CLEVELAND — Barb Anthony has been building a brand for the last six years. 

“Play Gap is a team sport,” Anthony said. “It’s a team effort.” 

She’s a former basketball player and currently is a social worker. She’s also the co-founder of Play Gap. It’s a nonprofit that advocates for equity and accessibility in sports for adult women. She started it after she realized there wasn’t an easy portal to access women’s sports in the area 

“By putting everybody kind of under one roof if you with Play Gap. If you search women’s sports for Ohio, for example, you will find us, which means you will find them,” Anthony said. 

The organization started with the title Cleveland Women’s Sports, then became the Northeast Ohio Women’s Sports Alliance. But she soon learned the gap in women’s sports isn’t restricted to northeast Ohio. 

“We realized that we had some potential for growth, so we looked at a more regional footprint,” Anthony said. “And the only reason we didn’t go bigger than that is because we were also still very new, doing this in our spare time.” 

She rebranded the organization as Play Gap to reach an even bigger audience. They rolled out their new name in November of last year. 

“We’re also speaking directly to that gap by offering that bar in the middle that says sports for women,” Anthony said about the logo. 

After all the work by Anthony and the other founders, the NCAA has honored Anthony as one of its Legends and Legacy Community Awards recipients ahead of the NCAA Women’s Final Four in Cleveland. 

“If this award has given us this opportunity to advance the visibility of this organization. I’ll do it.” 

Anthony said her organization is all volunteer. She’s hoping to make it her full-time job to advance opportunities for women in sports. And she hopes Play Gap can grow to where it can reach far beyond just northeast Ohio.