By Megan Venable
Michelle Marciniak was National Player of the Year and was famously being recruited by a then-very-pregnant Pat Summitt when Pat unexpectedly went into labor in the Marciniak’s home in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “Pat almost had a baby in my living room,” Marciniak laughs, “and I still didn’t come to UT!” Despite always wanting to play ball for Pat, Marciniak spent one year playing for Notre Dame before becoming a Lady Vol. “I loved how she commanded such a presence with her players,” she says of Pat Summitt. “I could tell as a high school kid she was commanding, but caring, and she knew how to win. She carried herself with presence.”
After graduating in 1996, she made the decision to stick closer to home and not play basketball overseas like many other professional ball players. “I wasn’t ready to explore the world quite yet,” Marciniak says. “I didn’t want to leave my family. My older self looks back and thinks ‘that is a dream job!’ But I was too young.” She spent time playing for several teams in the American Basketball League and the WNBA before assistant coaching for the University of South Carolina and serving as general manager of women’s basketball at the University of Arizona.
During this time, Marciniak gifted a pair of running shorts to fellow athlete Susan Walvius. Thinking back to her time with Pat who taught her players to eat well, nutrition well and sleep well got the two talking about how much they would love the opportunity to sleep on sheets made from the same fabric as the shorts. In 2007, the pair created a brand out of scratch and founded the company SHEEX, a performance bedding company using a proprietary blend of fabrics that mimic athletic gear material. Marciniak remains a leading shareholder and strategic adviser to SHEEX to this day.
The urge to return home paired with her love for family led Marciniak back to Knoxville to care for her mother. After years of working side-by-side with Pat Summitt to raise money and support for Alzheimer's awareness while Pat battled the disease, she learned her mother suffers from the same illness. “She is on my mind every second of every day,” she says. Through her role on the Board of Governors for the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame she learned that Dana Hart was planning to retire as president of the organization. “One conversation led to another and I thought ‘wow! I should do this!’” Marciniak says. Effective July of this year, she will officially become CEO of the WBHOF.
But she has already started working on a ton of new projects for the WBHOF. “I’m trying to intake everything right now; putting together a very detailed strategic plan that is revenue focused and community driven,” Marciniak says. “The physical museum is here with tentacles to reach national and global partners. “With her experience in starting, building and growing SHEEX she plans to apply that knowledge here locally. “I have a big vision further into the local community and local partnerships. I want to refocus it to where women’s basketball is today and make it more relevant than it has been in the past – there are a lot of community partners I’m going to really enjoy building bridges with.”