After 11 years in the WNBA, one of the league’s pioneers is calling it a career.
Los Angeles Sparks guard Layshia Clarendon is retiring from basketball, they announced in a Friday afternoon Instagram post. Clarendon, 33, made history in 2020 by coming out as non-binary—the first WNBA player to do so.
“The lesson I’ve been learning this last year is that everything comes to an end,” Clarendon—who uses he/him, she/her and they/them pronouns—wrote. “The time has come for my basketball career to end. I am deeply at peace with this choice as my mind, body, and spirit know unequivocally that it’s time to move on.
Clarendon split their career between six different teams, playing most frequently for the team that drafted her—the Indiana Fever—from 2013 to 2015.
The California product’s best season came in 2017, when she averaged 10.7 points per game and made the WNBA All-Star Game with the Atlanta Dream. Clarendon averaged 4.3 points, 1.8 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game in 2024.
With the Golden Bears, he made two All-Pac-12 teams in 2012 and ’13. In the latter year, California reached the women’s Final Four for the first and only time under coach Lindsay Gottlieb.
