Cleveland Executive Director Named 2024 Honoree of ncaa legends and legacy community award

CLEVELAND, OHIO – March 7, 2024 - The NCAA has announced Barbara Anthony, Executive Director and co-founder of Play Gap, a Cleveland-based nonprofit, as one of the recipients of the 2024 NCAA Legends and Legacy Community Award. Each year since 2014, this honor is awarded to individuals in the host cities for the NCAA Men and Women’s Final Four Basketball tournament “who have committed their time, resources, and influence to improve and invest in their local communities.”

Anthony is now among the ranks of past honorees including Opal Lee, the "Grandmother of Juneteenth," LaToya Cantrell, Mayor of New Orleans, Becky Hammon, the first female full-time assistant coach in the NBA, and Carolyn Peck, ESPN analyst and the youngest women’s basketball head coach to win a Division I title.

Anthony’s nominator wrote that she “sets the standard for what sustainable, safe and accessible adult sports should be…to make the sports world a more inviting place for women and a system in which they can thrive.” Anthony’s commitment to advancing equitable spaces in sports for women of all ages stems from growing up in a family of athletes that encouraged her to embrace all types of competition.

In 2020, Anthony and Elise Bigley founded Play Gap, formerly the Northeast Ohio Women’s Sports Alliance, to build connections and community among adult women to experience the physical, social, and mental health benefits of sports. The all-volunteer organization evolved to extend beyond its regional efforts to address the challenges experienced by women in sports nationwide.

Today, Barbara Anthony, MSSA, LISW-S is a licensed clinical social worker, part of the 2024 Cohort for the International Olympic Committee’s Mental Health in Elite Sports Diploma Program, and an active member of both the National Association of Social Workers and the Alliance of Social Workers in Sports.

Anthony holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from Mercyhurst (Pa.) University and a master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University’s Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. She earned Academic All-American honors in water polo at Mercyhurst and today belongs to a Cleveland-based rowing team.

Born in Denver, Colorado, Barb spent most of her school years in Youngstown, Ohio. She is a 1999 Boardman High School graduate who now lives in the Cleveland suburbs. Anthony is the mother to three incredible children, and she says motherhood has been one of the most profound experiences she has ever had.

See the other 2024 Legends and Legacy Award honorees and additional details at https://www.ncaa.org/news/2024/3/7/media-center-ncaa-names-womens-final-four-cleveland-2024-legends-and-legacy-community-award-recipients.aspx

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About Play Gap:

Play Gap is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to champion equity and accessibility in sport for adult women. They believe women everywhere should have equal access to safe, inclusive sports opportunities, and since 2018, have connected with sports organizations and individual community members to spread the physical, social, and mental health benefits of sports to more women.