Teresa Edwards

High school

Cairo High School

College

University of Georgia

Pro team(s)

Atlanta Glory (ABL), Minnesota Lynx (WNBA)

Hall of Fame

⭐ Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Teresa Edwards was born on July 19, 1964, in Cairo, Georgia (Grady County) — the same small South Georgia town where Jackie Robinson was born — and attended Cairo High School before playing college basketball at the University of Georgia, where she was an All-American. She went on to become the most decorated basketball player in the history of the United States Olympic program, male or female: she competed in five consecutive Olympic Games (1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000), winning four gold medals and one bronze. She captained and led the 1996 Atlanta Olympic team to gold on home soil in one of the most emotional moments in American women's sports history. No American team sport athlete — in any sport, of any gender — has competed in more Olympics. Edwards also played professionally in Europe and Japan between Olympic cycles when no domestic professional women's league existed in the United States, and she was one of the founding players of the American Basketball League (ABL) and later the WNBA. She also served as flag bearer for the United States at the 2000 Sydney Olympics opening ceremony. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. Born and raised in Cairo, Georgia.