Yolanda Griffith

CTL-E-6833 · Person · other · contemporary

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07705 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6833.

Yolanda Griffith is a Chicago-born forward-center whose rebounding and defense made her one of the founding stars of the WNBA. Born in Chicago on March 1, 1970, she attended Carver High School in Chicago and, after Palm Beach Community College, starred at Florida Atlantic University, earning Division II Player of the Year honors. After professional seasons in Germany and in the American Basketball League — including a stint with the Chicago Condors — the Sacramento Monarchs selected her second overall in the 1999 WNBA Draft. In her first WNBA season she won MVP, Newcomer of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year; in 2005 she led Sacramento to its only WNBA championship as Finals MVP. A two-time Olympic gold medalist (2000, 2004), she was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021. Boston College Athletics' coaching biography credits her with 4,238 career points and 2,444 rebounds.

The record

• Also known as: Yolanda Evette Griffith

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0359. Sacramento Monarchs is not a homed endpoint in this pass, so no played_for relationship is emitted. All-Star counts vary slightly across sources in this pass (seven vs. eight selections); this record asserts neither count. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Griffith is essential Chicago women's basketball lineage — a Carver product who reached the professional game before the WNBA existed, then defined its first decade from the post. Photo correction (head, at assembly): staged Commons file did not resolve; verified subject file substituted — see media layer.

Relationships

• Chicago — from
  Yolanda Griffith was born March 1, 1970 in Chicago, Illinois, and is described as a native of Chicago (Wikipedia; Boston College Athletics biography).

Sources

• Boston College Athletics, "Yolanda Griffith — Women's Basketball Coach" biography, bceagles.com. https://bceagles.com/sports/womens-basketball/roster/coaches/yolanda-griffith/2071 — accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Dartmouth College Athletics, "Former Dartmouth Assistant Yolanda Griffith Named to Basketball Hall of Fame," May 17, 2021. https://dartmouthsports.com/news/2021/5/17/womens-basketball-former-dartmouth-assistant-yolanda-griffith-named-to-basketball-hall-of-fame — accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• "Yolanda Griffith," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yolanda_Griffith — accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6833 · Combined Graph record U-07705 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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