Life is a Team Sport

We are back with our 50th episode and the beginning of Season 3. We are kicking off this season talking about the topic of Identity, where our identity comes from and some of the things that directly affect our identity.We start off by asking, who are you? If you define yourself by anything that could possibly change, how does that affect you when that change does happen? At the end of the day, where is your identity grounded and rooted in a place that is never going to chan...

Manya Puppione, formerly Makoski, grew up playing several sports. As the youngest sister with older brothers, Manya learned early how to stand up for herself and have that self-motivation to get better. When she reached high school, Manya had to choose between soccer and gymnastics. She started doing Olympic Development for soccer and had the opportunity to join the US U19 for several experiences and won a world cup with them. She went on to play soccer in college at A...

Paige Nielsen is a professional soccer player, currently a member of the Washington Spirit, who just won the National Women's Soccer League. In today's episode, Paige starts at the very beginning and tells us what her journey through soccer has been like and what she has learned along the way.Paige grew up playing soccer with her older brother who helped foster a love for the sport. Her mom put her into any sport that she could, so Paige grew up playing soccer, softball, basketbal...

Shereesha Richards grew up in Jamaica playing netball. It is a sport that is similar to basketball that is played 7 on 7. She got the opportunity to go to a basketball camp at the age of 16. After the camp, she was approached with the opportunity to go to the United States and play basketball in high school. Shereesha decided to take the opportunity and moved to New Jersey on her own, lived with a host family, played basketball and went to school. She talks about...

Erinn Dooley has been a part of the gymnastics community her entire life. She began as a toddler going to mommy & me classes and then started competing as a young girl. She progressed quickly through the levels and made it to level 10, the top junior olympic gymnastics level, by the age of 12.It was at that point that she had the opportunity to choose to train at the elite level and attend selection camps to compete for Team USA. She was on the USA National Team for 5 ye...

Ieshia Small grew up playing football with the boys and decided to play basketball in middle school and never looked back. She and her brother were adopted by her AAU coach after her mother passed away when she was in high school. Ieshia talks about being highly recruited out of high school and committing to Baylor at the McDonald's All American game. She talks about how she got hurt the day before the game and how hard the decision was for her to not play in the game.  ...

Becky & Patricia introduce the last theme for season 3 in this introductory episode.In this month's theme, I went Pro, we will be interviewing women who have made sports their career, some of them as athletes and others as coaches and administration. In the introduction, they share the stats, that only 7% of athletes go on to play in college and then only 2% go on to become a professional. In today's episode, Becky & Patricia discuss their own collegiate experiences and wh...

Michelle Garvin is the Sports Psychologist for the Detroit Lions. She grew up playing a variety of sports including soccer, basketball, swimming, track, softball and volleyball. She calls herself a generalist instead of a specialist. Michelle talks about getting her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and how she discovered that she could then combine that with her love for sports and work with athletes. One of the stereotypes that she sees across the board is that mental...

Bailey Philbin is currently a special education teacher and gymnastics coach. She talks to us today about the eating disorder that robbed her of much of her collegiate gymnastics career, how that impacted her for many years and what helped her to finally heal.Bailey talks about the intensity of her training as a young girl and how gymnastics consumed almost all of her identity. She noticed when she hit puberty that she was gaining weight in places that she wasn't used to and becam...

Lisa Mack owned her own business for over 20 years. It was a preschool that she started and just sold a few years ago. She talks about what it looked like to create a startup from scratch as a young woman, her inspiration for doing it and many of the logistics and challenges that she faced along the way.Lisa grew up playing field hockey in high school and went on be on the field hockey team in college. While in college, she switched to run cross country and track and actuall...