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Brittney Griner Profile
Brittney Griner is an American professional basketball player for the Phoenix Mercury of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). She played college basketball for the Baylor Lady Bears in Waco, Texas.
Brittney Griner Age
Griner is 33 years old as of 2023. She was born on 18th October 1990 in Houston, Texas, United States of America. Furthermore, she celebrates her birthday on 18th October every year.
Brittney Griner Height
She stands at a height of 5 feet 9 inches tall.
Brittney Griner Family
Griner is the daughter of Raymond Griner, a Harris County deputy sheriff and two-tour Vietnam War veteran, and Sandra Griner. She has three older siblings, D, Shkera, and Pier. Griner attended Nimitz High School in Houston. In addition to lettering in basketball throughout high school, she played varsity volleyball as a freshman.
Starting in her sophomore year, Griner practiced with the boys’ basketball team and worked with a Nimitz football coach to develop her leg strength in preparation for learning to dunk. During her junior season, a YouTube video featuring her dunks was watched more than 6.6 million times, leading to a meeting with Shaquille O’Neal.
During her senior year, Griner led the Nimitz Cougars to the Texas 5A girls’ basketball state championship game, where Nimitz lost 52–43 to Mansfield Summit High School. Griner dunked 52 times in 32 games as a senior, setting a single-game record of seven dunks against Aldine High School. Houston mayor Bill White declared May 7, 2009, Brittney Griner Day.
On November 11, 2008, she recorded 25 blocks in a game against Houston Alief Hastings, the most ever recorded by a female in a high school game in the U.S. In her 2008–09 season, she recorded 318 blocks, a single-season record. Griner was named a WBCA All-American and participated in the 2009 WBCA High School All-America Game, leading the team by scoring 20 points and collecting 9 rebounds.
Brittney Griner Lesbian
In an interview with SI.com on February 11, 2013, Griner publicly came out as a lesbian. She also revealed in the interview that she was bullied as a child, explaining, “It’s hard. Just being picked on for being different. Just being bigger, my sexuality, everything.” She said she is very passionate about working with children to bring attention to the issue of bullying, particularly against LGBT people.
Griner had previously come out to her parents in high school, which her father did not accept gracefully, forcing her to live with an assistant coach for six weeks during her senior year. She later wrote a memoir with Sue Hovey addressing bullying and self-acceptance, In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court, published in 2014.
Her endorsement deal with Nike was the first time the company had signed such a deal with an openly gay athlete. Griner continues to push back on traditional gender roles as she regularly models clothes branded as “menswear” for Nike. Nike spokesman Brian Strong said of signing Griner, “We can’t get into specifics, but it’s safe to say we jumped at the opportunity to work with her because she breaks the mold.”
Brittney Griner Marriages and domestic violence case
On August 14, 2014, Griner got engaged to fellow WNBA player Glory Johnson. On April 22, 2015, they were both arrested on charges of assault and disorderly conduct after police responded to a fight between the two in their suburban home in Phoenix, Arizona. Both had sustained some injuries. Despite this incident, they married the following month on May 8, 2015, in Phoenix.
On May 15, 2015, the WNBA suspended Griner and Johnson for seven games each after Griner pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charges. Griner was also required to complete 26 weeks of domestic violence counseling.
On June 4, 2015, Griner and Johnson revealed that Johnson was pregnant with twins, conceived with Johnson’s eggs through in vitro fertilization. The following day, and after less than a month of marriage, Griner filed for an annulment of the marriage citing fraud and duress; the annulment was denied. Johnson gave birth to twin girls on October 12, 2015, 16 weeks premature.
Griner was ordered to pay child support to Johnson. The couple’s divorce was finalized in June 2016. Griner became engaged to Cherelle Watson in August 2018, and they married in June 2019. Watson later changed her name to Cherelle Griner.
Brittney Griner Career
In 2009, Griner was named the nation’s No. 1 high school women’s basketball player by Rivals.com. She was selected to the 2009 All-American basketball team. In 2012, she received the Best Female Athlete ESPY Award. In 2013, Griner was selected as the first overall pick in that year’s draft, chosen by the Phoenix Mercury, with whom she won the 2014 WNBA Championship, and became an eight-time All-Star.
Standing 6 ft 9 in (206 cm) tall, Griner wears a men’s U.S. size 17 shoe and has an arm span of 87.5 in (222 cm). Griner led the United States women’s national basketball team to victory at the Rio Olympics in 2016. In 2020, Griner protested the Star Spangled Banner and stated she would not be on the court while the national anthem was played during game openers.
Griner was named to the United States women’s national team for the 2020 Olympics, (held in 2021 in Tokyo, Japan), where she won her second gold medal.
Brittney Griner World Cup winner
Additionally, she is a two-time FIBA Women’s World Cup winner with Team USA (2014 and 2018) In February 2022, Griner was detained by Russian customs officials after cartridges containing hashish oil were found in her luggage. She was later arrested on smuggling charges.
Griner had been entering Russia to play with the Russian Premier League during the WNBA off-season. Her trial began on July 1, and she pleaded guilty to the charges. On August 4, she was sentenced to nine years in prison. In November 2022, Griner was transferred to the Russian penal colony IK-2.
During this time, US officials stated that she was “wrongfully detained”. On December 8, Griner was released by Russia in a prisoner exchange for the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was convicted of conspiring to kill Americans and had served 10 years of a 25-year sentence.
Brittney Griner 2022 Arrest in Russia
On February 17, 2022, Griner was arrested on smuggling charges in Russia. She was detained at Sheremetyevo International Airport after the Federal Customs Service found she was carrying vaporizer cartridges containing less than a gram of hash oil. In Arizona, she had been prescribed medicinal cannabis, which is illegal in Russia.
Some U.S. officials expressed concern that Russia may have been using Griner as leverage in response to the Western sanctions imposed against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The former Pentagon official Evelyn Farkas expressed concern that Griner could be used as a “high-profile hostage” by Russia.
The Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, of Houston, Texas, called for Griner’s release. In an interview with CNN, Californian Democratic Congressman John Garamendi estimated that it would be difficult to get Griner out of Russia.
He said that although there might be negotiations to have her released, they would be stymied as diplomatic relations between Russia and the United States were strained because President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
In March 2022, the Russian state news agency TASS reported that a Moscow court had extended the period of Griner’s detention while under investigation until May 19, with an official from the Russian Public Monitoring Commission saying that “the only objective problem has turned out to be the basketball player’s height.
Brittney Griner Detention
The beds in the cell are intended for a person of lesser height.” On March 23, the United States Department of State stated that an American diplomatic official had been able to visit Griner in detention, reporting that she was “in good condition”.
Moreover, in early May 2022, the U.S. State Department stated that they had determined Griner was being “wrongfully detained”, indicating a more aggressive approach toward securing her release. On May 13, CNN reported that the Russian court extended her pre-trial detention to June 18, 2022.
Griner’s Russian attorney Alexander Boykov told the Associated Press he believed the relatively short extension of the detention indicated the case would come to trial soon. On May 15, it was reported that the United States and Russia would consider a prisoner swap, with Russia exchanging Griner for international illegal arms dealer Viktor Bout, who has served 10 years of a 25-year federal prison sentence in the United States.
In May 2022, in her first public interview, since Griner was detained, Griner’s wife Cherelle spoke to Good Morning America and called Griner a “political pawn”. Cherelle said she had heard from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying, “I was grateful for the call. You say she’s a top priority, but I wanna see it.”
Brittney Griner Prisoner exchange talks
On July 27, 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden approved a possible trade for Griner and Paul Whelan, who was arrested in 2018 for espionage in Moscow and sentenced to 16 years in prison, in exchange for Bout. The possibility of an exchange was further complicated when the Russians demanded the inclusion of convicted assassin Vadim Krasikov, who is serving a life term for an assassination in Germany, in the negotiations.
In July 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov for the first time since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine, to whom he made an offer from the U.S. to secure the release of Griner and Whelan. According to Tagesschau, it is unlikely that Krasikov will be transferred back to Russia.
Brittney Griner Sentencing
On August 4, the court found Griner guilty and sentenced her to nine years in prison. They additionally fined her 1 million rubles (US$16,301).
Brittney Griner Imprisonment
On November 17, Griner’s lawyers said that she was transferred to IK-2, a female penal colony in the town of Yavas in the region of Mordovia; previously she was held in an undisclosed location.
Brittney Griner Release
Griner’s family enlisted the help of Bring Our Families Home to appeal for her release On December 8, Griner was released by Russia in a 1-for-1 prisoner swap for “The Merchant of Death” arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Brittney Griner College career
Griner played college basketball at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. As a freshman, Griner’s 223 blocked shots set the all-time single-season record, establishing her as one of the greatest shot blockers in women’s basketball history.
Furthermore, on December 16, 2009, Griner recorded Baylor’s first triple-double with 34 points, 13 rebounds, and a Big 12 Conference-recorded 11 blocked shots. In January 2010, she became only the seventh player to dunk during a women’s college basketball game, and only the second woman to dunk twice in a single college game, making the second and third dunks of her college career in a lopsided 99–18 victory against Texas State University.
On March 3, 2010, Griner and Texas Tech player Jordan Barncastle were battling for position near the lane. As a foul was being called on Barncastle, Griner took two steps forward and threw a right-handed roundhouse punch which broke Barncastle’s nose.
Griner was then ejected from the game. Lady Bears coach Kim Mulkey then imposed another one-game suspension in addition to the one-game suspension mandated by NCAA rules.
Brittney Griner NCAA Tournament
Baylor entered the NCAA Tournament as a 4th seed and knocked off top-seeded Tennessee in the Sweet 16. On March 22, Griner set an NCAA tournament record with 14 blocked shots in a 49–33 win against the Georgetown Hoyas.
In the Elite Eight, Baylor defeated Duke 51–48, and Griner blocked 9 shots, totaling 35 for the tournament, a new NCAA Women’s Tournament record. Duke’s Alison Bales had held the previous record of 30 blocks in the 2006 NCAA Women’s Tournament. Baylor reached the Final Four, before losing to eventual-champion UConn, 70–50. Griner was named an AP Second Team All-American.
As a sophomore, Griner received First Team All-American honors after averaging 23 points a game, including a career-high 40 points against Green Bay in the Sweet 16. Moreover, her sophomore season ended with a 48-56 loss to the eventual national champion and conference rival, Texas A&M University.
Brittney Griner AP Player of the Year
In her junior season, Griner averaged 23.2 points, 9.4 rebounds, and 5 blocks per game. Additionally, she blocked more shots than any other Division I women’s team that season. Griner was named AP Player of the Year and The 2012 Premier Player of Women’s College Basketball.
Moreover, on April 3, 2012, Griner led Baylor with 26 points, 13 rebounds, and 5 blocked shots to win the Division I Women’s Basketball Championship, 80–61 over Notre Dame. Griner was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player.
Additionally, Baylor finished its undefeated season with 40 wins, the most in NCAA history. After winning the championship on April 3, 2012, Griner decided to withdraw her candidacy for a roster spot on the 2012 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team.
A month later Griner broke her wrist after jumping off her skateboard when she was going down a ramp. Her college career came to an end in the 2013 NCAA women’s basketball tournament when Baylor lost to the University of Louisville Cardinals in the Sweet 16
Brittney Griner Net Worth
Griner is estimated to have a net worth of around $5 million, based on sources such as Celebrity Net Worth and sports news articles.
Brittney Griner Social Media Platforms
Griner is very active on her Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages. She has 108K followers on Twitter, 713K followers on Instagram, and 407K followers on Facebook.
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