Former Irish Star Green To Receive ESPY
SOUTH BEND – Eleven years ago, former University of Notre Dame women’s basketball guard Danielle Green (’99) saw her world changed forever, when she suffered significant injuries while serving with the U.S. Army’s 571st MP Company in Baghdad, Iraq. Green, whose left hand was amputated, later received the Purple Heart for injuries sustained in combat.
On Wednesday, Green will be honored for her bravery, courage and sacrifice at the 2015 ESPY Awards in Los Angeles (8 p.m. ET, ABC) when she is presented with the Pat Tillman Award for Service. The award is named for former Arizona State University and Arizona Cardinals football player Pat Tillman, who gave up his football career to enlist in the U.S. Army and later served in both Iraq and Afghanistan before being killed in the line of duty on April 22, 2004, a little more than one month before Green was injured.
Green will be the second recipient of the award, which was created by the Pat Tillman Foundation in 2014 and presented for the first time last year to Josh Sweeney, himself a Purple Heart recipient and member of the 2014 U.S. Paralympic Sled Hockey Team that won the gold medal in Sochi, Russia.
As a precursor to Wednesday’s ESPYs, espnW writer Mechelle Voepel has written a feature article telling Green’s story and how the lessons she learned playing at Notre Dame for Hall of Fame head coach Muffet McGraw played a pivotal role in rehabilitating her injuries and setting a new course for her life.
To read Voepel’s espnW article on Danielle Green in its entirety, click here:
