Notre Dame sports legend Ruth Riley’s charitable service

 

Notre Dame basketball legend Ruth Riley returned to campus on April 15 to talk about her humanitarian work as a professional athlete. The speech, titled, “From Professional Athlete to Humanitarian: How I Became Involved in the Fight Against Poverty and Disease,” was sponsored by the Ford Family Program in Human Studies and Solidarity and took place in the Eck Visitors Center.

Riley graduated from Notre Dame in 2001, the same year she led the Women’s Basketball team to their only national championship. She has had great success at the professional level, winning championships in the WNBA in 2003 and 2006 and an Olympic gold medal in 2004. She has played for five different WNBA teams and is now a member of the Atlanta Dream.

The Indiana native has always been tall, reaching 6 feet by middle school and topping out around 6 foot 5 inches. She said her time at Notre Dame was crucial to the development of her humanitarian heart, citing the relationships that she formed in her dorm, with her professors and with her teammates as incredibly significant. Notre Dame was the place where Riley first encountered the cultural and socioeconomic diversity that helped shape her worldview.

Riley grew up in a Pentecostal family and matured in her faith during her college years.

“When I got to Notre Dame, this childlike faith that I had was challenged by a lot of the theology and philosophy classes that I took,” she said. “For me, my time here at Notre Dame was when I truly took ownership of my faith.”

She connected the importance of her faith to her position as an athlete and role model.

“For me, it’s a responsibility to do the right thing,” Riley explained. “I learned very quickly that I wanted to utilize the platform that I had to make a greater difference.”

Riley’s stature as an athlete elicits a positive response from the people she helps: “I think sports and music are two avenues that unite people, even if they can’t communicate.”

One of the programs in which she participates is Nothing But Nets, which sends Riley to rural parts of Africa during the offseason to deliver bed nets for malaria protection and to Capitol Hill to advocate for funding. She loves to connect with the people she serves, hoping to “reach the kids when they’re young” and introduce them to sports and leadership by creating spaces safe from disease, crime and poverty.

Another organization in which Riley participates, No Kid Hungry, seeks to combat childhood hunger. The cause is personal because she was a child recipient of the free and reduced school lunch program.

Riley praised the WNBA for its tremendous service efforts in a variety of areas, including diabetes, hunger, literacy and AIDS. Riley emphasized that she and her fellow humanitarians are not the solutions to the problems; they only provide tools to help make the change.

Devotion to faith, health and family helps Riley to balance her life and serve others efficaciously. When people create this balance in their lives, Riley said, they can better serve others.

Riley also provided some details about her near future. Her WNBA career is coming to an end and she intends to enroll in the executive MBA program at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business after this summer’s WNBA season. Riley has been the vice president of the WNBA’s players union for 8 years, and she wants to develop her leadership skills through graduate school.

Despite all of her work, Riley knows what she likes best: “My true passion is obviously the humanitarian work that I do.”

Father Bob Dowd, CSC, director of the Ford Program, concluded the night by applauding Riley’s efforts, saying that she exemplifies the “best of Notre Dame.” He added that he appreciates her tackling of world problems in a way “that’s really thoughtful, that doesn’t promote dependency but instead promotes human flourishing.”

Sophomore Maggie Schmid told the Rover that she has been a Riley fan all her life: “Growing up in South Bend, I definitely looked up to Ruth—I even had a poster of her in my room when I was younger.”

Schmid added, “What I loved about her talk was how she got to be where she is today. I was inspired to hear about all of the extra work and hours she put in to improve her game despite difficult circumstances growing up. I also appreciated her discussion on boundaries and balance. She talks about how you really have to prioritize your time when people start pulling you in different directions and for her, humanitarian work is a high priority with basketball … Ruth is a perfect example of handling sports, faith, and service with grace and resilience.”

 

Owen Smith is a sophomore who spent Easter here at Notre Dame with his parents and twin sister, Molly. To talk with Owen about why twins make the best siblings, email him at osmith1@nd.edu.