Sonja Henning logs a lot of court time. When she’s not racking up assists for the Indiana Fever, the former Cardinal point guard works as a labor attorney for Tonkon Torp LLP in Portland, Ore. She also serves as president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association.
At Stanford, Henning helped the Cardinal win the 1990 NCAA championship. She was named Pac-10 Player of the Year and a Kodak All-American in her senior season.
Following graduation, she took off for Sweden, where she played professional basketball for a year. When she returned to the States, she traded sneakers for textbooks, enrolling at Duke University Law School. “I never put much thought into playing basketball again,” Henning says. “It was never really a dream of mine.”
In fact, becoming an attorney had been the Wisconsin native’s career goal since middle school. “When everyone started asking what I wanted to be when I grew up, law was the one area that stood out,” she says. “I think it fit into my personality. I enjoy analyzing things.” After earning her law degree, she began practicing labor and employment law at Littler Mendelson in Los Angeles.
In 1996, life got complicated. The American Basketball League was born, and Henning found herself fielding questions from co-workers about whether she planned to try out. The turning point came when a colleague advised her not to pass up the opportunity to play, assuring her that she had the firm’s support.
Henning was delighted to be drafted by the San Jose Lasers. “I was so excited to have the chance to be a founding player—a pioneer, so to speak,” she says. “It was great to be back in the area and to reunite with some of the people I had played with at Stanford,” such as Jennifer Azzi, ’90, and Val Whiting Raymond, ’93.
After the ABL folded in 1998, Henning played for the WNBA’s Houston Comets and Seattle Storm. She joined the Fever in June 2003.
Each May, Henning takes a leave from Tonkon Torp and joins her team for training. She plays basketball through the summer, returning to the firm in mid-September.
Even with two demanding jobs, Henning has time for the important things—like getting engaged to Weston Miller, who is earning his master’s in fine arts at Eastern Washington University. But ask Henning how wedding planning has affected her work, and she laughs. “There hasn’t been any effect, because the plans have gone nowhere.”
Nevertheless, Henning says, her dual-career juggling act is entirely worth it. “After every season, I stop and re-evaluate whether I want to continue playing,” she says. “Right now, I do.”
