis upon their return to the States.
"The biggest thing we want to do is educate—educate ourselves so we can keep the conversation going, educate people," Catchings said. "This isn't going to be something that's going to go away, so we should talk about it."
Liberty players started talking about speaking out against racial injustice on a group text following the shooting death of Philando Castile on July 6 at the hands of a police officer near Minneapolis and the fatal shooting of five police officers in Dallas during a peaceful protest just one day later.
"Collectively, I think we felt the same: that we wanted to use our voices," Wright said. "We had no clue it would blow up the way it did."
Liberty players wore the black warm-up shirts four times before the Olympic break, and MVP candidate Tina Charles spoke publicly in defiance of the league's attempt to discipline them as fans rallied around the players.
Charles said via email the "overwhelmingly positive reaction" has motivated her to speak out further.
"Everyone does not have the courage, ability or the platform to speak on subjects like racism or discrimination," Charles said. "But in order to find solutions, a light has to be shone on the issues. I feel it's my duty to use my privilege and platform to advocate for change."
In Minnesota, four-time All-Star Maya Moore initiated the conversation among her teammates. The players then held a pregame press conference while wearing shirts that showed support for Black Lives Matter and the slain officers in Dallas.
"It's been an emotional summer in our country for a lot of reasons," Moore said. "It was important for us to talk about it."
Moore hopes the Olympics were a unifying experience.
"I think it encouraged us to be better as a country, to be inspired by the sacrifice and the diversity of the athletes," Moore said. "I hope it encourages people to be better for each other."
And the end of the Olympics presented the WNBA players another opportunity, Moore said.
"This gives us a chance to add to the momentum for positive change," she said. "We have an opportunity to partner with the league and our teams. To interact with people and keep the conversation going."
The WNBA players on the U.S. national team did not take their protests to Rio. Catchings answered questions about Black Lives Matter and the WNBA players' social justice efforts while at the Olympics, serving as the team spokesperson on the topic. But Catchings said the players wanted to make the pursuit of a sixth straight gold medal the focus at the Games.
"But now we have it," Catchings said.
And the conversation picks up again.
The U.S. women's players have experience parlaying Olympic gold into positive momentum. It was 20 years ago, after the 1996 Games, when two women's professional leagues were launched. And now the WNBA is heading into its third decade.
"Gold medals demand attention," Charles said after helping the U.S. national team extend its Olympic winning streak to 49 games. "People can trust that the energy we poured into winning will be the same team-oriented energy we apply toward making a difference."
Charles pointed to the diverse voices on the U.S. team.
"We know the image of our diverse and unified group standing atop the podium representing the U.S. is powerful, and we want to evoke the same spirit in the advocacy work we will continue to do," she said.
But the job of capitalizing on the Olympic platform will extend far behind the dozen players on the U.S. roster. Catchings said the public stance of the league's players has been unifying and impressive.
"The players really came together over something we all believed in," Catchings said. "It was something we hadn't really experienced before as a league. The amount of engagement was amazing."
As for the WNBA, Catchings said the league got the message.
"When we stand for something, we stand for it," she said.
WNBA President Lisa Borders said she is proud of her players' activism and that the controversy that broiled when the league initially said it would fine players over wearing the black warm-up shirts has left no lingering hard feelings.
"I don't think there's anything to repair," Borders said. "This was a new space for us, for the players, for the fans. This was the first social issue we've dealt with at this magnitude, with something this pervasive in the national conversation, and it was a new situation for everyone."
Borders said the league and its players are working together on local outreach efforts, including "listening sessions" with community leaders in WNBA markets.
"The conversation the players participated in in Los Angeles gave us a framework for what we can do in every community in the WNBA," Borders said.
Meanwhile, the WNBPA has taken things in a bit of a different direction, consulting with academics and activists to help players, who said they wanted to be more educated on the issues in order to be more effective leaders.
Terri Jackson, the director of operations of the WNBPA, said she reached out to leading figures in law and civil rights and created a syllabus so players could read about relevant social justice issues.
"They want to be educated, and we want to help them," Jackson said. "We gathered everything we could, and we gave it to them."
Jackson said the law professors and civil rights attorneys expressed pride in the WNBA players for leading the way.
"They were people who had never watched the WNBA who said, 'These ladies got my attention,'" Jackson said.
Wright said the Olympic break was a "gift," and it gave players time to do their research.
"We engaged ourselves in what's going on, kept the conversation going among ourselves this whole time," she said. "We have players who are ready to do videos on the subject. We are talking about getting involved with voter registration, helping people to understand that you have to get out and vote to change things.
"We know we are not the only ones with a platform here; we have voices as American citizens."
Indeed, some of the voter registration efforts will be aimed at the league's own players, many of whom are playing overseas during elections.
"We want to make sure every single WNBA player is registered to vote," Phoenix Mercury forward Mistie Bass said. "We are educating players on how to use an absentee ballot if they are out of the country. We have to exercise our right to vote or else we can't say we've done our part."
Bass said that in Phoenix, over the break, players arranged a meeting with the Phoenix Police Department.
"We want to talk about what it takes to be an officer, to ask questions and have a better understanding about what officers do and what they go through," Bass said. "We want to ask some difficult questions that the community would be asking. In order for us to take action, there has to be communication."
Teresa Weatherspoon was one of the league's founding players and one of its first stars. She sees this new activism as an extension of barrier-breaking work that was done by the league's early players.
"In 1996, we kicked the door in for women to be able to play professional sports," Weatherspoon said. "We did it back then, and we've been able to keep this league alive for a long time because we believe in it. I feel the same way now about these strong, powerful women who belong in this discussion. The message is the same. It's about equality and opportunity for people who haven't always had it."
Wright said she feels energized by the sense of activism that's spreading throughout the league. And she's confident the WNBA players have entered a new era.
"We are engaged right now," Wright said. "Our eyes are open."
And their voices are starting to carry.
Michelle Smith has covered several sports, including college football, college basketball, the Olympics and the WNBA, for a variety of outlets, including AOL Fanhouse, espnW.com and the San Francisco Chronicle. She is a freelance writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.