Texas Tech head women’s basketball coach Krista Gerlich has vivid memories of Sheryl Swoopes’ stardom in its earliest form.
Sold-out home games. Being grand marshals at Lubbock’s July 4th parade. Fans grabbing papers and crumpled-up napkins to ask for autographs. A football field packed with 40,000 fans welcoming the Lady Raiders home after winning the 1993 National Championship.
Gerlich, like Swoopes, is one of three players (along with the team’s all-time leading scorer, Carolyn Thompson) ever to have their numbers retired — a product of their 1993 title run. But like everyone else on that team, Gerlich knows Swoopes was the reason for it all.
Article continues below this ad
“A lot of people would say to us, ‘Well, you’re a one-man team,'” Gerlich told Chron. “I always spoke up and said, ‘Well, it takes five of us on the court at one time to play, so she has to have us, and… she’s our first option. We’re not dumb. Until someone stops our first option, why would we go to option two?”
Swoopes is one of the most decorated players in basketball history. She won three Olympic gold medals with the U.S. women’s national team and was a three-time WNBA MVP, winning four WNBA titles with the Houston Comets.
But Swoopes elevated the game beyond her accolades: the way she could glide across the floor, score from all three levels and defend any position on the court made her a must-see spectacle. Swoopes on the marquee meant constant sellouts at the 8,000-seat Lubbock Municipal Coliseum and the securing of the first pre-sellout of the 1993 NCAA Women’s Final Four in Atlanta.
Article continues below this ad
Sheryl Swoopes scored 47 points against Ohio State to lead Texas Tech to their only women’s basketball national championship in 1993. Swoopes was named Naismith College Player of the Year that season.
She helped usher in a new level of respect for the women’s game, much like today’s generation of stars, only she did it without the widespread broadcast access and social media marketing: through the spectacle of her raw talent.
“Seriously, Sheryl Swoopes did it first,” Gerlich said. “When I tell you: had we not been seniors… and played another year after we won it all, I think it would be exactly what the Caitlin Clark effect is.”
But now, the impending resurrection of the Comets in 2027 is drawing attention back to the dynasty days. It’s a time when young women who weren’t alive for Swoopes’ dominance are learning about her. One can wonder how she’ll contribute to the next chapter of the Comets.
Article continues below this ad
“I think, as a former player, I think it’s all of our responsibility, job, however you want to put it, to continue to talk about the game, to continue to promote the game,” Swoopes told Chron on March 11.
Swoopes couldn’t carry the momentum of a Texas Tech national championship run into the WNBA back in 1993: the league hadn’t started yet.
Instead, she traveled the world with the USA national team, but she was still popular enough to become the first woman to have a signature athletic shoe with Nike, called the ‘Air Swoopes.’
“All I ever played in were men’s shoes,” Swoopes told Andscape in Aug. 2021.
Article continues below this ad
The sneaker was so successful that Nike went on to partner with more women following the WNBA’s inception in 1997, like Lisa Leslie, Dawn Staley and Cynthia Cooper.
“One in three high school girls plays sports,” Liz Dolan, Nike’s vice president of marketing, told the New York Times in 1995. “But most women basketball players have bought men’s shoes believing they’re better. It’s not true, but people have that feeling. So we needed to make a women’s basketball shoe to make sure they’re viewed as equal.”
Swoopes became the first player to sign with a WNBA team ahead of the 1997 inaugural season. She did so knowing she had a baby on the way, and despite her fear of letting the league down, she made her debut 6 weeks into the season, only two months after her son, Jordan Jackson, was born.
Sheryl Swoopes emerged as a superstar with the Houston Comets, crossing over into pop culture and international prominence due to her time on the United States Olympic team.
“I think that’s something that needs to be said: as women and athletes in the sports world, we can do so many things… You can be a mom, you can be a wife, you can be a working professional, you can be an athlete,” Gerlich said. “And I just think she is a perfect example.”
Article continues below this ad
Swoopes, with the help of Cooper and Tina Thompson, brought the city of Houston a dynasty basketball team, winning the 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 WNBA titles, which attracted crowds of over 12,000 fans per game to the Compaq Center.
In the meantime, Gerlich watched from afar, coaching high school girls’ basketball across the state, breaking into the college ranks with a return to Texas Tech as an assistant under their former coach before landing her first head coaching job at West Texas A&M.
“I would teach a class and I would say, ‘Do you guys know who Sheryl Swoopes is?’ All of them would say, “Oh my gosh, yes.’ And you did that for years. It definitely imploded for young girls to see what women could do in the sports world,” Gerlich said.
Back in Lubbock, Swoopes left behind a team under head coach Marsha Sharp that continued to win conference titles long after she helped secure its first, making postseason runs and drawing crowds that called for a bigger venue: the United Supermarkets Arena.
Article continues below this ad
Sheryl Swoopes built her basketball legend on two critical Texas stops. First in Lubbock, then in Houston.
Zach Long/AP
That dwindled after Sharp retired, and aside from a first-round appearance under Kristy Curry in 2010-11, the Lady Raiders faded from relevance. Gerlich inherited the team three coaches later in 2021 and led it to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 13 years this spring. Swoopes has been inducted into the school’s Ring of Honor and has visited the team a few times.
“She sent me the most inspirational text ever before we played in the NCAA tournament,” Gerlich said. “She said, ‘You tell your girls to just believe they can do it.’”
“She put in parentheses, ‘Like we did.'”
Article continues below this ad
Swoopes’ presence on the game remains strong. Beyond motivational messages, she stays busy through her nonprofit, Back to Our Roots, which focuses on educating young people about their “ancestral heritage” through travel, food education, seminars, and basketball camps. Additionally, she’s currently a broadcast analyst for Athletes Unlimited, a lifetime brand ambassador for Nike, and a newly minted do-it-all grandmother. Her son, Jordan Jackson, plays overseas in Turkey and recently became a father in July 2025.
But even with all that’s on her plate, it’s hard to imagine a world in which the Comets exist without Swoopes—a Houston resident—being a part of it.
“To be honest with you, when I heard the news: I actually got emotional,” Swoopes told CBS. “For me, the emotions are about everything that we built in Houston…I am thrilled that Houston will be getting a team back. They’re ready for a WNBA team and Houston Comets: we back baby!”