Orange Hoop and Leather

My first love wasn’t a boy in middle school with a terrible haircut and neon socks – it was a leather ball and an orange hoop. For fourteen years, basketball held an intense grip on my heart; I took some of my first steps on the same court that I played my last game on. I thought when I graduated high school and hung my jersey up for good, I was retiring from the game forever and didn’t want anything to do with it. Basketball is something the Phillips’ household eat, sleeps, and breaths year-round – we don’t believe in getting burnt out on a sport you really love, and I’d never admit it to anyone else, but I was burnt out. Walking away and never looking back was hard; giving up the one thing that stayed consistent in my life felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest.

As a child, I had no clue what trauma I was about to experience while doing the one thing I loved – but I stuck with it. Every clipboard thrown at me, all the practices we were spat on, the public humiliation at games have led me to this exact moment, fighting for women’s basketball. I guess that’s mostly why I want to stay with women’s basketball forever – I want to be right there in the middle of everything I deserved but never got. I came to college expecting to get a degree in mechanical engineering, to work with Disney and design roller coasters. I had decided I was putting basketball behind me and walking away for good. Now, I am on the climb to work with the WNBA. It’s funny how life can come in full circle without you realizing.