Nine athletes who changed women's sports forever, from Cheryl Miller to Caitlin Clark

Women's sports today are booming. The WNBA just signed a transformational collective bargaining agreement that took multi-million dollar contracts from a dream to a reality; the average National Women's Soccer League team is now worth $184 million; the Professional Women's Hockey League has expanded from six to 12 teams in just three years, and the Athletes Unlimited Softball League just completed a successful second season.

But all of this success is only possible because of the women who paved the way. On Monday night, many of those women will be celebrated at the Collegiate Women Sports Awards presented by Honda on CBS Sports Network at 7 p.m. ET.

The Honda Sport Award, which recognizes athletic achievement as well as scholastic and community involvement, is given to the top athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned women's sports each year, and the Honda Cup is presented to one of those 12 athletes.

On Monday night, the 2026 Honda Cup will be awarded to this year's group of finalists, which includes UCLA basketball star Lauren Betts , standout Stanford swimmer Torri Huske and two-time Florida State soccer national champion Jordynn Dudley.

But this particular celebration will be extra special because it marks the 50th anniversary of the Collegiate Women's Sports Awards (CWSA). So many past winners are expected to attend -- including Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Ann Meyers, Missy Franklin and Chamique Holdsclaw -- that it is being hailed as "one of the largest gatherings of the greatest women in collegiate athletics over the past half century."

There are so many trailblazing basketball legends I could have selected here — the first three winners of the awards were all basketball players, Luisa Harris (1977), Ann Meyers (1978) and Nancy Lieberman (1979). But I'm starting with Cheryl Miller because of the way she catapulted women's basketball into the mainstream. Miller led the electric Women of Troy to back-to-back NCAA championships in 1983 and 1984, then won Olympic Gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. And along the way, she literally made women's basketball front-page news, even getting on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1985.

In that article, the author noted that, "With apologies to Wayne Gretzky ... Miller probably is the most dominating individual in a team sport of this era." An ACL tear sadly cut her career short, and her rise took place over a decade before the WNBA was formed. But we are lucky to still have her around in the broadcasting booth. In just a few short years, Miller raised the ceiling for what women's basketball was capable of.

Across town in Los Angeles in the 1980s, Joyner-Kersee was making waves of her own. While she was a good basketball player, Joyner really changed the world in track and field, where she won back-to-back NCAA heptathlon titles in 1982 and 1983 and went on to be a decorated Olympian, nabbing three golds, two silvers and a bronze in both heptathlon and long jump across four Olympic Games. Her 7,291 points in the heptathlon at the 1988 Seoul Olympics remain a world record to this day, and Sports Illustrated named her "The Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century."

Dawn Staley was a true hooper in her college days with the Cavaliers, leading them to three straight NCAA Women's Final Fours and even being the first player to be named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four without winning a national title. She was a great point guard in the pros, too, making six WNBA All-Star teams and winning three gold medals with Team USA. But as great as she was dishing dimes, Staley's biggest impact on women's sports has come on the sidelines as the head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks. She has built a powerhouse program that has made 12 straight Sweet Sixteens, six straight Final Fours, and captured three national championships. She's become a leading voice for women, particularly Black women, in sports and even coached a future Honda Cup winner, Aliyah Boston , who captured the award in 2023.

Lisa Fernandez was the first softball player to win the award, though hardly the last -- three other softball players have won the Honda Cup since, including two-time winner Rachel Garcia (2019, 2021), a player that Fernandez helped coach at UCLA. In college, Fernandez was a pitcher and third baseman with a 93-7 record on the mound, leading her team to two national titles and four consecutive appearances in the NCAA Women's College World Series. She won three golds and one silver with Team USA and currently serves as both an associate head coach at UCLA and a general manager of the Utah Talons and is in both the ASA Hall of Fame and the USOPC Hall of Fame.

A year after Fernandez made Honda Cup history for softball, Mia Hamm did the same for soccer. Hamm became the first soccer star to get the honor after leading the Tar Heels to a staggering four straight national championships. She became the face of the USWNT, leading the team to two Olympic gold medals and two Women's World Cup titles. She has played a massive role in getting women's professional soccer established in the United States -- she was the founding player of the short-lived Women's United Soccer Association, which was the first pro women's league in the country; her likeness inspired the logo for the second pro women's league, Women's Professional Soccer; and she's now a co-owner for Angel City FC in the National Women's Soccer League. She inspired multiple generations of women's soccer players and in 2013 became the first woman inducted into the World Football Hall of Fame.

We want to see this one again 😍 (& again, & again…) pic.twitter.com/ZtDOF4xg2K

May-Treanor won the Honda Cup award after captaining the first perfect season in NCAA women's volleyball history, going 36-0 and winning the 1998 NCAA championship with her 49ers. She was the second volleyball player to capture the title, following Hawaii's Deitre Collins in 1983. But she is best known for her domination in beach volleyball, ...

Indexed and credited by AIPROPX. Originating outlet: CBS Sports. Open at source →