I wanted to start this blog as a conversation about my journey, and others’ journeys, through basketball. On the surface, the rise of women’s basketball and women’s sports makes writing about my journey feel obvious. Today’s excitement around the game certainly helped spark this launch, but the deeper reason is more personal. It took an unexpected invitation to unpack and reignite my basketball passion and identity.
First, a little context. I am entering my 22nd year as a faculty member in the Sport Management Department at a university in New England. While sport management often centers on the business of sport, sport’s relationship to society creates space for broader conversations, including the gender and sport class I teach each fall. In that class, we examine how sport reinforces, transforms, and challenges gender constructs and patterns in society. That course may be why the Director of our Women’s Center invited me to speak at the University’s annual International Women’s Day breakfast on March 8, 2023. I was appreciative, but curious. I did not consider myself a gender studies expert, had only taught the course a few times, and was still digging into research and resources. I was not sure what new knowledge, insight, or inspiration I could offer, but I said yes. Then I had to figure out what would be worthwhile for my colleagues and our students.
I did not want to regurgitate recent research, nor did I feel qualified to offer solutions to complex gender equity issues, so it took me a while to find the right approach. The theme of that year’s International Women’s Day, Embrace Equity, provided a spark. As I read more about it, a question hit me: When have I truly embraced equity? I realized the best way to connect the theme and the audience to my discussion was through an authentic reflection of my own journey. Growing up as the only girl on all-boys’ teams, playing high school ball in the late 80s and collegiate basketball in the 90s as Title IX was making waves, and eventually working and teaching in sport business had provided gender equity lessons that could resonate with my colleagues. My reflection did resonate, but not just for the breakfast audience that morning.
The process of looking back, beginning with the earliest moments when I was old enough to hold a basketball, hit me emotionally. Revisiting the moments that shaped my understanding of gender equity brought mentors, advocates, and experiences back into view. Many of those moments had influenced who I became, even though I had not fully recognized their impact at the time.
Through that reflection, I also began to see my work with the Women’s Sports Foundation, the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, and the 1996 Olympic and Paralympic Games Basketball Competition staff differently. They were more than career opportunities or logical jobs connected to something I knew well. They were expressions of what had always grounded me: being a female basketball player. Until then, I attributed those experiences to coincidence. After that breakfast, I understood them as part of my present identity.
Digging into my journey revealed a gap I had not fully recognized in my current day-to-day: Somewhere along the way, I left basketball and the identity of being a basketball player behind. I had not fully embraced that part of myself, partly because society had not embraced girls and women in the game when I was growing up. But society has changed, even with plenty of progress still to be made, and along the way I realized I have changed too.
That realization opened up joy and a renewed sense of self. The visual symbol for that International Women’s Day theme was a self-hug, meant to represent acceptance, solidarity, and inclusion. Looking back now, I understand that the opportunity to speak and share my story was the self-hug I did not know I needed back in 2023.
Since that self-hug, I have been fully embracing that identity. I returned to coaching. I attended a Connecticut Sun game with my husband and son and found myself tearing up as I scanned the arena. I bought merchandise that makes visible what had always been true: I am a fan, a former player, a coach, and an advocate for the game. Those moments helped me understand that this identity was not something I had lost; it was something I was ready to reclaim. And that is why I am launching Journeys of Our Game.
This blog will be a space to reflect on the journeys that basketball makes possible – past, present, and future – and to consider how the game connects us to equity, opportunity, community, and joy. My self-hug began with looking back. I hope this post and space invite you to do the same: to ask what part of yourself the game helped shape, what you may have left behind or what you are ready to embrace again.