Dear Reader,

EM-POWERMENT began as an assignment for one of my college communications classes. It was just a small blog where I could express my feelings about something I had once enjoyed: basketball. The more I wrote on the blog for class, the more I wanted to write for myself. I found that the more unexpected experiences I was having in my life, the more essential EM-POWERMENT became to me. It was therapeutic to feel like I had a voice, even if it was just for myself. Now, it is about a year later, and a lot has happened. And though my basketball experience wasn’t exactly how I imagined it to be, I have never felt more empowered to be exactly where I am today. We are not our sports. We are our stories. We all have a story. Welcome to mine.

Growing up, I was the little girl that wrote on every single paper I want to be a professional basketball player in the WNBA. Basketball consumed my life. It was my passion. My identity. I had been playing for as long as I could remember, and I was decent at it. I was Emily, the basketball player. Emily, the athlete. I used to be like many young athletes hoping to play D1 sports; I was getting up early before school to go shoot, doing extra training, and started the recruiting process at 13. I spent my four years in high school constantly assessing schools, coaches, and teams wondering where my next home would be. I didn’t take the process lightly, as some of my high school teachers will tell you, but it was exciting. I had this dream of what my college basketball experience would look like, and I was getting so close. 

And then I did it. I got to play Division 1 basketball, the one thing I had dreamed of my whole life. However, this life-long dream of mine panned out much differently than I imagined. In my 5 year college career, I only played one full season on the court, I played for three different head coaches, red-shirted twice, transferred once, and took five years to complete my degree. The further I got into college, I found myself loathing basketball, myself, and my entire experience. It [basketball] was the one thing I thought I had going for me, and it was anything but perfect.

I started at Villanova in 2017 and was there for two years. By the second year, the dysfunction started to feel like home. I was struggling mentally and academically so much so that basketball began to feel like a burden, not a blessing. I felt like I had taken all the lessons and punches that the transition of college could give me, and it was starting to negatively affect me and my character. I remember sitting down with my academic advisor at the time and telling her that my biggest fear was becoming a worse person while I was there. I was sleeping all the time. Oftentimes not going to class, only leaving my dorm room to go to practice or the dining hall. It was the first time that I felt like I was going through the motions of my day-to-day life just to get by. Looking back, I can say I was depressed but my coaches never asked, and I didn’t share.

When I did go to class, I was having a hard time keeping focus. My mom would tell me that I just need to apply myself more. I will say, this was partly true. I needed to be proactive and find strategies to help myself learn. I remember calling my mom and asking her, “Why am I stupid? Why don’t I get these things?” But my mom, being the woman she is, never bought into that narrative. (Today I am very grateful for that). Finally one day, I took an Uber to a psychiatrist’s house that my academic advisor referred me to. She ran a series of tests on memorization and comprehension. I felt inadequate. When I got the results about a week later, the report showed learning disabilities, ADHD, short-term memory issues, and that was just on the first page. I never read the rest because with every word I felt my self-esteem fade. I was able to get extra time on tests, recorded lectures, and shared notes, but I didn’t tell anyone. Though it explains why I struggled to learn the plays as quickly as my teammates, I was too embarrassed to talk about it. I dealt with this silently for the first two years of college. When I transferred to BU, that quickly changed.

I think my athlete identity and self-worth changed when I got to BU but it got better before it got worse. In the moment, it was better because for the first time I had made a decision for me as Emily, rather than me as an athlete. However, after that decision was made I felt like I lost a lot of support (whether from others or internally), because I had picked a lower-level program to transfer to and was not doing as well in my basketball career. In the following months, I found it hard not to question myself and my decision to leave Villanova. I felt like all the struggles I was having was because I made the “wrong” decision. I think I subconsciously yearned for the classic college-athlete success story filled with championships and accolades. But now, I remind myself that every possible path a person can pick in life is filled with adversity and struggle, and your journey is not always what you think it’s going to be. And going back and changing the decision does not mean that everything would inevitably be better.

“I’ve learned that oftentimes we think the value of our stories is found in the trophies, accolades, and accomplishments, and that if we don’t have ‘enough’ of them, our stories aren’t worth sharing. That could not be further from the truth.”

The second time I ever went to therapy, my therapist asked me what my hobbies and interests were. I remember taking a long pause. I couldn’t think. I responded, “I’m not sure. I’m not very good at anything besides basketball.” And that’s how I truly felt. He responded, “I didn’t ask you what you were good at.” He continued, “to have hobbies you are not required to be good at them. And how do you expect to get good at anything if you never start?” I didn’t know who I was, or what I wanted in life without basketball and the validating trophies that can come with it.

I’ve learned that oftentimes we think the value of our stories is found in the trophies, accolades, and accomplishments, and that if we don’t have ‘enough’ of them, our stories aren’t worth sharing. That could not be further from the truth. There is room for every story, we just have to be bold and brave enough to share it. My college basketball career did not come with many championships or accolades, but it is still my story whether I like it or not and I’ve come to understand that I must embrace my story to empower myself. I may not have all the tangible accolades I hoped to have within my basketball experience, but it turns out, the intangible accolades I gained as a person are more empowering than I could have ever imagined. 

Here I am, at the tail end of my career, and I chose to quit with a month and half left in the season and walk away from basketball as a player. Not because of the physical toll, but because of the mental toll. Believe me, I am kicking myself for even writing this because as an athlete, we are always told to be mentally tough. We are supposed to push on, move past, and get over things. Today, I am learning that I am not quitting a sport that I love, but rather walking away from a situation that was no longer serving me (and in turn, I was no longer serving it). In doing so, I feel the most empowered I have ever felt. Not because I wanted to leave my sport or decided to give up. But because I decided not to give up on myself. Because for the first time in as long as I can remember, I stripped myself of the ‘athlete’ title and looked at myself in the mirror and said, I’m gonna be okay. That has been the best decision I’ve made in a long time because I simply did what was best for me. (P.S. doing what’s best for you looks different for everyone, and that’s okay!)

Some of my closest supporters embraced my decision, while others didn’t. My mental health was struggling like never before, yet I experienced many people I trusted and looked up to say things like: “is your mental health actually that bad?” or “just keep your head down and power through Emily. Life is hard.” My close circle got a little bit smaller with this choice, but I learned to be okay with that. The empowered version of me could not just sit and “power through,” because to me powering through meant staying silent. I had finally learned to use my voice to advocate for myself and my mental health, and here I was told to be silent. To ignore it. And believe me, I thought about it and even tried doing that for some time. I didn’t want to be THAT person; the one to complain, have problems, and make things difficult. The one who is always a handful. A week or two after I made the decision to quit my final season I confided in a trusted family friend on the phone about these feelings. He then said to me something that changed my perspective: “Emily, being a handful is going to be one of your greatest assets. You are bold in what you believe in, and never let that waiver.” 

Today, I am beginning to understand that I have so much more to offer than just putting a ball through a hoop. I am learning to empower myself to look in the mirror and to get comfortable saying, I am proud of you. You are so much more than this one thing. And maybe wanting to be more than one thing makes me a handful to some, but for me, my hands are full of ideas, growth, and passion for life again.

We are more than our sports. We are our stories.

Basketball has been a large part of my life, but that is not all that I am. I needed to view myself as someone who has something of greater value worth sharing with the world. My story used to bully me until I started to embrace it. Because of my experiences, good and bad, I have looked at life differently. It required me to pull back the curtain on parts of my life I didn’t like or understand and forced me to rediscover myself. My story is about EM-POWERMENT. Empowering myself, and hoping to empower others. Picking up the pieces of the young, vibrant kid I used to be, and reinventing that into the person I am today and the better person I hope to become. My story is about inevitable struggle, change, and loss. But it is also about growth, strength, and living life for every single moment. EM-POWERMENT has helped me find my voice. It has helped me learn to love the sport from a different perspective, and to love myself outside of the sport. It has helped me learn that taking up space is okay. You can (and you should) take up space in your sport. But most importantly, know that you are allowed to take up space outside of your sport. I always wanted to be so much more, I just didn’t know I could and I didn’t know how. But here I am. Empowered…