Suzy Shuster Talks Cathy Engelbert's "Retirement," Nneka Ogwumike & More

Cathy Engelbert is retiring at 61, and the air quotes did most of the work. Rich called the framing slightly if not thoroughly disrespectful. Suzy Shuster brought the receipt from the internet. "Retiring in quotes was trending on Twitter today."

Shuster's assessment was not a hit job, though. She led with the case for the defense, and it is a real one. Engelbert oversaw incredible growth across seven years in a job she thought would last three and a half. She was the league's first commissioner. She steered it through the bubble successfully. And she sat on the other side of a collective bargaining agreement that, in Shuster's words, finally "paid these women what they deserve to be paid."

The numbers back the growth claim without any spin required. In 2019 the average price of a franchise was 10 million dollars. It is 460 million now. The league keeps adding teams, at what feels like two more every couple of years.

So the critique is not about results. It is about distance.

Shuster's comparison point was Adam Silver, whom she has known for 30 years and describes as the most personable human being, someone who made an effort to be the commissioner and to actually know his players. She sees the same instinct in Roger Goodell. "And I think that Cathy kept that separation between the players far too greatly."

That separation, in her read, is what turned a difficult year into a resentful one, over officiating and over the social issues that consumed so much of the conversation. Her prescription for the next commissioner follows directly. Whoever it is "is going to have to make a concerted effort to get to know these players more, where they are as human beings."

Rich sharpened the job description from the media side. When narratives outside the league take over the league, and overshadow the actual play, someone has to take control of the narrative. That did not happen this year.

Shuster lives inside that problem weekly on Women's Sports Now, and her frustration was specific. Week after week the show sat down with genuinely good basketball to discuss and instead had to address objects being thrown onto courts, and social and political flashpoints that had nothing to do with the games. "We're really not talking about what's happening on the court. We're constantly caught up in this social media vortex." What she wanted to be talking about was the Fever, and Olivia Miles, whom she called her favorite human being outside her own family.

Her verdict on the silence was blunt, and framed as a PR failure rather than a moral one. "She should have stepped in front of the cameras and said, enough is enough." Shuster pointed to Engelbert declining Dan Patrick as the example. Yes, he would have grilled her. Yes, he would have argued. That was the point. Showing up day after day, or having her people commit to it, was available and she could have made the time.

The stakes are what make it sting. "This league is at such an inflection, and we've never seen such interest in the WNBA as we do right now." Instead the story became the social issues and a commissioner who appeared to be abdicating responsibility. "That can't be the headline."

Which brings us to the campaign Shuster has apparently already launched. Two weeks ago on Women's Sports Now she announced that Nneka Ogwumike will be the next commissioner, and she is only half joking about running the campaign herself.

The case is straightforward. Ogwumike was the 2016 MVP and has been president of the WNBPA for roughly a decade. The qualification Shuster keeps returning to is the combination, which is rarer than either half. "She's beloved by the players, but respected by the owners, and that's that perfect blend that you need." The nickname is not decorative. "They call her Madam President for a reason." Shuster also noted the family, with sister Chiney Ogwumike now a major ESPN analyst, calling them the brightest group, and flagged longevity as the real asset. Ogwumike could grow into the job and stay in it.

She acknowledged the obstacle honestly. The Board of Governors has to sign off, and there is a fair question about whether Silver wants someone who came up on the players' side. Shuster's answer was to flip it. "But maybe that's just what this league needs."

She went through the alternatives rather than pretending there are none. Mark Tatum, the NBA's deputy commissioner and COO, fits an established pattern, since Silver himself took over from David Stern after growing up inside the organization. She also floated Andrea Brimmer of Ally Financial, on the strength of a genuinely distinguishing record, having invested the same money in women's sports as in men's.

She still landed where she started. "I just think they need a big, out of the box, exciting play here." Renee Montgomery has argued to her that Ogwumike belongs in ownership instead. Shuster is unconvinced. Putting her in the commissioner's chair with a long runway is the more exciting play.

All of this was delivered while she held the leash of the family's new puppy, a rescue golden named Summer from Retrievers and Friends in Menifee, California, who spent the segment audibly working a squeaky toy. The toy went off at the exact moment Mark Tatum's name came up, which Rich found fitting for the smilingest deputy commissioner in the history of deputy commissioners.

There was also urgent family business. Cooper is on the clock in not one but two fantasy guillotine leagues, and Harvard-Westlake has a strict no-phone policy that does not bend for lunch. The draft was paused rather than putting him on auto pick, which Shuster considered non-negotiable for reasons any parent will recognize. Even a perfect first half of the season would not save them. "Week nine, but you put me on auto pick, Dad."

Rich raised the obvious objection, that 17 other people have to suffer for this. The league answered for itself. Vinnie Pasquantino, first baseman of the Kansas City Royals and a member of the same league, texted his own request to pause if he was on the clock between 7:10 and 10:00 Central, promising to pick shortly after. Rich thumbs-upped it and acquiesced.

Cooper, for his part, has correctly identified the best part of the arrangement. As Shuster relayed it: "Mom, it's pretty cool that I'm on a fantasy with Vinnie Pasquantino, isn't it?"