Candace Parker is being inducted where everyone knew she would end up – the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

The hall, which is located in downtown Knoxville, made it official Thursday with the announcement that Parker and seven other inductees – four players, two coaches and one contributor – comprise the Class of 2026. Induction weekend will be June 26-27 with the ceremony on June 27 at the Tennessee Theatre. Ticket information will be announced later.

“We are honored to pay tribute to eight distinguished legends of this exceptional sport,” WBHOF President Dana Hart said. “They exemplify the highest standards in women’s basketball and have made substantial contributions to the sport, along with shaping the game’s historical trajectory.”

Parker was selected for induction in her first year of eligibility as a player after announcing her retirement in 2024 before a new WNBA season started. A player is eligible three years after retirement, and Parker’s final season was in 2023. This website has chronicled Parker’s accomplishments, and her decision to retire can be read HERE.

Full disclosure: I have served as a member of the WBHOF board of governors since 2020 as the city of Knoxville’s appointee. However, I am not a member of the WBHOF selection committee, which operates behind the scenes and without interference.

With that said, Parker was indeed a first ballot selection, as was Sue Bird, who entered the WBHOF in 2025 after retiring following the 2022 season. Diana Taurasi’s final season was in 2024, and she will be eligible for the Class of 2027. With players like that on the ballot, the debate likely doesn’t take very long.

Parker won two national titles at Tennessee and three WNBA championships at Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas. Los Angeles and Chicago retired her jersey last summer, and her Tennessee No. 3 hangs in the rafters in Knoxville in a story on this site that can be read HERE.

Parker lives in California but has made regular trips to Knoxville over the years, most recently as the celebrity host for ESPN College Gameday on campus for the Georgia football game on Sept. 13. Current Lady Vols coach Kim Caldwell made the trip to Los Angeles last summer on June 29 when the Sparks retired Parker’s jersey.

Vols basketball coach Rick Barnes had media availability on Thursday and was asked about Parker earning a spot in the hall.

“She’s truly a Hall of Famer, a person that has made an incredible impact everywhere she’s been,” Barnes said. “She’s definitely left every program she was a part of better than she found it. And I’m obviously, personally, just so excited for her, because I have a great blessing to get to know her and know how much the game meant to her.

“I think you look back, I think you would definitely say that she maximized the ability that she had, and she’s affected the game in a very positive way.”

The class also will include Elena Delle Donne, who played for Delaware and the Chicago Sky, and international players Isabelle Fijalkowski and Amaya Valdemoro; Cheryl Reeve, a longtime WNBA and Team USA coach; and Kim Muhl, the head coach at Kirkwood Community College for 36 years and NJCAA Hall of Famer.

Doris Burke will enter as contributor for her work at ESPN as an analyst for women’s basketball, and the late Barbara Kennedy-Dixon will be honored as a veteran of the game. She tallied 3,113 points and 1,252 rebounds at Clemson and is one of just eight players with at least 3,000 points and 1,000 rebounds since the NCAA became involved with women’s basketball in 1981-82. The other six are Delle Donne, Brittney Griner, Patricia Hoskins, Lorri Bauman, Maya Moore, Chamique Holdsclaw and Cheryl Miller.

Parker will become the 11th Lady Vol player in the WBHOF, which inducted its first class in 1999. The other players are Cindy Noble, 2000; Patricia Roberts, 2000; Holly Warlick, 2001; Cindy Brogdon, 2002; the late Daedra Charles, 2007; Bridgette Gordon, 2007; Jill Rankin, 2008; the late Nikki McCray, 2012; Chamique Holdsclaw, 2018; and Tamika Catchings, 2021.

Candace Parker and Pat Summitt talk during a game at Tennessee. (Pat Summitt Leadership Group photo)

Three Lady Vol coaches are in the WBHOF, topped by Pat Summitt, who entered in 1999. The other two are Mickie DeMoss, Summitt’s longtime assistant, who was inducted in 2018, and Carolyn Peck, who served on the staff as an assistant from 1993-95, and entered the hall in 2023.

Two Lady Vols athletics directors, Gloria Ray and Joan Cronan, were inducted in 2010 and 2019, respectively. Danielle Donehew, who served as Summitt’s director of basketball operations and is now executive director of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA), was inducted in 2025.

That is a total of 17 people whose path led them to the WBHOF from Tennessee.

Summitt entered the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 2000. That hall requires that a player be retired for four years before being considered for enshrinement. Naismith, you’re on deck.

Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press and a 10th anniversary edition will be released June 16, 2026.