Allie Quigley couldn’t make leaving the WNBA a total “Irish goodbye.”
After 14 seasons in the league, the WNBA champion, four-time three-point contest winner, three-time All-Star and two-time Sixth Player of the Year announced her official retirement from the game on Tuesday.
Quigley joked that although she’s Irish, she didn’t pull off a complete Irish goodbye and instead wrote an official send-off to the league that has given her so much.
Quigley played her last game in 2022 before stepping away from the court to build her family. She initially wanted to come back for a season or two after having her first child, but as her timeline took longer to play out than she planned, she ended up taking the last three seasons off.
“As special as the Sky winning a championship felt, and as proud of a moment as that was, bringing a baby into the world is our accomplishment we’re most proud of. It was the greatest day of our lives. There’s nothing like it,” Quigley shared in a retirement announcement on the Players’ Tribune.
“But also, now that Jana is here……. I feel ready to finally and officially say goodbye to my basketball career.”
The 38-year-old had a historic impact on the Sky franchise she’d been a part of since 2013. In 2021, she helped lead them to their first-ever WNBA Championship, and in the process, she became the Sky’s all-time leading scorer. An accolade she held until last month when her teammate and wife Courtney Vandersloot took it over.
Before the 2022 season, Quigley had already begun to think about retirement.
“I realized I actually wanted to savor the end of my career. I wanted the experience of walking into each arena and knowing it might be the last time I’d ever play there. And I wanted the experience of trying to defend our championship that we worked so hard for, for so long. So that’s what I did. I didn’t tell a lot of people, but I played in 2022 thinking it would probably be my last season. I really, truly soaked it all in.”
Quigley was drafted in the second round, No. 22 overall by the Seattle Storm in 2008, and fought through being cut four times before finding her place with the Sky.
Although she has now officially left the league, Quigley remains connected to the Sky as her wife Vandersloot continues her career there.
