I decided that it didn’t matter what major I chose in college. It didn’t matter what I studied or that I obtained a degree at all, really. Because I was going to play professional basketball. That would be my career, traveling the world performing a sport I’d discovered I loved. All else was secondary and irrelevant.
So, I left my prestigious Chicago film school. Along with the hour-long train rides from my northwest Indiana home and the mile-long treks through rain, snow, and freezing temperatures necessary to get there. Instead, I enrolled at a local university. One that had a basketball team I could join.
The extent of my preparation for this undertaking was two years in a YMCA summer league while in elementary school, and playing one-on-one with my brother. Our stepfather built a hoop next to the driveway using a slab of wood as the backboard. That was enough to spark my one-sided love affair with the game. But those college girls who’d been playing organized basketball since they were toddlers wiped the floor with me. Mopped it clean.
I was a natural athlete.
I could run fast and jump high. But basic knowledge of things like practice drills and how to check-in to a game wasn’t in my repertoire. For me, touching the ball resembled a game of hot potato. I just wanted to give it to someone else as fast as…
