You can now address her as “Dr. Cash.”

During Saturday’s commencement exercises at Washington & Jefferson College, Storm forward Swin Cash was presented with an honorary doctorate of public service in recognition of her work with her Cash for Kids charity and influence in the community. Cash was able to take advantage of the break in the Storm’s practice schedule to fly home to Pittsburgh on Friday and travel to Washington & Jefferson to take part in Saturday’s graduation.

“It was good to be home and have people really close to me be able to attend and show their support,” said Cash after Sunday’s Storm practice. “It was also good to have the support of the community. It’s about an hour outside of Pittsburgh, this university.”

The honor came as a pleasant surprise to Cash.

“We got the call from the university out of the blue,” she said. “I still don’t know, did somebody nominate me? I had no connection to the university. They just wanted to honor me in that way. That’s why it was so special and it meant a lot to me. I was really happy that Brian (Agler) and the organization were supportive of it.”

Agler recognized how important it was to Cash to attend and called her degree “a great honor.”

Cash was recognized alongside Dr. Julie Gerberding, president of Merck Vaccines (the keynote speaker); Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States; and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed.

“For me, not only was it special to get the award, but it was all women,” said Cash. “To be up there with these amazing women and have conversations with them was great. They were asking questions, and I was thinking, ‘I’m sitting here in awe of you guys.’”

The trip home allowed Cash to take in the championship games of her Cash for Kids youth basketball league. Cash’s mother helped organize moving the games back a week so Cash could watch and congratulate the winners in person in her native McKeesport.

It was a busy weekend for Cash, who flew back to Seattle on Sunday morning, but now she’s ready to continue preparing for the WNBA season.

“I am excited to be back,” she said. “I’m going to sleep well this afternoon, then I’m going to get up tomorrow and it’s full steam ahead with the Storm.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 22nd, 2011 at 8:30 pm and is filed under cash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.