In My Skin (16 page)

Looking back now, I wish I could have stayed on that court longer, making those confetti angels, wiping away all the hard stuff I had dealt with—just enjoying the moment as long as possible. Because once we got back to Waco, there wasn't much time for me to exhale before all the pressure and all the expectations started building again. There had been a lot of speculation at the Final Four that I might leave Baylor after my junior year and go pro early. I shot that down in Denver and made it clear I wanted to finish college. You can't relive those four years of your life, and I was looking forward to my senior year.

Little did I know it would be so challenging.

L
ife was pretty crazy for a while after we won the NCAA championship. Good but crazy. I couldn't really go anywhere in Waco because people acted like it was the first time they'd ever seen me in person; everybody wanted to stop and say hi or take a picture. When I was a little kid, I loved people. My parents say I used to hug everyone I met. I still love people, most of the time. But Waco is a small place, and it's not like I blend in when I'm out in public. Just going to class was a challenge. And if I needed something at the store, I would ask somebody to get it for me. That was kind of a drag. I had never imagined myself as being any kind of celebrity. It's one thing to deal with the media during March Madness, when the spotlight is on us as players, but the level of attention after we got back on campus was pretty intense.

At the same time, though, I was on such a high. I was finally getting a chance to enjoy the ride. And being Brittney Griner definitely had its advantages in Waco. A few weeks after we won the title, I was out with my boys late one night—Nash, his housemate Albert, our friends A.J. and Mikey—and I had the bright idea of longboarding while holding on to the back of Mikey's car. “We are real skaters,” I said to them. “Let's just do this and have some fun.” Those guys didn't need any convincing. So I grabbed the spoiler on Mikey's Mitsubishi Lancer, along with Mikey, Nash, and Albert; then A.J. got behind the wheel and started driving. We rode around the whole campus like that, cruising down Main Street, University Drive, probably hitting 30 or 40 miles per hour, which feels pretty damn fast when you're on a board. It was like that scene in
Back to the Future 2,
when Michael J. Fox is on his hoverboard, riding behind the car—just an insane rush. I think we were so focused on what we were doing, we didn't even think about anybody seeing us. When we got to the Ferrell Center, we slowed down and decided to head home. It was around 1
A.M.
at that point, and we were only a few seconds away from hopping off our boards.

Of course, that's when I spotted a campus police car sitting in the Ferrell parking lot. I said, “Y'all, that's a cop over there. Are we gonna stay and let him pull us over, or are we gonna dip?” We knew the guy had probably seen us; it would have been hard to miss us unless he was snoozing. Sure enough, before we even had time to react, he was already coming toward us. Then he threw on his lights and pulled us over. We all got off our boards and just stood there, waiting like a bunch of little kids who got caught running in the halls at school. I was wearing a pair of ripped jean shorts, my Vans, and a sports bra, no shirt, and I wedged myself in behind the bros, hunching over and lowering my eyes. I had one thought in my head:
Fuuuuck!
The officer didn't see me at first. I think he thought I was one of the dudes. He walked up and said, “Whatcha guys doing?” But we didn't say anything because we could tell he was pissed. He looked at us for a few seconds, then said, “This is the most boneheaded thing I've seen in a long time. What the heck are y'all thinking?” He paused and shook his head. “I need to see some identification from everybody.”

I had to lift my head when I gave him my license. He squinted a little to read it, and then his eyes got wide. He looked up at me and said, “And you? Does Coach know you're out here?”

That is one of the more comical questions I've ever heard, now that I think about it. “Well, sir, she knows I like to longboard,” I said, all sheepish-like. “She just doesn't know how I do it exactly.”

He shook his head again and said, “You just won a national championship, and this is what you're doing?” He didn't even check the other IDs after that. All he said was, “Put the boards in the back, get in the car, and go home.” I had been pretty nervous up until that point, because when he told us how boneheaded we were being, that's when it finally hit me, like,
Oh yeah, that was a really stupid thing we did.
But as soon as he let us off the hook, I felt this giant wave of relief. “Yes, sir,” I said, trying to look as serious as possible, while in my head I was like,
Hell yes!
And then he said, “Y'all get the gold star for the night—for the month, actually.” That's when I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. I mean, what we did was reckless. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. But the fact that we were dumb enough to do it, and that we walked away without getting hurt and without getting in trouble? I couldn't help cracking up about it afterward, at the absurdity of it all. The guys kept saying, “Damn, we're glad you were with us, B, because we would have been toast otherwise.” It's like they had forgotten that I was the one who had the crazy idea in the first place.

I WOULD EVENTUALLY
pay the price for pushing the limits on my longboard. And everyone would find out about it. We rode a lot that spring, me and the boys, for hours at a time. We liked to hit the parking garages around campus—take the elevator up, then ride down. Nothing too crazy. But one day in early May, a couple of weeks after our late-night stunt with Mikey's car, the fun came to an end. There is one particular spot, in the bookstore parking garage, that's more challenging. The ramp to go up is really steep, which means you pick up more speed on the way down. Naturally, we decided to ride it. Mikey went down first and barely made it around the first turn at the top. I thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Okay, I can do it.” But I walked halfway down the ramp first, so I could start from the middle and keep my speed under control. Unfortunately, that didn't help. Almost as soon as I got going, I could tell I was heading for a nasty spill if I tried to swing that turn. I shouted, “I'm not gonna make it!” And then I jumped off the board. But I was going so fast, I couldn't stop running. I must have looked like a cartoon character, just a big blur of arms and legs. I almost went headfirst into the curb, but I somehow managed to stay on my feet and threw my hands up to brace myself as I ran into the wall. My right hand—my shooting hand—absorbed most of the impact, and my wrist bent back at an awkward angle.

I knew right away something was wrong. It hurt like hell. I dropped down to the ground, holding my wrist, yelling and cussing. I said to the guys, “We have to go back to the car.” So we all got on our boards—I wasn't thinking too clearly, obviously—and when we started to go, I said, “I can't do it. I just can't.” I took my shirt off and wrapped it around my wrist to keep it still. The pain was getting worse by the second. Then I told the guys, “Y'all go get the car and pick me up. Grab my phone, call the trainer.”

At first we couldn't get in touch with anyone because Kim was attending an awards banquet in New York City and most of the staff was gone. But one of our assistant coaches, Rekha Patterson, was around, and she met us at the hospital. Julio and Nash waited with me. The x-rays confirmed what I already knew: my wrist was broken. I also knew I had to call Kim. Rekha had already told her, but I still had to check in. And I was dreading it. I thought Kim was going to rip me. Hell, I probably would have ripped me. I made sure I took my pain medicine before I called her, so at least I would be drowsy in case she started going off on me. But she didn't do that at all. She just said, “Big Girl, I hear you broke your wrist.” She was sympathetic. Of course, she also said, “You know, if this had happened during the season, you would have hurt your team, too. I'm glad you have plenty of time to heal and rehab it. Do whatever you need to do to get better.”

There wasn't much I could say, except, “I know, Coach. You're right. I'm sorry.” It's not like Kim was going to ban me from riding, especially during the off-season. She's a demanding coach, but she didn't try to micromanage our every move off the court. We had a parade in Waco after we got back from the Final Four, and I rode my longboard in it. Kim trusted me to use my judgment when it came to riding, and I usually did. I just got a little carried away that spring, probably because I didn't have to worry about basketball. It was like I had a temporary free pass: I knew it wouldn't last, so I was just trying to have fun and not worry about what might come next. I knew I was lucky when I found out I wouldn't need surgery, just a cast for a month or so. Once I started rehab and worked through the stiffness, it didn't take long to get my shooting touch back.

If anything, the worst part of rehab was being stuck on the sidelines during our basketball camps for kids. I couldn't really do anything except show up and smile. And when it came time for the final send-off, well, that hurt a lot more than you might imagine. On the last day of each session, we always sign autographs. There's a line of kids (along with their sisters and brothers and moms and dads) that snakes around the gym and out the door—hundreds and hundreds of people—and we sit there signing and taking pictures for hours. I usually love signing for kids, but trying to do it with a soft cast on, holding the marker in an awkward way, was challenging to say the least. When I think about breaking my wrist, one of the first things that comes to mind is how much it hurt to sign those autographs. Ha. I'm pretty sure that's not what Kim was worried about when she reminded me I had to think about the big picture.

THE MOST IMPORTANT DECISION
I faced after we won the championship was whether I wanted to play in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. I had played for the U.S. national team the previous September, during a two-week training tour in Europe. I was the only college player on the squad, which was coached by Connecticut's Geno Auriemma, so I had a chance to hoop with a bunch of WNBA stars, including Cappie Pondexter, Tina Charles, and Swin Cash. And in February of my junior season, just two months before we won the NCAA title, I was named a finalist for the Olympic team, which was an incredible honor. I felt a lot of pride wearing that USA jersey during the European tour. The U.S. women had won four straight gold medals in basketball, and playing in the Olympics is something I had dreamed about since high school.

But I was exhausted after the season. Going 40-0 is hard enough, and it feels even harder when you have people pounding on you, hanging on you, knocking you around every single game. I knew if I played in the Olympics—if Coach Auriemma and USA Basketball decided to pick me—that by the time I got back from London in mid-August, I would have to jump right back into preseason training with Baylor. I was deep down tired. I also had other concerns weighing on me, mainly that I didn't want to be so far away from my mom. I had one year of college left, only a certain amount of time left in Texas, when I could see her mostly whenever I wanted. I knew that after I left Baylor and turned pro, I would see her a lot less, because it's hard for her to travel; it just takes so much out of her. And I worry about her all the time. Just having her close by, knowing she was only three hours away, gave me peace of mind. School was also a consideration. It had never been my first priority, but that just meant I needed to take care of business during summer classes, so I could stay on track and keep out of Kim's doghouse (where I would end up anyway at the beginning of my senior year).

One day in April, about a month before I broke my wrist, I was chilling with Julio and Nash, and I just put it out there: “Yo, guys, I don't think I'm going to do the Olympics.” I had been thinking about it for a few days, and that was the first time I said it out loud. I told them I was tired, and Julio said, “Hell, yeah, you're tired. You need to rest and get off your legs.” Then Nash said, “You'll have other chances to play in the Olympics.” Those guys always give me honest feedback; they don't just tell me what they think I want to hear. If they had said, “Girl, you're crazy—this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” I would have considered that carefully. But once I got their feedback, once I knew I wasn't being crazy, I talked to my parents about it, and they were cool with it, too. As always, my mom just wanted me to be happy. And I think my dad liked the idea of me being in Waco instead of London. He probably figured it would be easier to keep tabs on me.

When I told Kim I didn't want to go, she kind of already knew. She had been telling me all along, for a couple of months, “This is going to be a hard decision, so think it over real good.” She never tried to sway me one way or the other; she was really cool about staying neutral. I think early on, when I was named a finalist, she wanted me to go. She always said it was one of the best things she ever did, playing for the United States and winning a gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics. But she knew I was tired at the end of the season, and that I keep going and going until my body crashes. She knows I have trouble saying no, so she told me a few times, in the days leading up to my decision, “I know you don't want to let anybody down, but you need your rest, too. You had a long season.” I think she knew by then which way I was leaning, so she wanted to make sure I knew it was okay if I didn't go, that she wouldn't be disappointed.

I was kind of hoping, when I walked into Kim's office to tell her, that she would break the news to the people at USA Basketball. I wanted to avoid that phone call. But Kim said, “You have to be a big girl about it and call them yourself.” And then she made me do it right then and there, because she knew if I went home I probably wouldn't do it. (Sometimes I avoid saying no by not saying anything at all.) So I called Carol Callan, the women's national team director for USA Basketball. By that point, there was only one roster spot still open, and the general assumption was that they were holding it for me. I told Carol I was taking my name out of the equation, and she was very understanding. One of the things a lot of people didn't seem to realize—all those online trolls and people on message boards who would question my decision—was that I would have been the first college player since 1988 to make the U.S. team, which tells you something about how hard it is to play on that level. Some of the key players on the 2012 team were in their thirties: Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Tamika Catchings, Lindsay Whalen, Swin Cash. So it's not like the fate of the U.S. squad was resting on my shoulders. If that had been the case, I would have been there in a heartbeat, doing everything I could to bring home another gold.