Two of the biggest names in American sports are headed to the mailbox.

The U.S. Postal Service announced Monday that longtime Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt and baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays will be honored with stamps in 2027. They are the only two people named in the first batch of next year's stamp subjects.

Summitt led the Lady Vols for 38 years and won 1,098 games with eight national championships. She took Tennessee to 18 Final Fours and is in both the Naismith Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.

A portrait for the coach

Her stamp features an oil-on-linen portrait by artist Roberto Parada. It is similar to the cover of her 1998 book "Reach for the Summit."

Summitt was diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type before the 2011-12 season. She coached one more year and retired at 59. She then started the Pat Summitt Foundation to support Alzheimer's research and help patients and caregivers. She died in 2016 at 64.

Mays and The Catch

Mays will be the 50th stamp in the Postal Service's Black Heritage series. The design is a nod to classic baseball cards with two photos. One is a portrait of Mays as a New York Giant. The other shows his over-the-shoulder grab in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, the play known simply as "The Catch."

The orange background honors the color that followed him from the New York and San Francisco Giants to the New York Mets. Mays won two MVP awards and 12 Gold Gloves over 22 seasons. He died in 2024 at 93.

The Postal Service called the designs preliminary and said more 2027 subjects will be announced in the coming months.