Some women walked so that I could run. I am running so that the women who are coming after me can fly.
We [women] are doing this TOGETHER. As I reflect on my life, especially as a woman in sport, I find myself always recognizing and referring back to the champions and sponsors of my career. They are ALL men. I am where I am because of their unwavering support and the space to allow me to be me, authentically. This started with my daddy. As a toddler, he and I watched Sportscenter late at night, well past my bed time, and it is him who never hesitates to remind me that I am where I am because of who I am. I belong. And I should never question that.
This post, however, is not about the men who have championed me. It is about the hidden women who have always been in my corner, whether I recognized them publicly, or even realized it at the time. I come from a long line of praying women. These women have molded me into who I am, allowed me to be me regardless of how it went against the grain, and prayed for me when I didn’t know how to pray for myself. Biggest of shoutouts to my mama, my Gran, and all my aunties (both blood and the chosen ones).
As a lifelong athlete, I think back on my middle school basketball coach who no doubt saved me from myself in more ways that she will ever know. As I struggled with [what I know now as] anxiety contributing to an eating disorder, she brought me to her office multiple times a week to make sure I properly ate, and provided a space for me to just talk.
My female college coaches gave me a space to crash in their office and have life conversations that really sparked my love for being a difference maker in the lives of everyone I came in contact in. They trusted me as a leader. The showed me that I didn’t have to be the most athletically gifted to be an impact maker. They empowered me as a college-aged woman and further as a young college coach, trying to find my way.
As a young professional, I didn’t have many women in my immediate view, and I definitely didn’t have many who chose to take me under their wing. For those who personally took a vested interest in me, lifting me up, supporting me, keeping it real with me – Andy, Amber, Monique, Evie, Dianna, Nanny Dee – and the other women I admired from the “sideline”, THANK YOU. From you all, I learned resilience. I learned how to advocate for myself. I learned confidence to not only walk in the room, but always OWN IT.
We don’t get to where we are on our own, and I dang sure wouldn’t be where I am without my hidden figures. I didn’t have this enormous pool to choose but I wholeheartedly stand on being for others what I didn’t have for myself.