How Kate Martin Became One Of The Most Wanted Players In The WNBA

Kate Martin is getting a new teammate—someone she’s so excited to meet that she hustled home the second she heard the news. The only thing is, he hasn’t been born yet.

Logging on to Zoom from her family’s home base in the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa in early April, Kate is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her new nephew, the second son of her sister, Kennedy. The youngest of three, Kate names Kennedy as one of the first influences that propelled her toward a career as a professional athlete. “She’s the best,” says Kate, now a guard for the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries. As she’s progressed in her profession, she’s realized that her sister has the same personality type as the top coaches she’s played for—a true leader, revered by everyone on the court. “I always respected the heck out of her. I always wanted to be a little more like my sister.”

Basketball may be one of Kate’s first loves, but family is her strongest. On her Instagram account, which has over 450,000 followers, “Carson’s Aunt” is her only identifier.

Family and basketball are her constants, the two things that have been there for her from the start. She spent the night prior to our conversation watching UConn defeat USC in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA tournament with her dad, a former college football player who coached rec basketball for Kate and her brother, Trevor.

Kate, a past starter for Iowa who played in back-to-back national championship games in 2023 and 2024, hasn’t had much downtime to contemplate the whirlwind of it all—but watching the next generation of women’s basketball compete on the same stage she was on almost exactly one year ago reminded her just how far she’s come.

At that time, Kate was preparing to graduate with a master’s degree in sports management and putting out feelers for coaching jobs. While much of the March Madness chatter was focused on a certain Iowa teammate very obviously destined for the WNBA, Kate only had hope—not a guarantee—that she could go pro. With just 12 teams and 144 roster spots, it’s known as one of the toughest leagues to make, with one of the most stacked draft classes in years in 2024.

For Kate to be literally plucked out of the audience at the 2024 WNBA Draft, chosen 18th overall by the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, was as close to a basketball fairy tale as you can imagine. But this wasn’t luck or magic; it was earned—and not always on national TV or on a stat sheet, but in moments of true teamwork and leadership in the locker room, on the bench, back home in Illinois, and right now, when she nonchalantly admits that she’s never stopped grinding behind the scenes.

“There’s moments here and there where I’m like, ‘Wow, I’ve done some really awesome things and I’ve been a part of some really cool moments,’ ” she says. “But you kind of just move on and do the next thing.”

Kate’s parents, Matt and Jill, are both teachers, and hers was never one of those pushy youth sports families willing to shell out for private trainers and expensive lessons. They wanted their kids to be kids. But even at 5 years old, Kate, now 24, already had a goal of being a Hawkeye.

Iowa’s associate basketball coach at the time, Jan Jensen (now the head coach), is married to Kate’s aunt, and crashing with them to attend Iowa basketball camps was a much-loved summer activity. At home, she slept with an Iowa basketball poster on the ceiling above her bed so it would be the first thing she saw when she woke up every morning.

Her dad knew that if she wanted to be a better athlete, she didn’t need the pressure of elite youth leagues—she just needed to learn how to get scrappy against stronger, faster competition. “Being educators and coaches in our family, she’s been surrounded by it—a certain mindset,” Matt has said. “No excuses.” He coached her on her brother’s fourth-grade basketball team when she was just a second grader, and she even played quarterback on an all-boys tackle football team.

A passionate competitor, Kate attacked every sport with fire.

By the time she started at Edwardsville High School, she’d worked hard enough that a college scholarship felt within reach. To help her avoid basketball burnout, her parents gave her an ultimatum: Pick up another sport in the offseason or get a part-time job. (She chose a sport—volleyball, which she loved—instead of the job.)

“You don’t have to hire the best trainers or have the best basketball or have the best clothes and look a certain way. Just be you, and go have fun.”

“I’m just really thankful that I have that guidance in my life and I have parents who have really good heads on their shoulders to teach me that it’s okay to do other things,” she says. “You don’t have to hire the best trainers or have the best basketball or have the best clothes and look a certain way. Just be you, and go have fun.”

After Kate averaged 13 points per game and competed in the Class 4A state championship, five colleges called—including her dream school, Iowa. On her official visit, Matt has said, he told the Hawkeyes coaches about the real Kate. “I don’t know how many minutes Kate will ever play for you. I don’t know how many points or rebounds she’ll ever get,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what you’re going to get. When you have recruits coming on campus, you want them around Kate. When you have tough times in the locker room, you want Kate around. When you go to the elementary schools and read books, you want Kate going. That’s who you’re getting as a person.” She announced her verbal commitment in May 2017.

Everything she’d envisioned in her childhood bedroom was coming true. Then, two days before her first practice as a freshman, she tore her ACL before an all-star game.

“It felt like my dreams were all crumbling,” she says. “I was so close to living out my dream, and then I just felt like I was being set back—and I was. But now I obviously know it was for a great reason.”

Redshirted on the bench at Iowa, Kate was a sponge. She observed her idols in the senior class—Megan Gustafson, Tania Davis, Hannah Stewart—and noticed the absence of the cutthroat jealousy and animosity that could come with high school basketball squads, the parts of sport her sister taught her, by example, to avoid. She watched Jensen and head coach Lisa Bluder at work and picked up on what it took to lead a successful team.

“I realized everybody had one goal, and that was to win,” Kate says. “Nobody cared who scored, nobody cared how we won—let’s just do it, and let’s do it together.” She had a front-row seat not only to Iowa’s first Elite Eight appearance since 1993, but also to everything it took to get there. “I was like, ‘Wow, how are we ever going to top this?’ ”

Kate became the Hawkeyes’ ultimate cheerleader, earning their respect by staying late in the gym with them and even carrying their bags if needed. She learned when to tap into her competitive spirit and when to tone it down. “I couldn’t participate by battling my booty off at practice. That’s typically how you can be a good teammate,” she says. “Instead, I had to learn other ways of just being their number one fan, their biggest supporter. Without that—without tearing my ACL—I don’t know if I would’ve fully grasped that.”

The next season, Kate started to notice teammates coming to her for advice. She worked hard to form personal relationships with every player and learn their various sources of motivation, from tough love to words of affirmation. “Being a good leader comes with a lot of trust,” she says. “I didn’t want people to think I could just hold you accountable on the court if I don’t talk to you off the court. That’s not really how it works.”

Kate played in only 24 games that year and averaged less than three points. But by the start of her redshirt sophomore season, she’d been named team captain, much to the shock of anyone outside of the Hawkeyes locker room. She began to be known as “The Glue,” a nickname she’s still not entirely sure she deserves. After all, she’s human too.

“It felt like people were coining me as this person who was always leading, always being a great teammate. I had my lapses—yes, I did. Was I selfish? Many times. So it was a lot of pressure, actually,” she says. “People are very sweet to call me that. It’s coming from a good-hearted place. And sometimes other people see you in a different light than you see yourself. So it makes me happy that people saw me as ‘The Glue,’ or whatever, but I don’t know—I didn’t always feel like ‘The Glue.’ I thought I had other teammates who were my glue.” That’s the Iowa way, Kate says. Everyone has each other’s back.

Still, teammates like her close friend Caitlin Clark double down on that attribution whenever asked. “She’s probably the best leader I’ve ever been around in my entire life,” Clark said in 2023, ahead of their final season at Iowa. “She is somebody you want on your team, no matter what sport it is, male or female.”

Kate keeps the energy flowing in the Hawkeyes’ huddle, with teammate Caitlin Clark and coaches Jan Jensen and Lisa Bluder.

“She just cares so much [that] if Kate leaves practice for a minute or two to go to the bathroom, you can tell the mood changes,” Jensen has said. “It gets so much more quiet.”

After Iowa reached the national championship in 2023, losing to LSU, legend has it that Caitlin convinced Kate to stay for her sixth year of eligibility and go for it one more time. But Kate says she was enticed by the opportunity to finish her master’s degree for free and bank extra cash via name, image, and likeness deals before entering the real world.

She was worried people would think it was embarrassing to stay in college for six years, but “it was the smartest business decision for myself,” she says. “It felt so selfish, because there were younger players in my position who I felt deserved to step up into my role and take over.” But Bluder and the Iowa staff “built a culture where you didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave. I loved it there. I felt loved. Everyone mattered.”

She was loved. Her teammates were nothing but excited to have “The Glue” sticking with them for one last ride. “We kind of knew if we all stayed together, great things could happen,” Kate says. They made it to the national championship again. And while they lost to South Carolina, the back-to-back appearances are still among Kate’s proudest accomplishments. She has no regrets about staying. She played some of her most dominant basketball that season, with career highs in average points, rebounds, and field goals per game—a testament to the leader she’d become on the court too.

In April 2024, her time at Iowa was winding down, and Kate had more than a month left in her grad school capstone. She was still training, thinking that after graduation she might be able to get a WNBA training camp contract. She didn’t have an agent, so she asked her Iowa coaches to poke around and see whether she was on the draft board for any WNBA teams. Her name had been mentioned a few times, maybe—possibly as a late-third-round pick, but no one was really sure.

Kate put her energy toward making connections for coaching jobs instead.

The 2024 WNBA Draft rolled around, and Caitlin, who was projected to be the top pick, invited Kate and their teammates Jada Gyamfi and Gabbie Marshall to join her in New York City for the celebratory weekend. They met Melissa McCarthy in the airport, explored the city, attended Caitlin’s guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, and sang “Happy Birthday” to musical guest Chris Stapleton. “Gabbie, Jada, and I just wanted to have so much fun,” Kate says. “It was seriously amazing.” They all got dressed up for the draft, because that’s what you do.

Kate and friends were originally to be seated in the mezzanine at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, but ESPN reporter Holly Rowe suggested they be moved to the floor. “ ‘I told them they need to bring you down, because your name is getting called tonight,’ ” Kate recalls Rowe telling her at the draft. “‘You need to be ready. You’re going to walk across that stage.’”

Kate started to feel very overwhelmed. She didn’t know if Rowe was just hyping her up or if she had heard something. If it did happen, she didn’t even want to go up on the stage, which Caitlin’s agent had suggested she do. Kate wasn’t one of the formally invited players and didn’t want a “pity party” if she were picked last. In her head, she was living the SpongeBob SquarePants meme where Mr. Krabs reacts in stunned confusion while his world spins around him.

“She’s a player who loves to do the dirty work that never shows up on the stat sheet. And that’s Kate; she never wants any credit or the shine. It’s always team first.” —Natalie Nakase

Caitlin was chosen number one overall. Her crew—Kate, Jada, Gabbie, and Caitlin’s boyfriend, Connor McCaffery—was situated in the middle of a row. But when the second round of the draft began, a woman working the event approached Kate with intensity and told her she needed to move to an end seat. Jada’s and Gabbie’s jaws dropped, eyes filling with tears. A camera was suddenly stationed in front of them.

Kate texted her family: “Hey guys, I think I’m about to get drafted.” As a million texts back suddenly started rolling in, she was instructed to relinquish her phone. She promptly began freaking out. And with the 18th pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, the Las Vegas Aces selected Kate Martin, University of Iowa.

“I really didn’t know I was going to get drafted. I was hoping. I came in with high hopes. I had heard rumors, but who knows?” she says. She did choose to walk across the stage, and she’s ultimately proud of the now-viral moment. “I don’t really care where I was sitting. I’m just really grateful that I had the opportunity to do that and I get to show my kids and tell my kids that one day. I will have that memory forever.”

In Las Vegas, the Aces had had their eye on Kate for quite some time. “I watched her play in Iowa and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her, because she plays with so much effort and passion,” Natalie Nakase, then first assistant coach for the back-to-back WNBA champions, tells WH in an email. She knew she wanted to coach Kate someday. “She’s a player who loves to do the dirty work that never shows up on the stat sheet. And that’s Kate; she never wants any credit or the shine. It’s always team first.”

Kate was nervous for her shot at the pros, especially heading to training camp immediately after a grueling seven-month college season. “You’re not playing up to how you could play” because of the nerves, she says. “You’re just scared. There’s so much pressure. There’s just a lot going on.”

At the same time, starting her career on the Aces—stacked with established vets like A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray, and Jackie Young—felt like a perfect fit. Kate was used to playing on a team with big stars and high expectations. “The Aces didn’t need anybody to be a new star player. They needed somebody to come in and be a role player, and I have learned how to perfect that,” she says. “I feel really grateful for every star, stud player I’ve ever played with, because it got me prepared for that role.”

Kate thrives when she’s doing whatever is asked of her behind the scenes. She also loves to score and to defend. She had moments when she legitimately couldn’t believe legends like A’ja and Jackie were her teammates, and moments when she knew without a doubt she was making a difference as her own unique player.

Two things can be true, she reasons. “You can question yourself at times, being like, ‘Am I really good enough for this?’ ” she says. “And yet, at the same time, I would get in the games and I’d be like, ‘Oh, heck yeah, I belong. I know what I’ve been working towards my entire life.’ ” On harder days, Kate would rewatch the Aces’ May 18, 2024, game against the Los Angeles Sparks—her first pro game, when she put up five rebounds and a killer block—to remind herself exactly who she is. “Hey, remember: You did this in a WNBA game, mind you,” she’d tell herself.

“I saw Kate’s mindset grow tremendously during her first year. It’s never easy for a college player who played heavy minutes to then transition to the pros and play short stints,” says Nakase, who would spend extra time with Kate watching film or shooting after practice. “Kate embraced it and showed up every day to do whatever it took to make her teammates better.”

In Vegas, Kate picked up a new nickname from Aces head coach Becky Hammon: “Money.” She has a knack for hitting critical shots on the court, but she also comes in clutch off it. “I think that’s going to stick,” former Aces teammate Kelsey Plum said last year. “And when I say ‘Money,’ it’s not just about scoring. She’s just in the right place at the right time.”

At the end of Kate’s rookie year, Nakase was hired as head coach of the WNBA’s new expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries. Looking to add some glue to their new roster, the Valkyries selected Kate in the December 6 expansion draft. It was a highly intentional choice—someone you can build a brand-new team around—as Nakase views Kate as “that cornerstone player who embodies everything we value.”

“She brings this infectious energy and accountability that elevates everyone around her,” Nakase says. “I know exactly who Kate is, and I know exactly what Kate will bring every day. I love players who don’t bring surprises; they bring consistency.”

Kate participates in a community mural painting event in Oakland, California, with the Valkyries.

Kate, as always, is ready to tap into whatever the Valkyries need. “I think when you have those qualities, they’re just kind of always in you,” she says. “I’m always going to be a dependable, reliable teammate and do what I need to do to help us win. If that’s to step up into a leadership role, obviously I will do that. If it’s to delegate or assist anybody in any sort of leadership way that I need to, then I’ll do that. I just want to win and I want to have fun and I want to be there for my teammates. And that’s about it.”

Okay, and she has also hired a trainer—for the first time in her career.

While the inaugural era of Valkyries basketball is still defining itself, Kate’s game plan suspiciously sounds a lot like the Iowa way. “We want to set a culture where everyone matters and where people feel safe and people want to thrive in that environment,” she says.

In a particularly serendipitous moment at the 2025 WNBA Draft, another player was drafted from the audience. Kaitlyn Chen, a UConn point guard whose team had just won the national championship a week prior, was in attendance to support her teammate Paige Bueckers, the number one pick. Kaitlyn was drafted 30th overall, her UConn teammates erupting into cheers, the feel-good story of the night.

“Congrats @kaitlyn.chen,” Kate posted on Instagram Stories. “Getting drafted from the crowd is a classic!!!” They entered training camp together as Valkyries.

Kate is always there for those around her, yes, but she also prioritizes caring for herself. She recharges her batteries by spending time outside, going for a walk or a hike, or to the beach now that she’s living in the San Francisco Bay area. She loves to watch TV and read mystery thrillers or romance novels. She relies on conversations with her siblings and her parents—“my people who have been with me since day one”—when she needs a reset.

Kate is intentionally private when it comes to her personal life, but she also knows that she has a following on social media—and that her human side, the side of her that has nothing to do with basketball, is part of what’s bringing new fans to the WNBA.

“I just want to win and I want to have fun and I want to be there for my teammates. And that’s about it.”

“It’s definitely a delicate balance,” she says. “I want people to know what matters to me and what I care about, so I post about my family or my girlfriend or whatever, because that matters to me. But at the same time, I don’t want you to know too much, because they’re sacred to me, and I want to protect them.”

She finds it easier to talk about basketball, “because it’s just what I’m wired to do,” she says. “It’s my job.” But she also loves to talk about the values her parents instilled in her and the ways her siblings inspire her—all things she’s put into practice throughout her career, things that show in the way she plays with joy and a competitive spirit.

“I just hope people see me as somebody who cares about others,” Kate says. “I know that I play basketball and it’s a super cool thing, but I know there are a lot bigger things than just basketball.”

Like right now. It’s time to end the Zoom call—she can hear that her oldest nephew is in the bathtub, and she’s excited to go play with him. A few days from now, she’ll change her Instagram bio to “Aunt of Two!” It’s her other profession, she says, “and it’s the best profession on earth.”

Amanda Lucci is the director of special projects at Women’s Health, where she works on multi-platform brand initiatives and social media strategy. She also leads the sports and athletes vertical, traveling to cover the Paris Olympics, Women’s World Cup, WNBA Finals, and NCAA Final Four for WH. She has nearly 15 years of experience writing, editing, and managing social media for national and international publications and is also a NASM-certified personal trainer. A proud native of Pittsburgh, PA, she is a graduate of Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Follow her on Instagram @alucci.