As an avid sports fan and former athlete, I love sports, especially the thrill of athletic tournaments. I love the drama, the passion, the hard work on display, the agony of defeat, and the celebration of victory. However, this year as I watched the 2021 NCAA Women’s Basketball tournament, I was thrilled for reasons having nothing to do with the actual sport being played. I was elated to see women being celebrated not only as incredible athletes, but also as complex, feeling, demanding, powerful human beings.
Early in the tournament, University of Oregon’s Sedona Prince took to Twitter to blast the NCAA organizers for the shocking disparity between the NCAA’s men’s and women’s weight rooms. The backlash was swift and powerful. Celebrities, WNBA players, and NBA players all publicly called out the NCAA and demanded immediate changes. Overnight, the measly weight room was transformed into something much more in line with what the women’s players deserved. Sedona Prince was rewarded and exalted for using her voice to call out these gross inequities. She was not small, nor was she gentle.
The Arizona women's basketball team, coached by Adia Barnes, was my tournament favorite. This team was not expected to shine as they did. They were underdogs. A scrappy defensive team, led by point guard Aari McDonald, the Arizona Wildcats stunned number one seed Connecticut 69-59 in the semi-finals to advance to its first NCAA Women’s Basketball championship game. This was a huge upset. Even the NCAA video staff didn’t believe Arizona could win, and so didn’t include them at all in the video highlight reels leading up to the Final Four.
After their victory, Coach Barnes huddled with her exuberant team at half court and gave an impassioned speech. ESPN cameras captured Barnes, surrounded by her beaming players, raising her two middle fingers and using expletives to tell the team to “F” everyone who didn’t believe in them. It was a moment of passion. It was a moment of joy and of great pride in a hard-fought victory. The celebration was not tiny, it was not controlled. It was not modest, and it was awesome.
The next day, Coach Barnes was interviewed and asked about the post-game celebration. She said, “I honestly had a moment with my team, and I thought it was a more intimate huddle. I said to my team something that I truly felt and I know they felt, and it just appeared different on TV, but I'm not apologizing for it because I don't feel like I need to apologize. It's what I felt with my team at the moment. I wouldn't take it back. We've gone to war together. We believe in each other. So I'm in those moments, and that's how I am, so I don't apologize for doing that. I'm just me, and I have to just be me.” (1)
Adia Barnes is not apologizing for having big feelings nor for simply being herself. And neither should any of us.
Prior to coaching, Adia Barnes played basketball at the collegiate level for the University of Arizona, spent seven seasons in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and also played internationally in Ukraine. Her husband is her assistant coach at Arizona. She is also a mother and gave birth to her 2nd child in September of 2020, right at the start of the college basketball season. (2) Because she was pumping breast milk for her infant daughter, Coach Barnes was a few minutes late coming out of the locker room after halftime during the championship game. It is a pretty safe bet that parenting duties have never (or very rarely) delayed a male NCAA coach from returning to the court after halftime. It is also safe to say that ESPN commentators have never discussed breast milk during an NCAA championship game before.
Watching Adia Barnes coach, it is clear she is the kind of coach all coaches should aspire to. She is smart, fierce, powerful, loud, and an aggressively demanding leader. She is also a kind, compassionate, cooperative leader, who uses appropriate gentleness when it is needed. In the summer of 2020, days after George Floyd was murdered Adia Barnes released the following statement: “In this program we will be the CHANGE! We will stand up for what is right, we will listen with open hearts, and support one another wherever they are. Our team has a lot of love and a lot of sisterhood.” She goes on to say, “We are very accepting. I think we have a space of love, acceptance and understanding. It’s OK not to be OK. It’s OK not to know what to say. It’s all OK. We accept all those emotions.” (3)
By giving her players permission to be fully human and to have and to express big emotions like fear, sadness, and anxiety, Coach Barnes helps her players maintain their full humanity. This is good coaching.
Critics tend to view the women’s game as less exciting compared to the men’s game, but this year that was furthest from the truth. The teams competing relentlessly attacked the basket, giving and taking hard, tough fouls. There was no holding back. They brought pure aggression, graceful skill, and so much heart to the court. But a key difference from the men’s game, is that women players also brought their humanity to the court. If a player was harshly fouled by the opposing team, it was common to see a member of that opposing team offering that player a hand to stand back up. It was not an apology for the hit, but rather an acknowledgment of the pain. That is not something you will often see in the men’s game. Sure, there was the standard verbal sparring and some vicious fouls, common in high-level athletics. However, after an anxiety-fueled and uncertain season due to Covid 19, as well as the traumatic and painful rising tide of racial injustice, the players seemed mindfully grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with each other and play the game they love. They remained connected to their humanity through their compassion for one other. This is the opposite of weakness.
After Arizona lost Stanford in the championship game, Coach Barnes immediately wrapped her 21-year-old star player up in a long hug and told her, “It is okay”. In this hug I saw a complex and supportive message to her young players. We can feel disappointed and devastated, and still can be fierce. We can be demanding and yet still compassionate. We can be kind and also angry. We can feel scared. We never need to choose to be small or apologize for our honesty. We can allow ourselves to be loud and unapologetic in our humanity. Coach Barnes likes to say that she and her players are “built different.” May we all recognize our own unique build and embrace the space we deserve. May we all allow ourselves to be big in whatever manner fits.