{"id":138188,"date":"2021-02-18T11:50:56","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T16:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=138188"},"modified":"2021-02-18T17:09:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T22:09:19","slug":"being-told-i-couldnt-stories-from-bates-female-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2021\/02\/18\/being-told-i-couldnt-stories-from-bates-female-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Being told I couldn’t’: Inspiring stories from Bates female athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The growing pains for athletes go beyond shin splints and pulled muscles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A native of San Salvador, El Salvador, Erika Parker \u201923 loved squash from the get-go, competing in and winning youth tournaments throughout the Americas as a young athlete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem was, she loved winning more than the sport itself. And with greater competition came losses, which became harder and harder for her to deal with. Her self-doubt grew. She questioned why she was spending so much time on the sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She recalled how her father asked if she regretted the time she\u2019d given to the sport. Frustrated and angry, Parker said that yes: It was all a waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Women's
Erika Parker \u201923 of San Salvador, El Salvador. (Brewster Burns for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Parker shared that story of despair recently as part of National Girls and Women in Sports Day programming at the college.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She and other female Bates athletes offered insights into their athletic journeys, prompted by the theme \u201cLead Her Forward\u201d and shared stories about what motivated them to take up their sport as a child and how that motivation continues to drive them forward today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parker\u2019s story has a happy ending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(My father) asked me if I didn\u2019t enjoy every training session, and if representing my country was not worth it. He also asked me if the time we spent together as a family, playing and talking about squash, was a waste.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow that I look back I realize that everything I learned was worth it, and probably worth more than any trophy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Softball\"
Caroline Bass \u201921 of West Newton, Mass. (Brewster Burns for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Caroline Bass \u201921 of West Newton, Mass., grew up playing Little League baseball with boys, which tested her mettle. “We had a handful of girls when I started playing. But by the time I was 12, it was just me and another girl.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the boys didn’t treat her as, well, one of the boys. \u201cAlways being told I wasn\u2019t able to do that or I wasn\u2019t able to do this. They would look down on me just because I was a girl, and it made me really driven to work harder and excel at what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As athletes churn through youth sports, from rec-league teams to travel squads and high school stardom, the dream is often a chance to play in college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once there, \u201ceveryone expects, \u2018I\u2019m going to have four years. I\u2019m going to play all the time. It\u2019s going to be this amazing story-book experience,\u2019\u201d says Kathryn Grennon \u201821 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, one of the captains of this year\u2019s lacrosse team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut for many athletes it\u2019s not always like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featuring dramatic photos and video clips, hear female Bobcats talk about their sports. (Aaron Morse\/Bates College)<\/em><\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/lite-youtube>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n

After high school, Grennon headed to William & Mary to play Division I lacrosse. It didn\u2019t work out, so she transferred to Bates, missing her first season. Year two was great, but year three was stopped before it really began by COVID-19. And year four? Who knows at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo much of this life has been dedicated to getting to the collegiate level,\u201d Grennon says. If she had to give advice to her younger self, it might revel in athletic experiences growing up, because she now realizes \u201chow important my youth lacrosse, my high school lacrosse, and my club lacrosse was to actually forming who I was becoming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt has been a hard pill to swallow not having this expansive college career. But I think there\u2019s so much more that lacrosse has given me than just the kind of storybook collegiate experience that I thought I was going to have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Women's
Kathryn Grennon \u201821 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. (Brewster Burns for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


Lauryn Boucree \u201921 of Bethesda, Md., is a Black woman at not only a predominantly white college but in an even more predominantly white sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen people think of the sport of swimming, they think of it as being a white sport,\u201d says Boucree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when she started swimming competitively, as a young girl with a club team with her hometown friends, \u201cI was surrounded by people who looked liked me. That was my bubble \u2014 until we went to swim meets. I didn\u2019t realize the magnitude of how special that environment was in the sport of swimming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boucree attended a predominantly white Catholic high school \u2014 she was the only Black girl on the team. And at Bates, she was the only Black woman on the swim team for her first two years. \u201cIt was isolating, but because the Bates team is so cohesive and accepting and loving, that wasn’t a huge factor in my swim career.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Lauryn Boucree \u201921 of Bethesda, Md. (Brewster Burns for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a senior, it\u2019s been a year of reflection for Boucree as a Black swimmer who once described herself as a \u201cchameleon,\u201d meaning that as her swim life and environment progressed, she felt that she \u201cbecame more whitewashed\u201d and less aware of her identity as a Black woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until she arrived as Bates, when she began taking courses that \u201cexpanded my education on what it means to be Black, even though I\u2019ve experienced being Black every day of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Lauryn Boucree \u201921. (Brewster Burns for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

That education has continued among the swim team, with many individual conversations and Zoom meetings on difficult topics around being Black at Bates. \u201cIt\u2019s great coming to a common ground and removing barriers to understanding where everyone is coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy joy has come from our seniors being so supportive of me and the team\u201d during a very difficult year in America, \u201cand our coaches too.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou always hear coaches saying, \u2018You can come to me with anything.\u2019 I never took that literally, they\u2019re just being nice. I\u2019ll swim and move on with my life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I do think I can go to them with anything and that\u2019s an amazing feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Female varsity athletes at Bates share lessons, setbacks, and triumphs as part of National Women and Girls in Sports Day programming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":138204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-batesnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138188"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138245,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138188\/revisions\/138245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}