Unprecedented women in unprecedented times

2020 has been a doozy. Am I right, my friends? The science tells us that we have a tendency to remember more bad stuff than good stuff. And if we are being real about 2020, the significant overuse of the word “unprecedented” is on the end of a very long list of obstacles we faced in the last year.

So before it’s too late, let us flood our memories with a few INCREDIBLE accomplishments that women have made in sport this year and take a moment to bask in the glory of our gender.

February 2, 2020: Katie Sowers – current full-time assistant coach for the San Francisco 49ers; previous player in the Women’s Football Alliance and a member of the United States Women’s National American Football Team, winning the IFAF Women’s World Championship in 2013 – became the first openly gay and first female coach in Super Bowl history.

September 5, 2020: Emily Zaler – current assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Denver Broncos; previously worked with the New York Nicks and University of California San Diego – became the first full-time female coach under contract with the Broncos.

September 27, 2020: Washington vs. Browns game. First NFL game in history to see a female coach on each sideline and a female official. Jennifer King – first full-season African American female coach in the NFL and first for Washington; 7-time All American quarterback and wide receiver for the Women’s Football Alliance. Callie Brownson – currently coaches for the Browns; previously coached at Dartmouth and played in the Women’s Football Alliance. Sarah Thomas – first female NFL official and first woman to officiate an NFL game.

September 30, 2020: Doris Burke – current NBA sports announcer, analyst, and Basketball Hall of Famer; previous WNBA analyst and DI NCAA basketball player – became the first woman to call NBA conference finals and NBA Finals games on the radio.

October 6, 2020: Sue Bird – current professional basketball player for the Seattle Storm of the WNBA – won her fourth WNBA Championship title. In addition to four Olympic gold medals, two NCAA Championships and four FIBA World Cups, this made Bird one of only 11 women to ever attain all four of these accolades.

October 11, 2020: Jeanie Buss – controlling owner and president of the LA Lakers – became the first female controlling owner to win an NBA championship.

October 20, 2020: Jessica Mendoza – current sports broadcaster for ESPN; former collegiate 4-time First Team All-American, 2-time Olympic medal winner; retired pro All-Star softball outfielder – became the first female analyst in World Series history.

November 11, 2020: Emily Engel-Natzke – current video coach for the Hershy Bears of the American Hockey League; previously part of the World Champion staff for the U18 team in Russia (2018) and the Senior Women’s League in Finland – became the first female assistant coach in the Washington Capitals organization.

November 13, 2020: Kim Ng – current general manager of the Miami Marlins; youngest person and first female to present and win a salary arbitration case in the major leagues (White Sox), youngest assistant GM in the major leagues (Yankees) and only one of four women to ever hold the position; previous softball player and MVP infielder for the University of Chicago – became the first woman to serve as a GM of a team in the Big Four leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL) in North America and the first person of East Asian descent to serve as GM of an MLB team.

November 16, 2020: Teresa Weatherspoon – current NBA coach and Women’s Basketball Hall of Famer; former WNBA player, voted in the Top 15 players in WNBA history – was promoted to assistant coach for the New Orleans Pelicans and became the eighth full-time female assistant coach in the NBA.

November 28, 2020: Sarah Fuller – recent graduate transfer to North Texas for soccer; previous football placekicker and soccer goalkeeper for Vanderbilt – became the first woman to play for a Power Five conference team in the Vanderbilt vs. Missouri game.

December 12, 2020: Sarah Fuller became the first woman to score points in a Power Five college football game during Vanderbilt vs. Tennessee.

December 30, 2020: Becky Hammon – current NBA coach; former WNBA player, 3-time All-American NCAA DI player, 2-time Olympic Games player and 1-time Olympic medal winner – became the first female acting head coach in NBA history.

These incredible women, among so many others, are absolutely shattering the glass ceiling that has been hovering over women and minorities in sport since the dawn of competition. Sitting down and taking time to compile this list and read about what these women have experienced and how they have attained such miraculous achievements in a male-dominated sport culture made me feel so proud and filled me with hope.

Powerful moments like these are where we should focus our energy and our memory of this last year. Reflecting, learning, and growing from the pain many of us experienced while having gratitude and pride for what we have still managed to accomplish through challenging times.

Cheers to 2021, my friends. And to unprecedented women doing unprecedented things in unprecedented places for as long as we all shall live.

Image by Browns Twitter/ http://www.twitter.com.

Finding air

I sit here tonight writing what is to be my very first blog acquainted with my very own (but not my first) private practice in sport psychology. Although I’ve been working with a hand full of clients on my own for the last 7 months (yes, through COVID… thank you Telehealth and Internet) and I have established social media that resides untouched until now, tonight I FINALLY launched my website. And I am STOKED (but also super nervous) to share this with the Earth.

You get this weird feeling, very similar to anxiety – although I wish I had a better word for it in this context (let’s call it nervous and excited… or nervouscited?) – sharing your ideas and your passions on a platform big enough with the potential for all to see. It’s like taking all your gut feelings and pasting them front and center on a bright neon shirt and tattooing on your forehead “I AM EXPOSED,” and then someone snapping a picture or taking a video of you looking like that and airing it on every local news channel across the country, but deeper. In a good way.

I had a very real and very genuine conversation with a co-worker tonight – ya gurl also provides recreational therapy in a residential facility for kiddos with mental/ behavioral health issues and severe histories of trauma, in addition to working overnights PRN at an in-patient children’s psychiatric facility… I prefer to face debt head on and attack it with intensity so I can live my life to the fullest sooner rather than later… and also I just truly enjoy working with these kids  ❤

But okay seriously back to what I was saying – I sat down with this person whom I do not even know on any level other than they work in the same facility that I do, and poured my heart out about my truest intentions for my business. My vision, if you must.

Seems pretty standard for every company to share their mission, vision, and values, right? It just feels so much bigger when your identity and what you stand for, who you care for, how you’ve grown professionally and personally aligns so closely with your very own company’s mission, vision, and values.

Sport psychology is so many things to me. Early on in high school, sport psychology was how I aligned my identification as an athlete and my absolute love for sport itself with my academic interests in a way that spit out an actual, feasible, identifiable career as an outcome. Early in college, sport psychology became the solution to my doubts, worries, and fears as an athlete. It was how I overcame 6 surgeries in 5 years and still finished my career. It was how I managed my personal struggles, relationship issues, and academic stresses in combination with my athletic aspirations. Learning and growing these mental skills resulted in greater resilience, in combination with the beautiful wealth of protective factors the Universe blessed me with. I knew this. I was thankful. I am grateful.

Jump to graduate school, where sport psychology became my graduate field of study. Working full-time at a facility filled to the brim with underprivileged youth with criminal charges from all the toughest, most impoverished areas of the country tucked into the southwest corner of rural Iowa. This is where the truth hit me. There is where I knew I needed to do work but I didn’t know how to make it happen. I was given the opportunity and privilege to know and try to understand so many kids in this setting, many of whom held unbelievable athletic ability and would go unnoticed by collegiate recruiters, and much of the world for that matter. Kids who barely had the skills and support to stay out of detention let alone pass high school classes and stay eligible to compete for team sports. 88% of which would “complete their program,” discharge from the facility, and reoffend either still as juveniles or more damagingly as adults. I wished I could stay there, dig my feet in, and begin my sport psychology career with those kids – but the timing was all wrong, and the support wasn’t there.

So I moved to Kansas City and found other ways to serve this population while getting my feet wet in the private practice setting. This was just a couple of years ago.

Fast forward to now, as we are experiencing the largest civil rights movement in history, in the middle of a pandemic. Nothing is normal, our faces covered by masks, vacant of the expression that allows us to connect, but protecting ourselves and the people we care about from respiratory disease. It’s ironic though, a little bit. Isn’t it? It’s hard to breathe with these masks on after a while. Some people are really upset about it to their core, protesting in the streets – denying the disease even exists. But is it harder to breathe wearing this mask than it is to breathe as an African American in America? I doubt it.

“I can’t breathe,” said George Floyd, Eric Garner, Javier Ambler, Manuel Ellis, Elijah McClain and over 70 others who have died in custody as a result of police brutality.

I have been actively working to serve unprivileged minority youth for the last 5 years in the residential and hospital setting. I advocate, educate, and speak out about these issues in my day to day life, I support everyone around me that I can reach – friends, family, and clients alike – in any way that I can, but it isn’t enough. I need to do more; we all need to do more.

Come full circle to my first full-time job working with “at-risk and delinquent youth,” …reflect on the inequalities and the intense need to provide these kids with services and it becomes obvious. The timing is right now. The support is everywhere.

The vision of Complete Phenom Enterprises, LLC in its rawest form is to support athletes growing up in underserved communities; to provide a safe space for these athletes to develop the skills to grow and be successful not only within their sport but within their lives; to guide young athletes into understanding the educational opportunities that their sport can provide them with and to build the confidence to pursue educational, athletic, and career goals that may have otherwise seemed unattainable in light of their circumstances.

I don’t have all the answers yet. I don’t have every step mapped out and I’m not totally sure how to make this happen. But I’m going to make this happen. This is where I get to do what I love and make a difference in our community. There is where I get to use my skills to help those struggling to breathe around me find air.

Photo by Ashley Landis/ USA TODAY sports.