Two college athletes

chapter 1 introduction

So I’m tall. Like not just back of the row tall, but taller than some NBA players. And I’m a girl. As a child I was one of the tallest kids in the room, but never the tallest. At the end of eighth grade our pe class had everyone measured. My best friend was 5’3, and a whopping 89 pounds. I just the third tallest at 5’7, but at 180 pounds was by far the biggest girl. But that summer grew three inches, and the next summer another four inches etc. It was hard to keep weight on me, so by graduation I was just shy of 6’5 and recruited by D1 colleges…who all told me what I know: I was tall, awkward and skinny at 146 pounds. My best friend had grown a bit, too, but at 5’4 she outweighed me by a good 25 pounds.

After I signed my acceptance letter, I had a physical. Coach said that what I needed to accomplish if I wanted to do something other than tip offs was to add a bunch of muscle. Coach gave me a training plan, and it included what I thought was a crazy diet: she wanted me to eat 4,500 calories per day when I was already struggling with 3,500 calories. I worked fast food with my friend, and she had even insisted that I eat her fries and have an extra milkshake during afternoon breaks. Over the summer I managed to average 4,000 calories per day, so she was disappointed when I showed up for my pre-season weigh-in: Just 159 pounds. (At least my period had finally started.) Needless to say, coach was upset! Season started in just four months, so I had to try to add muscle if I wanted to leave the bench.
On campus I quickly found a new family with my team. There was something really affirming being with a bunch of other girls who did not make me feel like an awkward giraffe. Sure I was one of the tallest women on the team, but it was great having my tribe. Our work-outs started almost immediately after getting settled into our rooms and had a predictable pace: usually morning cardio, afternoon yoga for flexibility and then weight lifting in the evenings before dinner. We had a month before classes started, and would share meals in the cafeteria. Everyone was so happy and supporting, and being around the other athletes they all encouraged me to get seconds and dessert. Our assistant Coach “Big ‘Em” was a little taller than me and told me she had also arrived as a skinny freshman and bulked up every off season---and was coaching until going into a masters program for sports medicine after our season. She said that her first weigh-in was 150 pounds, but that she had managed to put on some serious muscle over the years. (And it was clear that not all of her added weight was muscle; I later learned coach was not happy when she went over 300 pounds.)