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I was, admittedly, surprised by it too. I knew I had some pull—our games were aired on TV, I’d been in nationally aired commercials, been featured in sports articles, and praised as the present and future of the sport.

But I didn’t think people actually cared about me .

I assumed it’d always been about the game.

And that was how I preferred it to be. Mags wanted to be a personality, and she wasn’t shy about it.

Players like Cam Kerr made it their entire brand to be as publicly visible as possible.

But I’d never wanted that. I’d always kept it strictly game-related.

I never talked shit in a press conference, never ragged on people on social media, never talked about my own personal life online.

Every once in a while, I’d post a picture of my parents to celebrate one of their birthdays or their anniversary, but nothing was ever about dating.

The most I posted about was basketball from the official Lakeside Green social media accounts, followed by reposted pictures of the team my teammates shared.

That had been intentional to a certain extent—no one needed to know my business— but it had also felt stupid, like everyone who saw me post about my parents would be like, Okay, and?

Give us another highlight . I posted about basketball because people cared about basketball.

They wanted to see me play and practice and wanted to follow me from college to—hopefully—the pros.

But I was realizing now that might not actually be the case. Maybe people wanted more of me than I thought.

“Order for Theo,” a barista said from the coffee cart. I walked up and grabbed it, quietly thanking her while keeping my head down. Unfortunately, it was hard to hide as someone who had an obvious basketball player build—I was six feet tall and pretty much always in athleisure.

As I exited the building, I looked down at the coffee in my hands and weighed my options on responding to Maya. I was already in this shit; I might as well see it through. No use in pretending anything between the two of us could ever be normal now.

I pulled out my phone and wrote, Tell me more over coffee?

, attaching my phone number to the end so I could avoid social media as much as possible for the rest of the day.

I was surprised by my own boldness, but also couldn’t deny that I felt I had a good reason to be bold.

I probably needed to start acknowledging that I was someone who could take big swings, even though I mostly felt like I was still just some girl trying her best to follow her dreams. I wasn’t actually there yet.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I took a deep breath, hoping it would be Maya. But instead, my mom’s contact photo popped up.

I pushed through the exit doors and headed outside.

For a moment, I wondered if she was calling because she’d seen or heard something about the picture with Maya.

But then I remembered that it was my mom who I was talking about, the same woman who could barely figure out how to post on Instagram.

Her last update had been from one of my high school games, and I’d had to coach her through the whole process.

I don’t think she even knew what Twitter was. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, sweetie. Congrats on your game. Your dad and I wished we could’ve been there for it,” she said.

I smiled at the sound of her voice. One of the hardest things about basketball season was that my parents were pretty much entirely off-limits to me.

We not only lived in different states right now, but I was constantly either practicing or out with the team or traveling somewhere for a game.

There was no real downtime to justify them coming to visit, especially from a flight away.

“I wanted to call you last night, but we all know how post-game goes.”

She was right; as much as I tried to make time to talk to my parents after my games, it was hard to find the time.

I was shuttled from one thing to the next, and by the time I could call my parents, they were usually already settled in bed for the night.

I’d never been able to get into the swing of calling them to talk through a game immediately after; we’ve had to settle for the tradition of them calling me the day after, my mom usually trying to catch me just as I was leaving a class so she knew I was walking around campus and wasn’t busy.

“Oh, it’s okay. I know you guys will see me when I go to a closer game,” I said.

My parents still lived in the neighborhood I grew up in, a little town a few hours outside of Ann Arbor.

There’d never been much to say about my hometown—there weren’t a lot of kids and there wasn’t much to do.

Basketball offered an escape, especially during the winter when I couldn’t shoot basketballs in my backyard because of the snow.

It allowed me to travel and be with more kids my own age other than the faces I’d known since kindergarten.

By the time college recruiters were looking at me—as young as middle school, in some cases—I was ready to get out and go just about anywhere that would give me an offer.

There were bigger and better-funded programs than Lakeside Green’s, but the two options had been clear: Either be the big fish in a small pond, or be a small fish among a lot of other talented fish in a much larger pond.

It didn’t feel worth it to go to a school with a basically guaranteed ring if I didn’t get to play.

And either way, getting to build Lakeside Green into a reputable women’s basketball program was an honor.

It’d been the best kind of ego boost I could ask for, knowing I was leaving behind a legitimate legacy at this school.

After nearly two decades of nothing of note happening and mostly losing records, things had finally started to turn around.

It’d been fun getting people excited about the sport for the first time in a long time here.

“Your dad was yelling at the TV like crazy,” Mom said.

“I can’t believe twenty-four didn’t get a tech!

Refs should’ve been on her!” Dad said from offscreen.

He’d raised his voice so I could hear him; he was probably sitting across the room from her.

I could picture my parents so easily—my mom reading from her favorite spot on the couch, and my dad on his phone after messing around in the garage.

My parents had been in their thirties when they had me and were fortunate to be able to retire now that I was leaving school.

Once they realized that I was competent enough to take care of myself—either through basketball or whatever other means I could find—they both eased out of working full-time and work mostly on an as-needed basis now in consultant work.

Despite the flexibility of their schedules now, I was insistent from the beginning that they didn’t need to be the kind of parents who flew out for every game.

If anything, I was sure they didn’t really want to.

We had too many games throughout the season for them to be roadies, or to consistently see me play without basically relocating to Colorado for the season.

And, as I liked to tease them, they were getting too old to be on and off airplanes all the time. They were still spry and took great care of themselves, but it was way more fun to tease them about how their jetsetting years were behind them.

“I get hit like that all the time, it happens,” I said.

My memories of the games were always like watching a sports reel.

I rarely remembered the interpersonal stuff—accidental shoves, fouls.

I was used to my body getting knocked around, and I never took it personally or thought about it beyond the game.

Adrenaline made it possible for me to bounce back up like nothing happened.

The only thing I took care in remembering was the game itself, strengths and weaknesses of the other players, who liked to play dirty, plays teams liked to run. That was the stuff that really mattered to me; not technicals and off-court beef.

“Never gets less scary,” Mom said.

Mom and Dad had never been quiet about how proud they were of me.

Sometimes, it didn’t seem like they understood how they’d raised someone like me—someone so competitive, so driven, so loud about how much I loved basketball.

I wasn’t afraid to raise my voice on the court where needed and my mouth would get me into hot shit regularly.

Growing up, my parents were usually the ones to reel me in from the sidelines.

Now, it was mostly my coach. And my teammates, other than GJ, who encouraged it.

Both of my parents had been athletes, but for much smaller programs and with much less drive to do it professionally.

They knew they’d give up basketball after college graduation; I knew from as young as third grade that I was going to do everything it took to play professionally.

It’d been obvious to everyone that I was something special; I had that right combination of natural talent and drive to see it through.

My feelings on it had never wavered. But their concern for my well-being and making sure I knew I wasn’t expected to be the best had also never wavered.

“I have huge muscles now, Mom. I can take care of myself.”

Mom snorted. “But you’re good? You have money for food? Sneakers don’t have holes?”

“Yeah, everything’s good here. Ready for the game on Sunday. And I’m excited to start traveling again next week for games. We have one in Florida that I’m looking forward to. It’ll be nice to be somewhere warmer than here.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. You getting much snow?”

“The usual,” I said.

“Same here,” Mom said. “Okay, well, I won’t hold you too long. Your dad and I have a very exciting day ahead of us of grocery shopping and grabbing some things from Home Depot.”