Being true to myself has often been at odds with my desire to please others. I’ve spent years trying so hard to be the version of myself that would make the most people happy. Over time, though, I’ve come to realize that no matter how much I compromise, some people will never understand me. And accepting this truth has given me a new level of comfort and freedom.
HOOKED ON HOOPS
On game days, I like getting to the arena early, so I have plenty of time to go through my pregame routine and get focused, settle down, clear my head of everything else. I sit and listen to music for a while; then I go around and say hi to my teammates as they start to roll in. Whenever I can, I try to hit the court and work on my post moves before practice or pregame warm-ups. I got a late start with basketball, so I feel like I’m always learning. People say, “You can’t teach height,” and obviously my height gives me some advantages as a player. But height only takes you so far, especially in the WNBA, where I’m routinely going up against big, strong, powerful women with more experience as pros. I got into foul trouble early during my first game in the league, when we got blown out by Chicago. I kept leaving my feet and trying to block every shot in sight, even though I know better than that. I’m already six foot eight, so there’s no need to make myself taller. I played smarter in the second half, once I had a chance to collect myself, but I was so amped up in that first half, it was like I was back in ninth grade, running up and down the court without a clue.
I started playing soccer and volleyball when I was in seventh grade. I tried out for the school teams with some of my friends, mostly because sports were the only activity my dad allowed me to do—the only time I could hang out with other kids and feel like I was part of the group. I had always been full of energy when I was little, constantly in motion, and I quickly came to love the competitiveness and intensity of sports. Volleyball was fun because I got to spike and block; hitting that ball, or rising up to deny someone, felt so good. I played goalkeeper in soccer because I liked to use my hands (and because I didn’t want to run around much). Everybody focuses on scoring in sports—that’s where most of the glory is—but I liked being the one to stop people from scoring.
Starting in seventh grade, I would hang out with kids in the gym sometimes before school and mess around with the basketball, but I didn’t know what I was doing and I never practiced on my own. It wasn’t until eighth grade, when some of my friends tried out for the team, that I decided to give it a shot. But the start of my hoops career was delayed because of the big fight I got into with Messy Girl in the bathroom. When I told myself everything would be different in ninth grade, that I would stop pretending and start with a clean slate, I had given myself hope, a lifeline to get through middle school. The problem was, I still had to show up every day, see all the same faces, swallow my emotions. I was scared, and I had no idea yet how much basketball would later sustain me. It wasn’t until high school that I realized the opportunity I had lost when I got kicked off the team in eighth grade.
By the time I entered ninth grade at Nimitz High School, I was a solid six feet and eager to write a new story for myself, a real story that I could live in public instead of crumpling up the paper and hiding it somewhere in my bedroom. I played volleyball again that fall, and I caught the eye of the varsity basketball coach, Debbie Jackson, who asked me to try out. My hoop skills were trash. I was clumsy and fumbled the ball a lot—I couldn’t dribble more than once or twice without losing it—and I wasn’t very strong. But I had decent footwork from playing soccer, and volleyball helped me with my timing, so I was good at blocking shots. Basically, Coach Jackson thought I had a lot of potential. I didn’t have much else at that point, just size, potential, and the desire to get better, a good enough combination for me to make the junior varsity, then move up to the varsity after a half-dozen or so games. I averaged around 10 points a game that season, mostly coming off the bench, and I blocked a lot of shots.
I also kept growing. I was about six foot three by the summer after my freshman year, tall enough to attract attention from recruiters. Up until then, the idea of going to college had never really crossed my mind. Whenever I imagined my future, I always saw myself graduating from high school and becoming a cop. Neither of my parents had attended college—my dad joined the military, and my mom took some secretarial classes at a small business school—so it wasn’t something on my radar. That summer, though, I started getting letters from colleges, which is when I finally realized what Coach Jackson and other people meant when they told me I had potential. It wasn’t just about how good I could be at basketball; it was about the doors that basketball could open for me. I was playing AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) ball for the Houston Hotshots, which exposed me to a lot of good local competition, and all I had to do was look around me to see examples of how I could improve my game.
The growing confidence I felt off the court carried over to basketball. And the more I improved as a player, the better I felt about the person I was becoming. It all just fed on itself. After fighting and struggling my way through middle school, I now had a new sense of purpose. Basketball became another form of expression for me, and when my sophomore season rolled around, I was ready to express myself loudly. My skills were still raw, but the game was starting to click for me, and the competitive outlet became even more important because I had given up volleyball after ninth grade. I wish I could say I quit volleyball to focus my energy on hoops, but the truth is, my decision was mainly a fashion choice. I just couldn’t wear those tight shorts anymore. I had asked the coach if I could wear basketball shorts, and she said no. So then I suggested track shorts, which were closer in length to our volleyball shorts but looser and less constricting—you know, not all up on my ass. Coach said no again. So that was the end of my volleyball career. I spent all of middle school feeling uncomfortable in my own skin; there was no way I was going to spend another minute wearing anything I didn’t want to wear.
The funny thing is, the first time I ever dunked was during volleyball practice. It was my freshman year, and there was a guy who worked with us sometimes, a school employee, and one day he tossed me a volleyball and said, “Brittney, go dunk that.” I hesitated and gave him a look that said, “Do what?” So he said it again. “Go dunk that ball. I want to see if you can do it.” I had watched guys throw down in the gym before, but it wasn’t something I had thought about trying myself. I could barely dribble at the time. I walked to the top of the key, took a few running steps, raised the volleyball over my head, and plunked it through the net as my fingers grazed off the rim. It wasn’t much of a dunk, but I got it down. And just like that, I was hooked. I became as obsessed with dunking as everyone else. I wanted to get better at it, and I practiced with the guys during open gym sessions that winter, trying to get the timing and coordination right. I also became serious about working out, which helped my jumping ability.
The first time I dunked a basketball was during my sophomore season with the girls’ varsity. We were scrimmaging one day, and somebody got a steal and threw the ball ahead to me. I had some space, so I took a couple of steps, jumped up, and dunked it one-handed, like it was no big deal. Everyone was like, “Girl, you just dunked that!” And then they wanted me do it again, just to be sure. So I did. You could feel the energy level rise in the gym. That’s what I love about dunking: it’s like turning the volume way up on a good song. It’s a powerful thing. In fact, the first time I dunked in a game, later that season, it felt like the whole gym was on full blast. We were winning big, and I got the ball on a fast break, so I put an exclamation point on things and slammed it home. Everybody went nuts. My teammates were jumping on me, the fans were falling all over themselves in the stands. Coach Jackson had to call a time-out just to settle us down.
It’s not every day you see a sixteen-year-old girl dunk. And I could dunk easily. In January 2007, during my sophomore season, somebody made a video of me—High School Girl Dunker—and uploaded it on YouTube. It went viral, and that
’s when the media really started paying attention. Obviously, it helped that I could do more than just dunk. I averaged 22 points and almost 11 rebounds and 6 blocks a game that season. And by the end of the spring, I had grown to six foot six.
I was feeling pretty good about my body. I was getting stronger, and being an athlete gave me a sense of focus. It’s crazy: the same thing that got me picked on in middle school—my body—was now a plus for me, just because I played basketball. So I wasn’t, like, “Oh my God, I wish I would stop growing!” I was okay with it, especially because I wasn’t in physical pain anymore. All throughout the seventh and eighth grades, I had tremendous pains. My knees ached so badly I would cry. Even if I just lightly bumped something, I would feel a sharp jolt that put me in tears. Meanwhile, I had no idea it was growing pains. Pretty ironic, right? With all the other crap that was happening in middle school, all the emotional agony, here I was in physical pain, too. My dad actually took me to the doctor in eighth grade to have everything checked out, to see why I was growing so quickly and make sure I didn’t have any kind of disease or a tumor pressing on my pituitary gland. They did all sorts of tests, and everything was fine. My growth plates were just wide open. The doctor said, “Yeah, she’s going to grow a lot.” My dad is six two and my mom is five eight, and the doctor predicted I’d be around six three. (Wrong!) The funny thing is, the pain in my knees stopped when I got to ninth grade, but that’s when I really shot up fast.
THE SUMMER AFTER my sophomore year, I switched AAU teams and played for DFW Elite in Dallas. The Hotshots didn’t really travel outside Houston, and I wanted tougher competition. DFW Elite was sponsored by Nike and was one of the top AAU teams in the country, so we went to all the major events, like the Nike National Invitational Tournament in Chicago. A bunch of my future Baylor teammates played on that squad: Odyssey Sims, Brooklyn Pope, Jordan Madden, Kimetria Hayden, and Makenzie Robertson. Anyone who knows anything about women’s college hoops knows that Makenzie is Kim Mulkey’s daughter. So you can imagine all the buzz that created, with people saying Kim had an unfair recruiting advantage. I didn’t know much about the recruiting process and how it all worked, but I had seen and heard enough to know I wanted to avoid all the craziness you read about—the phone calls and texts from lots of schools, the pressure of weighing the pros and cons of different programs, the campus visits, the media speculation. I had enough drama in my life already. The last thing I needed was a parade of coaches in my head.
“BIG GIRL IS COMING TO BAYLOR!”
If I hadn’t gone to Baylor, I probably would have chosen Texas A&M or maybe Tennessee. But that’s all hypothetical, because the truth is that I only had eyes for Baylor. Once I really started paying attention to colleges, during my sophomore season at Nimitz, I began to realize how many things about Baylor I liked. One of my good friends on the Houston Hotshots, Kelli Griffin, had decided to play there. She was two years ahead of me, so I already knew a little bit about the school. The location was perfect for me; Waco is only three hours from Houston, and I liked the small-town feel of it and the compact size of the campus. I knew Baylor assistant coach Damion McKinney because he had previously been involved with my AAU program in Dallas, DFW Elite. He’s an awesome dude, and I felt really comfortable around him. I liked Kim, too. I had a decent sense of her personality just from being around Makenzie with the AAU squad and watching the two of them interact. I saw some of the same traits in Kim that I saw in my dad—they’re both intense, tough-talking authority types—and even though I resented how strict, how overwhelming, my dad could be, I was also used to putting up with it. And from what I could tell, Kim seemed more fair and understanding. I was so sheltered and contained, I knew that when I got to college I would probably let loose, and I needed a coach who would let me get my wild out while still being able to keep me in line.
I attended Baylor’s camp during the summer after my sophomore year of high school. Until then, I had actually spent more time in College Station, watching Texas A&M. I went to a bunch of Aggies games during the winter, because the school was only ninety minutes from Houston. I think their coach, Gary Blair, thought I was destined to choose A&M. But I fell in love with Baylor at that summer camp. The campus was just small enough that I could walk everywhere I needed to go; it wasn’t huge and sprawling like the University of Texas in Austin. I also liked the vibe I got when I talked to Kim in between sessions. I would seek her out on my way to get water and ask her questions about the drills we were doing. I was a sponge, because basketball still felt so new to me.
On the last day of camp, we were scrimmaging, and I was going hard, wanting to prove myself. The Baylor players, who were working the camp, were watching from the sidelines, and they were pumping me up, shouting encouragement. At one point in the middle of playing, I thought to myself, Damn, I like it here. I’m going to commit. As soon as the drill ended, I jogged over to my dad, who was watching in the stands, and I said to him, “I want to commit here. What do you think about that?” I figured he would be happy about it, because it meant I would stay in state, so he could still see me play and keep an eye on me. Even though our relationship was growing more strained, I still recognized and appreciated all the ways in which he supported my budding basketball career.
MY DAD DROVE ME everywhere for hoops, partly because he didn’t like me going anywhere alone. We spent countless hours together in his truck, driving to and from AAU practice, to and from tournaments. I remember one day, his boss didn’t want to give him the time off he was requesting, and I overheard Dad say into the phone, “Well, my girl has a tournament and I’m going to be there. You can fire me if you want.” He didn’t know I could hear him, but it made me happy. He never missed a game. Throughout my college career, he would always drive to Waco and back in one night, even if he had to be at work by six o’clock the next morning. I call him the Protector. Some of my AAU teammates would hop rides with other people’s moms, making long road trips in a van that usually had a cooler filled with Gatorades and snacks. But not me. Nope. No way. My dad and I would ride together in his truck, to South Carolina or Alabama. If he didn’t go, I didn’t go. But he always went. And those rides were actually pretty cool. We would just talk about random stuff, nothing heavy, but I was glad to have any connection with my dad, even if it was superficial. Without basketball, we probably wouldn’t have spent time together during my teenage years.
I could also always count on my dad to be stoic during my games. He wasn’t one of those parents who become emotional when their kids play, or yell at the coach, or call out instructions. He would just sit on the sideline, no emotion, even if it was the final play of a close game and everyone else was standing up and screaming. He saved his criticisms and advice for after the game, but I never felt compelled to listen too closely because he had never played basketball. In fact, he only started watching it the year I started playing it. Of course, that didn’t keep him from offering advice about what I could do better. But he stopped doing it once I got to college, because he knew it bothered me. He would just say something simple and positive, like “Good game” or “You played well.” Occasionally, he would even say, “I’m proud of you.” He did that more often when I was at Baylor, and it felt good to hear.
My dad is an extremely private man. He frowns upon people calling attention to themselves, even in situations meant to publicly honor them. I remember at my sister Pier’s graduation, in the moments before her name was called, he turned to the rest of us, me and DeCarlo and SheKera, and said, “Don’t jump up. Don’t y’all be loud.” We rolled our eyes at him and looked at each other like, Um, okay! The instant Pier’s name was called over the loudspeaker, we jumped out of our seats, screaming with excitement. Everyone turned and looked at us, because we were going crazy.
That’s especially what my dad hates: the spotlight. When I first started getting media attention in high school because of my dunking, he would say to me, practically growling, “I ain’t gonna be interviewed, am I
?” Over time, obviously, he did have to deal with reporters. And if somebody asked him a question, he would fall back on his experience as a police officer. You know how when something bad happens, and the cops hold a press briefing? Well, he had to do those on occasion, and he’d stand there in uniform, looking all stoic and tough, giving the shortest, most stripped-down answers. And that’s how he handled interviews about me, too.
WHEN I JOGGED OVER to my dad at the Baylor summer camp, I wanted his approval—I still do, to this day—because he had already put so much time into my basketball activities. So I told him I wanted to commit to Baylor and asked him what he thought. “I don’t have a problem with that,” he said. And that was it. I smiled, then jogged away to finish the last few hours of camp. I knew from some of my friends, like Kelli, that you can’t commit to a college while you’re attending summer camp there; the NCAA has a rule against it, intended to protect kids from making impulsive decisions and to keep the camps from turning into recruiting circuses. I get the idea behind it, but the way it played out for me was pretty comical. The rule requires that a recruit must leave school grounds before committing. So when camp was over, I asked Kim if she was going to stick around for a while, because I planned to come right back. She said yes, she would be in her office. Then my dad and I left the Ferrell Center, got into his truck, drove off campus, made a U-turn, and headed straight back to the arena. We also called my mom to let her know what was happening, and she was so excited that I had decided to stay close to home.
The women’s basketball offices overlook the practice court, which is attached to the Ferrell Center. There is a reception area right when you walk in, then a long hallway lined with pictures and awards. Kim’s office is in the back corner. I remember looking at all the pictures as I walked toward her office. There was a celebration shot from the 2005 NCAA championship game, after Baylor had won, and I said to myself, Oh my God, I want to do that. I want to win one of those. I was nodding my head, looking at all the action shots, and thinking, Yeah, I can see myself in green and gold.
In My Skin Page 5