Connections yield connections
Swoopes has extensive experience visiting and holding basketball camps and clinics and speaking at basketball events “because that’s what we need to do, that’s what I was supposed to be a part of.” However, Gina Paradiso, chief content officer and Swoopes’ agent at LIFT Sports Management convinced Swoopes to participate in the ACES Elite Classic based on their conversations about Swoopes’ vision for girls and women in sports.
“It’s always important that girls feel like they matter, but they also feel like they have every opportunity to succeed as their male counterparts,” Swoopes said. “Growing up, the opportunities that I had as a girl in basketball were few and far between, and I just think when you look at where the game is today, the excitement around it, this movement we’re having, it’s such a great time to be involved.”
Paradiso also had the ear of Kortovich, whom she’d met several years prior as a talent strategist who’d helped him plan one of ACES’ first celebrity games in Los Angeles at what was then the Staples Center.
“Even during Covid, she was like, ‘You’ve got to do a bigger push for women,’” Kortovich said. “So we did some stuff [in Los Angeles], we did some stuff with [two-time WNBA champion] A’ja [Wilson] in the bubble, we did some stuff with Sue Bird and just and then when I heard she was working with Sheryll over the holidays, she’s like, ‘Yo B, I might have something for you.’”