Wanting to Receive the Support I Haven’t Always Been Able to Give
“How do you feel about the WNBA players demanding more money, resources and help?”
I was in Valencia, Spain speaking in front of Florida State University students who were studying abroad. I’d been invited to speak about my life as an American professional athlete overseas athlete and my entrepreneurship goals. One of the students asked me that question during the Q&A session.
I knew what I should say. I knew what would sound right. I knew what the right answer was.
And so I gave it.
But truthfully, at that very moment, I felt something that didn’t reflect my answer. I felt kind of salty. I can admit that. I identified more as being a part of a larger group of women, of female athletes, who needed even more resources than what the WNBA players at that time already had access to. In my mind, they had it so much better than most of us playing overseas. Including me.
There are more female American basketball players abroad than at home. And many WNBA players end up playing abroad too and they end up with the best situations while abroad. They get paid more and often have better living conditions than players like us. And we see it. So yeah I felt like they already had it better than us so why do they need more?
Then I checked myself.
I had to remind myself that we all have our own struggles and our own needs. And just because the WNBA players decided to fight for more didn’t mean that they were fighting against us. It didn’t mean that we were not all in the same fight.
The fact is as a female athlete we will almost always be paid proportionately less than our male counterparts. I know there’s a lot that goes into that. We could put in the same work, the same amount of hours but like women in almost every profession, we will simply be paid less because we are women.
As female athletes we have had mostly male figures of power and influence in our lives. We have been trained and taught to put our lives and careers in their hands. Think about all the coaches, trainers, agents, managers, athletic directors, GMs and owners you’ve worked with and worked for.
How many of them have been women?
That’s not to say that those men have been bad. There are bad men and there are bad women. It’s more that we haven’t really learned to trust other women, especially our peers. Instead of entrusting fellow female athletes who are going through and have gone through a similar journey as ours we will often turn to a male authority figure who has not and never will go through it.
It’s hard to put out the competitive fire sometimes. On the court we compete against each other. As we should. We look at each other in the eyes and we don’t back down. But off the court it doesn’t have to be that way. We can learn from the recent efforts of the WNBA players that coming together and working together for a common goal for all is the only way we’ll win.
I’ve mentioned this often and I’ve thought about it even more. But now that I’m at that point in my playing career where I am thinking about my post-playing career and have decided to strike out as an entrepreneur by launching Wevolv I see how crucial support from the community really is especially when the mission of your business is to help other athletes.
I try very hard not to complain too much. I know how annoying that can be. I count my blessings everyday. And a lot of people have reached out to me before and after I dropped the video about my journey as an overseas athlete. I see all the comments, DMs, reposts and I’m grateful for all the interview requests. Interestingly enough I’ve had more male athletes than female athletes who have reached out to help out.
But going back to the competitive fire that’s been burning inside pretty much all our lives, I know it’s hard to turn off that mindset, especially when it comes to supporting each other’s endeavors in the real world. A lot of us have similar entrepreneurship desires and ideas. Very few have been able to make a significant impact in the fields we enter. That, of course, could be due to numerous reasons. Starting and running a successful business is very difficult. As elite athletes, we’ve all had to learn how to lead and to follow. We learned how to take direction and give direction.
It’s a tricky balance though. Most of us female overseas athletes have to protect ourselves and constantly work on strengthening our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual states because we are so far removed from our loved ones and our careers are rarely in a secure place. So there are times when I’ve found myself maybe being too proud to ask for help or my ego gets in the way of supporting a fellow athlete’s latest venture that may be similar to mine. Instead of looking at it like oh that’s great, maybe we can collab, work together on building something bigger, sometimes I think, oh I need to hurry up before they get too far ahead of me.
Thing is the people in the sports business who do end up collaborating are people who already make money off our skills and play. The owners, GMs, agents and more all work together and look out for each other. We’re kept divided. And therefore the power structure of the sports business remains protected and doesn’t change.
So this is something I’m actively working on. I’m working on being more openminded when I see other athletes with similar ideas and works. I’m working on reaching out more to them. There’s no need for us to hide behind the names of the leagues we play in. We’re all employees of a larger governing body. Where we play and who we play for doesn’t define us, it doesn’t measure our who we are as individuals.
We might not feel empowered. But we have the power and the numbers to reach the masses if we work collaboratively. We can amplify each other’s voices by simply by sharing each other’s content. You never know who may see it and come knocking. It might not open the doors right away but we have to keep knocking. If we don’t, they’ll never know we’re there.
And of course how can I not mention Kobe. I’m not going to go that deep into my thoughts on him as a man and as a player because I’m still processing and this post would get super long. But the image that keeps coming back to me about him was how he reached back and pulled up other athletes after he stopped playing. He didn’t need to. He could have just enjoyed his retirement. He certainly didn’t need the money. But there was something in him that made him want to prepare and prep the future generation of athletes. All types too. We have all been inspired by him in some way but I think something we all can do to honor his legacy is to pay it forward. Cause while some of us may feel like we have nothing to contribute, there’s someone always looking up to us for guidance.
So lend a hand. Reach out. Build with us.
