After taking part in in her final school sport ever in opposition to Mississippi State within the 2017 NCAA Candy 16, Kelsey Plum didn’t have a lot time to prepare for the WNBA. She was chosen because the No. 1 decide within the WNBA Draft on April 13, and had precisely six days earlier than she needed to be in San Antonio. Coaching camp was scheduled to start out on the twenty third, however she nonetheless had loads to do, like flying again to Seattle so she might pack her baggage and end taking lessons.
“In actuality, trying again now [and] having hindsight, I wasn’t ready,” Plum tells SLAM over Zoom when requested about her transition from school to the professionals. “I wasn’t ready mentally, bodily, spiritually, emotionally, for the subsequent degree.”
The Washington Husky abruptly discovered herself having to steadiness her coaching with all the different duties that include now being an expert athlete, like signing with an agent and getting an endorsement deal. “To not point out, the WNBA itself is sort of a completely different sport,” Plum provides. “The get up name that I had was so brutal.”
The fruits of all of this, particularly the “ignorance and sources” supplied to her that would have given Plum, and actually any school student-athlete, worthwhile perception on what to anticipate on the professional degree, performed a toll on her psychological well being. She says it took her “4 or 5 years” to really feel extra comfy within the WNBA, and it’s that have that impressed her to wish to empower and assist the subsequent era of girls’s school basketball gamers.
“That’s one of many massive the explanation why Underneath Armour and I simply meshed,” she says. “I used to be like, pay attention that is actually essential to me. I wish to make an influence. I need to have the ability to go away the sport higher than I left it. And I felt like that is lacking within the girls’s sport. Within the NBA, there’s numerous assist transitioning. From the company facet, from the mix facet. These guys are prepped from youngsters all the way in which to changing into NBA gamers. And I felt like, you recognize what? We don’t have that on the ladies’s facet, and why not take a swing at it?”
Plum and UA are launching a first-of-its-kind mentorship program, the Dawg Class, that may give 9 girls’s basketball gamers, all personally chosen by Plum, the chance to take part in a three-day expertise and be taught straight from the Las Vegas Aces star and WNBA champion. The camp will function on-court drills meant to assist refine their abilities, in addition to periods on coaching and restoration.
Plum is aware of firsthand how essential it’s to be bodily prepared for the WNBA: “We form of lifted weights in school, however I didn’t know,” she recollects. “You then get into the League and Sylvia Fowles simply offers it a bit love faucet and also you go 4 toes. And I’m like, Wow, these are grown girls. My physique isn’t ready for this.”
Gamers may even have the prospect to be taught extra about media coaching, psychological well being, finance, vitamin and categorical their private type. This system is supposed to actually put together them for what’s forward whereas giving all of them the instruments wanted to navigate that transition.
“I really feel like if we are able to catch a few of these girls a bit bit earlier, like junior going into senior yr or sophomore or freshman, and [give them] a greater, full understanding of the method. [Like], what it’s gonna be like, how is Draft evening gonna be, how [to] decide your agent or if you have already got, what do you have to be on the lookout for?
[There’s also] numerous various things mentally. If in school whenever you miss some pictures and also you’re not acting at your finest, numerous occasions you’re the most suitable choice that they’ve. And so they’re gonna hold letting you attempt. Whereas within the execs, there’s an All-American sitting on the bench ready so that you can mess up to allow them to go in and play nice. This can be a entire new actuality that mentally, lots of people aren’t ready for. So numerous these various things we’re gonna attempt to assault at camp and simply give them a greater thought of how a professional trains and the way a professional approaches the sport.”
The very title of this system is a mirrored image of what’s essential to Plum, from having a dawg-mentality to making a group that continues to empower feminine athletes, even after the camp concludes. “I form of began with this concept of the Dawg Class and the dawg-mentality is mostly a mentality that anybody can have. It’s loads greater than sport, however specifically, simply the way in which you strategy life. A whole lot of occasions we’re given robust duties and there’s numerous exhausting issues to beat, however having that mentality is exhibiting up each day, constantly able to assault the day and simply not taking no for a solution. And I feel that dawg-mentality form of resonates inside me and form of how I used to be raised.
I feel that there’s lots of people, notably girls, that share that. And so I’m proud to accomplice with Underneath Armour to convey this to the forefront and provides different folks the chance that I didn’t have.”
When requested what recommendation she’d give the subsequent era of standouts relating to navigating the faculty panorama right this moment—from the NIL period to social media—Plum harps on that concept of group and constructing extra connection between school gamers {and professional} athletes. “It’s form of exhausting to sum up in like one little reply, however what I might say is search recommendation. I feel simply since you’re in school proper now, in the event you do have aspirations, you wish to play professionally, particularly within the WNBA, discover somebody within the WNBA that you just resonate with and search them out. I had a relationship with Sue Fowl, however I ought to have been a bit bit extra like, ‘Hey Sue, assist me.’ Whether or not [you are] a bit bit timid otherwise you don’t actually know if that’s acceptable, I might simply say don’t have any concern as a result of they’re gonna have the ability to let you know one of the best recommendation that you just want.”
Learn more about the Under Armour Dawg Class here.
Pictures by way of Underneath Armour.
