April 29, 2025 • 44 mins
We’re back with another episode of TBGU and joined by another very special guest. Nia Symone is a powerhouse who knows all about pivoting with purpose. A former D1 athlete turned rising star in sports broadcasting, she is proof that your story doesn’t end when the game clock runs out, it evolves.
In this episode, Nia opens up about the identity shift that came with stepping away from competitive sports, how she built a new lane in media, and the importance of showing up as her full, authentic self in an industry that hasn’t always made space for voices like hers. We’re talking about self-discovery, representation, and redefining what it means to be a woman in sports. So whether you’re an athlete, a creative, or someone standing at the edge of your next chapter, this one’s for you.
Where to Find Nia
Instagram: @niaonair
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Our Production Team
Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Maya Cole Howard
Senior Producer: Ellice Ellis
Producer: Tyree Rush & Ndeye Thioubou
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey y'all, we're back with another episode of TVG University.
I'm your host, Doctor joy Hard and Bradford, and today
we're joined by another very special guest. We'll get right
into our conversation afterword from our sponsors. Nia Simone is
(00:29):
a powerhouse who knows all about pivoting with purpose. A
former D one athlete turned rising star in sports broadcasting,
She's proved that your story doesn't end when the game
clock runs out, it evolves. In this episode, Nia opens
up about the identity shift that came with stepping away
from competitive sports, how she built a new lane in media,
(00:52):
and the importance of showing up as her full, authentic
self in an industry that hasn't always made space for
voices like hers. We're talking about self discovery, representation, and
redefining what it means to be a woman in sports.
So whether you're an athlete, a creative, or someone standing
at the edge of your next chapter, this one's for you.
(01:12):
Let's get into our conversation. If something resonates with you
while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social
media using the hashtag TVG in Session. Well, thank you
so much for joining us. Today, Neia, of course, thanks
for having me. Yeah, So for those who may not
be familiar, can you tell us a little bit about
(01:34):
your background and how you got to where you are
now in life?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Of course right? Antonia Small born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia.
Been playing basketball since the age of four all the
way into the age of twenty two, so very very
long time. My mom put me in various different sports
growing up, and I think basketball is what made sense
because I grew really fast. So former Division one basketball
(01:57):
player now sports broadcaster. False but of many things. I'm
also an entrepreneur, athlete advocate. I'm the owner of Purpose
to Be her productions and amongst other things that I'm
building out right now specifically for athletes. So excited to
be honest here more of myself.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I'm very excited to chat with you. So I don't
know if you know this, Nia, but I am like
a newly converted women's basketball staying like I'm in full
blown like much manness, get my bracket ready and all
the things.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So excited.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So I would love to hear from you, like as
somebody who has been in this field, right, Like, what
are your thoughts around like the birth and like the
energy and excitement that you feel like is surrounding women's
basketball right now.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
About time, doctor Joy, About time. It is long long
over due. I mean women's basketball has always been this exciting.
And I'm not being biased because I'm a former women's
basketball player, but I mean it seriously is I can't
remember growing up before we even had a WNBA team
here in Atlanta. My mom would expose me very early
to seeing what my feature could look like. And so
(03:02):
I would go to the Georgia Tech women's basketball game.
So Georgia say women's basketball games, and so to just
know the amount of women whose stories still haven't been
told or may have some life, you know, fall under
the crevices because of just the lack of storytelling, the
lack of coverage when it comes to women's basketball. I mean,
(03:23):
it's incredible. It's about time. And I'm so happy to
see just all these women from the w nbare women's
college basketball, I mean women's sports as a whole, to
finally see us get the recognition that we've always deserved
because we work just as hard, if not more than
our male counterparts. It's about time, doctor Tory.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, I'm very excited, and I'm not like a big
sports person in general, So I have two little ones
who have kind of converted me to like just being
a spectator. But I have really fallen in love, I
think with women's basketball because of the storytelling, right, Like
I'm really enjoying like getting to know more about the
women and their lives and their families. Like that's what
really draws me in. So I still don't.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Really even know all the rules and like what am
I even.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Paying attention to, But I'm very excited by what I
see off the court, right, and like just wanting to
follow these stories. So besides just good old kind of
patriarchy and there's a sprinkle of some racism and all
of that, are there other reasons do you think why
women's sports hasn't been covered at the same levels?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
You know, of course you said racism, sexism, even homophobia.
You know, when it comes to the WNBA, I believe
about a quite half percentage are part of the LGBTQ
plus community. But also too, I think another part place
to it is just society. Society has always said that
women should let the man lead, which is I'm not
(04:41):
against that, right, but there's a certain standpoint where it's like, no,
we're not just gonna stay in the kitchen and raise
the kids and stay at home and not go out
and beat us. Go out and explore different parts of
us and celebrate different parts of us. So I think
when you factor in again all those things that I've named,
aside from just society putting this stigma that women have
(05:05):
to be feminine and they can't compete and they can't
work and if they're too loud and voisterous there they're
too much. I love how we now even society is
pushing back on the level of how women show up
in this world. We're saying, oh no, not here, not here. No,
I am talented, I'm smart, I'm beautiful, I'm athletic. I
(05:28):
bring a lot to the table and I'm gonna back
it up. And if I needed to see you on
the court, then that's fine too.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Some let's talk about some of your time on the court. So,
first of all, for people who may not be familiar
with some of this terminology, what does it mean to
be a D one athlete?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Like what is D one? And what are the other D.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Stings for division? So how many divisions are there? Like
what classifies what division you are.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So Division one or D one is the highest level
that you could play at on the collegiate level. So
there's Division one, there's Division two, there's Division three, and
then there's also NAIA and n CCAA and all these
different leagues, so there's a lot of different leagues. I
remember going through my recruitment process. I've always been playing
(06:14):
high level basketball. I started playing ball at four, started
playing travel ball NonStop at the age of eight. Then,
of course the goal once you get to high school,
it's no more, Hey, we're just playing for fun, We're
playing for a scholarship. Even what I see for this
generation now, and I can only imagine how much pressure
is putting on them now with NIL and the transfer portal,
I mean, so much has changed, and I'm only six
(06:36):
years removed getting caught up in the whole D one,
D two, D three thing. Once you get in it,
it's just like, Okay, But where am I gonna go?
Where number one my coach is gonna value me, Where
I'm gonna get my best education and have the best
four years of my life because it goes by quickly.
Where am I gonna go where I feel safe? I
feel heard. I feel seen, even if I don't have
(06:58):
a good day on the court or on the field,
whatever sport you play. I know that regardless of which
I chose this institution because I felt like this was
the best that suited me, and so like many of us,
we kind of just have to go and find out
for ourselves. If I could tell my younger self, one
thing is don't get caught up then the whole D one,
D two, D three thing, because you can still go
(07:20):
on and have a successful career post whether it's post college,
and you want to go and play on the professional level,
that's possible to do at a D two D three
Naia level, go on to have a good education. You
don't want to just go to a school where you're
eligible to play, but then you're not even working on
the degree that you really want to do. So if
I desire to be a doctor and I want to
(07:43):
go the pre ment track, and for whatever reason, either
a the institution that I decided to sign to didn't
necessarily have the pre mint routes, now I have to
settle for biology or anything of that sort. Why go
through all the stressors of kind of setting back your
dreams and goals only to be eligible, because at the
end of the day, it is a business. And I'm
not saying that every culture, every institution does not have
(08:06):
the best interest in their athletes, but at the end
of the day, it's a business and they're trying to
make their money. So if you can play, you're healthy,
and you're you're a good student on and off the court,
that's all they really care about.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So encouraging people to kind of look at the bigger picture,
right like, this ball is not the only thing.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
It is not the only thing. Please think ahead. And
I always when I talk to athletes now it's like
it's okay to have a Plan B or Plan C.
That doesn't mean you are unsuccessful of achieving Plan A.
But we have the factor in so much when it
comes to being an athlete, things are out of our
control when it comes to career ending, season ending injuries.
(08:45):
Maybe for whatever reason, it didn't work out at the
institution that you were at, so now you have to
find another institution to go to. I mean, it's just
so much that factors in that it's okay to think about.
It's not a bad thing to think about because you
don't want to walk across that stage in May or
December whenever you graduate, and then you're like, oh wait,
(09:08):
this is up to me now, Like what am I
supposed to do? I got this degree in communications, but
I don't want to do anything in communications. I only
got it to be eligible to play. That's hindering yourself
because you literally spent four years of your life giving blood, sweat, tears,
waking up at six am, practicing two three times out
of the day to only go to a class that
(09:29):
you don't really care about. You're only in it to
be eligible. Then it's like you did all that work
for nothing. Yeah, so what would you say, Neil?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Are some of the most kind of common mental health
challenges if you remember, like your time as a student athleader,
even just talking and working with other student athletes. What
are some of the mental health challenges you see as
that route anxiety?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Anxiety? I think as humans and I've learned to embrace it.
Like I tell people all the time, I have high
function and anxiety. I've been diagnosed for it. I take
daily medication for it, I meditate, I go to therapy
simply because when we factor in the traumas that we
felt as athletes, and you could have had a great
experience things that that's sort. But when I say traumas,
(10:13):
I don't mean just going to an institution and things
didn't work out or having a traumatizing the experience. It
could be something as simple as I had this knee
injury and I am so afraid to put any weight
bearing energy on it because if I do, I might
hurt it again, or having those splashbacks from an injury
that all stems. It's trauma, right, So if you don't
(10:34):
necessarily go and see anybody about it, it builds and
it builds and it builds. As athletes, we are over achievers.
We are okay when we want to work in our craft.
If we really love the game, we're in the gym.
We're gym rats. Or like I said, if you played
any field sports, you're out in the field. You're getting
those extra hits in or extra catches in, some extra
(10:57):
ball hitting for tennis players, whatever that looks like. We
are always perfecting ourselves. We are perfectionists. If we don't
perform well on the court, well guess what, already automatically
we're considered failures. Right, It's more of the self taught
because everybody else around you, from your coaches, your teammates,
(11:18):
your professors, your parents, siblings, and whoever else is counting
on you. They're constantly putting in their ear like, hey,
you've got to pick this up. You know, they're encouraging you,
and you're thinking about all the people that you have
behind you that are believing in you. And so I
think as athletes, what we have to unlearn is that
we are human. We heat are human beings, and just
(11:43):
like you have a bad day at the office, you
can have a bad day at the office on the court.
There's nothing wrong with that. It's about how you respond
to it. But for us, and this is what I've
observed through even some of the youth athletes that I
train now as a boxing coach, I'm constantly telling them like, hey,
like my kids every time I have them go in
(12:03):
and do a three minute round of jump ropes, and
some of my kids, I can see when they're frustrated
because they can't get over the rope, they can't find
their rhythm, and then they're looking at all the other
students who actually have mastered jump roping. But that's because
they've been in class. So longer than they have. Where
I am now as a coach doing the things that
I wish somebody was telling me, Hey, it's okay, you
(12:25):
made a mistake. Let's put the jump rope to the
side and let's just do air jump ropes. Then I
want you to pick back up the jump rope and
try it again, but take your time and find your rhythm.
And so I think the same goals for any athlete,
whether you're a professional athlete, you're a collegiate athlete, you're
a retired athlete, showing grace to yourself and acknowledging what
(12:47):
it is that you feel. And so I think a
bit of anxiety shows up because we've always been in
a spotlight. We've always kind of had some sort of privilege, right,
so when all of that stops, some of us we
still in our own way have some type of doubts
with anxiety or depression and other bits of us we
(13:10):
kind of don't ever get out of it. I just
wish that there were, at least during my generation. I
can think about the generation before me where I'm not
necessarily coddling you. I'm still showing you tough love, but
I'm also encouraging you and uplifting you and reminding you
you are human. You're gonna make the stakes. Bottom line,
(13:31):
It's okay, pick yourself back up, let's try it again.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I appreciate you schating, Anya, because, like I said, I
have an eight and eleven year old who do all
the sports, and I'm looking at them so like there's
the mom side of my brain and there's also like
the psychologist side of the brain. I'm looking at how
other parents are reacting, and I'm like, these kids are
very young, Like this feels very stressful some of the
situations like oh, you're at the free throw line for
the game winning shotter and I'm thinking, like they're so little,
(14:00):
and so there's all this energy, and so I guess
I'm wondering, like what does it look like to kind
of raise an athlete and have like a competitive nature
towards sports, but that you also have this side of
like showing yourself grace and like trying not to become
a perfectionist because you're not a robot, right, Like you're human.
Like what kinds of things should we be looking for,
(14:20):
maybe in a coach or even as parents, of like
how to instill competition and like encourage that, but also
like grace and really embracing your humanity.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
You know, doctor Jordan's a great question because I'm still
learning that myself, even as a young coach, right and
talking to these parents. Number One, I always try and
cultivate in each of my classes a safe space. Again.
I'm not gonna sit here and say, oh, guys, I'm
gonna hand out lollipops and sing, oh happy day to you. No,
we're gonna come in here, we're gonna work, We're gonna
(14:52):
leave here, we're gonna be selling better about the work
that we put in today. But even when I see
sometimes my kids say I may have a bad day,
I'll start up. How was school? Guys? What do we
do today? How are things like? It's just something as
simple as making people feel seen and heard and not
when you just walk into the gym, all right, get
(15:13):
on the line five five down in backs, Hey guys,
what's up? How are we doing today? Everybody good? That
kind of puts people at ease, right, But also to
think having a coach or a parent or a mentor whoever,
to be able to see and acknowledge, like I have
a kid, he loves loves coming into practice, loves it.
(15:36):
But there was one particular day something was off about
him and I gave him a moment. You know. I
saw he was frustrated jump rope and I saw it
all in his face, and so I pulled him to
the side. I pulled him in the corner and he
told me what was going on, and he started bawling,
and I allowed him to cry. I allowed him to
(15:56):
get it out, and then I taught him a breathing technique,
and I said, now, if you still that you need
to take a little second to get yourself together, you
let coach know and I'll give you five minutes. Do
you breathe in techniques, cry it out, and then come
back and join us, because I want you to be
able to finish. You are a warrior, so finish unless
(16:17):
you have an injury. Let's finish today. Even if it's
not your best day, It's okay. We still have tomorrow.
I don't believe in coddly, I don't, but I do
believe in making sure that every single athlete that walks
into that gym or whatever feel seen and heard, even
if it's just something as simple, Hey, how is your
(16:37):
day all right? Let's get to work more.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
From our conversation after the break, So you already mentioned
as anxiety as being like one of the most common
challenges for student athletes. Do you feel like there were
adequate resources for your time as a student athlete to
really help you to address I know lots of teams
(17:01):
now have like embedded sports psychologists, but that may not
have been the case with your time on campus. So
can you talk about the resources and the ones you
think should exist to really help student athletes?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Sure? Yeah, no, I unfortunately did not. I don't even
think I knew what mental health was. But I didn't
know what mental health was, and I don't think I
really knew it until I went through it myself and
went through my own challenges. But unfortunately, no, I mean
even growing up in the black community already, when you
bring up the words mental health, it's automatically we think, oh,
if you're going to therapy, you're crazy, something's wrong with you.
(17:34):
And it's like, No, I believe that every human even
if maybe holistic therapy and talking to someone may not
necessarily be your saying. There's art therapy, there's some music therapy,
but there's something out there for everyone, And I feel
that every human being, athlete or not, should have that
outlet and resource and space to be able to let
(17:57):
out whatever it is. Fortunately, and even still now, I
mean I just went back to my alma mater, and
I didn't hear a thing about at least a sports
psychologist coming on board or some type of therapist or counselor.
Of course we have on campus counselors, but I mean
they're dealing with not only the athletes, but also the
regular student body too. So I do believe that there
(18:22):
should be some form of mental health evaluations when it
comes to not student athletes, but coaches as well, because
I can only imagine what it's like to be a
coach on the collegiate or professional level. It has to
be a very high stressful job, and so I empathize
when I think about some of my past some previous
coaches that I had in college, and I think about them,
(18:44):
I'm like, they have mouse of feet, They had families
to take care of, and if you have a rough season,
then your job's on the line, bottom line. And so
I do believe that everybody should have some form of access,
whether if it is a sports pide, collegists or some
type of team therapists on the team, because there is
(19:05):
trauma that lies in sport, whether you want to say
it or die. Yes, it's fun when you watch it.
We're watching the end result of every athlete's long week
they may have had in practice. You don't know if
they're battering an injury. You don't know if a parent
or a loved one is sick. We don't know. And
so again, going back to every coach and player, I
(19:26):
believe that there should be mental health evaluations and there
should always be access and resources available to both athletes
and coaches twenty four to seven period.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, and it does seem like a lot of it
is kind of couching this idea of performance coaching, right, like,
so oh, we'll bring in like this person to help
you to kind of, you know, visualize yourself making the ball,
getting it through the hoop.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
But it does feel like it needs to be more encompassing,
and I do feel like I've seen some schools really
approach that, though I'm sure it's not as well funded
and you know, kind of will resources it probably needs
to be.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And funny enough, you say that just to follow up,
and this is again my institution. I love Alavamsa University,
but I did go to a historically black college and university.
So when we talk about these smaller institutions versus your
Power five schools, your South Carolinas, your NC States, your Texas,
they have resources that we just don't have unfortunately. And
(20:21):
so that's another thing where it's like, Okay, maybe these
schools really do want that, right, but when we talk
about budget and resources, it's just not available to us
as it is with other institutions. And so that's the
other setback in Pitfall is like, Okay, so how do
we address this issue? How do we make sure that
each of our athletes and we can't save all of them,
(20:44):
but majority of our athletes that come through our institution,
they leave here feeling not only successful for achieving a
successful career as well as academic career, but act the individual,
you know. So I do think that there should be
more emphasis on it and figuring out how are historically
(21:06):
back colleges and universities as well as smaller institutions, your
D two's or your lower division ones or mid major
division ones have the access of resources as well to
being able to have that. We also deserve that.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So you already talked about the importance you feel like
of like having a plan b as an athlete, right,
is that something you went into college understanding, like, yes,
I'm gonna do the basketball thing, but I also plan
to like get a degree and like use this degree
outside of it. Talk to me about the balance between
being a very active athlete but also having commitments for
class and maybe even other extracurriculus.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
My mom has always been she's teen moms, she's super active,
you know, and stuff like that. But my mom made
sure that she put me around spaces that was going
to inspire me, you know, not hinder me, but inspire me.
So when she took me to these basketball games, it
wasn't just about studying these athletes and what it takes
(22:01):
to be on the collegiate level, but she also made
sure that I was paying attention to everything that's happening
to make a game day experience so special. And so
when I was young, I believe this was maybe like
my sophomore year of college or my freshman year of college.
I was actually a ballgirl for the Atlanta Dream for years,
(22:25):
and I remember on this one particular day for us
because we were the ball kids. Technically we were under
the basketball operations team, so we were there at the
same time. The athletes a ride, right, So we're getting
the water and the gatorade together, we're rebounding for them,
We're tidying up the place, making sure everything's good. We're
mopping up if somebody drop some sweat or some water.
(22:47):
You know, we were always there. But also two in
the midst of being a part of that experience, I
was also able to see the broadcasters and the social
medias and the ticket sales reps. So Bray was just
going of like, Wow, I don't just have to be
an athlete to be a part of this every day.
I can also go and be a sports broadcaster, or
(23:09):
a coach, or a strengthen conditioning coach, or a ticket
sells rep or a CEO, a president of a team.
I got a chance to see that at fifteen, sixteen
years old, and so I'll never forget. There was one
day I saw this beautiful, tall black woman and I
saw her put on the broadcast headphones and I said,
(23:31):
oh my gosh, I want to do what she's doing.
And that woman was Leashiina Robinson, one of the most
incredible sports anchors and basketball analysts in our generation right now,
in our era, I should say, and I mean, I
think representation goes a long way. And so I encourage
all parents to not put your kids in a box,
because if you put your kids in a box, or
(23:53):
if you don't really mold them to think bigger than
just ball, like this orange ball take you so far,
whether if that is coaching or being a strip coach,
or that's being a CEO a GM whatever, that looks
like those things are possible. So I think representation is key.
(24:15):
I think that exposing very early is key and encouraging
your kid. Like I told my mom one day, I
told her I wanted to be a veterinarian, I want
to be a lawyer. Then I want to be a
sports broadcaster, and all those things she encouraged one hundred
and ten percent today and so now she's my biggest supporter,
and I thank her for it because if it wasn't
(24:37):
for that experience of her, you know, making me sign
up to be a ball kid, I don't think I
would even have had the idea of being a sports broadcaster.
So again, just to answer your question, I think it
really comes from within, and it's okay to have a
plan be or plant. See, the ball is going to
stop bouncing one day, even is I mean Lebron? When
we look at Lebron, he's forty years old and we
(25:00):
don't know how much longer Lebron has until he decides
he wants to retire. So, even if you go on
to have a successful career in the NBA, WNBA, MLS,
MLB wherever, it's going to have to stop one day
and you have to think about, Okay, what else do
I like to do? You know, it could be something
that has nothing to do with sports. So I think
(25:23):
those are cheap and it's nothing wrong with the plan beer,
plancing or planning.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
So was it ever your dream to do sports beyond college? Like,
were you thinking pro athlete or had you always been
planning to do something maybe sports related but not necessarily
being a player.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well, if you were to tell me A's plan and
not God's plan, the plan was to finish out my
four years playing on the collegiate level, get a pro contract,
to go play overseas for a couple of years, travel
the world, retire, and then get into my sports broadcasting career. Well,
it's not how things planned out. I knew maybe by
(26:03):
my junior year of college, that I no longer wanted
to play pro ball. I just I did it. I mean,
it can be aware and tear on your mental and
physical well being, and I couldn't imagine myself going another
five six years of doing that. So I knew by
my junior year. At the end of my junior year,
(26:25):
I didn't want to play pro anymore. I just wanted
to focus on my career. I did just that.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
So yeah, and what was that transition like to kind
of have that, you know, be in a lot of
ways your identity, to be focusing on other areas of
your life.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
It was tough. I'm not going to sit here and
say it was rose pedals and daisies, because it wasn't.
There were a lot of days I was unsure about myself.
There were a lot of days that I would be
asking God why. And I've always been told to never
question God because his plan is bigger than all of ours.
(27:00):
For me, I graduated nine months before the global pandemic,
so imagine graduating college already. Postgrad is tough, okay, but
now you're adding a global pandemic so the whole world
is shut down. Is this what adulthood is like? You knows? Oh? God?
So I had an interesting intro into adulthood. I went
(27:22):
nineteen years of my life playing the sport that has
got me through any and everything to having to wrap
that up and now learned a global pandemic. So I
at first was just I was all over the place.
(27:42):
I was having anxiety attacks in my sleep. I've always
been pretty skinny, but when I got to college, I
gained a lot of muscle. I got to the point
where I didn't even I didn't want to work out.
I didn't want to see a gym. I didn't even
want to see a basketball. It took a minute for
me to actually fall back in love with watching the
(28:03):
game as a former athlete, which is I've heard a
lot of us talk about. And I remember there was
one particular day just moved back home with my mom
and she was downstairs. She had just got done cooking dinner,
so she's got her back turned and she's washing dishes,
and I started crying. I was just sitting at the
table crying, and I couldn't tell her why it was
(28:27):
so much. I think that was happening in my brain
that finally my brain was like, you got to let
this out. And I cried and I cried and I cried,
and my mom, of course didn't know what to do,
and I just told her, I need help. I need
to talk to somebody. My mom was like, we can
talk to me, and I'm just like, oh, oh, no, idea.
(28:48):
Bless her heart, she means well. So I'm sure as
any parent, they want to help their kids. They don't
want their kids seeing her kid cry and saying they
need help. And so from there, twenty twenty, I took
it upon myself and he recommended me to his therapy
and I have been in therapy ever since and it
has been the best thing that has ever happened to me.
And I don't believe I will ever stop.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So yeah, so that is quite a transition, right, Like
you are already transitioning out of identifying as an athlete,
and then there's also a pandemic, right, and then everybody's
trying to figure out when the world is happening. So
I'm really glad that you had therapy as a support then.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
And I also just think of my community in my
support system. My family is incredible, even some of my
professors and old teammates. I think oftentimes it's athletes because
of the stigma that has put on us that we
have to be mentally tough, right. Sometimes we don't know
how to turn it off when we leave the court
or the field or the locker room, and so we
(29:46):
feel as though if we go to our teammates, or
if we go to a mentor or a parent or whoever,
we're gonna think we're weak. And one thing that I'm
learning now in therapy is that there is strength and vulnerability.
And for the longest, I thought that I was weak
(30:06):
if I showed a bit of vulnerability, and so now
I'm embracing all parts of me. There are days I'm
an impath. So if I see somebody crying, I don't
know that I'm gonna cry too, and I'm okay with that.
I have no problem with it. I love it. Crying
is a former release. I took up boxing also a
little after I started therapy. Don't ask me how I
(30:29):
got into it. One day, I'm at a gym and
my strength coach he's got a new gym and they
got all an these fancy punching bags so I'm like, ooh,
this it is. And I mean I picked up those
gloves and I never put them down. So finding those
outlets too, right, finding new hobbies, falling in love with
this new version of yourself. It's just in your chapter.
(30:51):
That doesn't mean all the accomplishments, all the accolades, and
all the incredible things you've done in your career goes
out the window, because it doesn't. That's for life. You
are an athlete for life. But embrace this new chapter
that you're in. If you've wanted to play tennis your
whole life but you never had the opportunity to do that,
you can do that. If you want to go hike,
(31:11):
if you want to get into knitting, if you want
to get into sculpting or pilates, you can do it.
If you want to take up a new language, you
can do it. So I think we have to get
out of putting ourselves in this box that because plan
A was to be an athlete, and everybody expected me
to be this outstanding and overachieving athlete. Now that that
(31:34):
chapter of my life is ended, that does not mean
that I am still not whole and I don't matter.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So we always hear that there are so many valuable
lessons that come from athletics, right, like the discipline and
other things. What lessons and values do you feel like
you've been able to translate to other parts of your
career and just your life in general.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
My work's thick, Oh my goodness, if I'm not going
to do anything else. And I'll be honest with you,
I was not the athlete that filled up the status
sheet from night to night. I was an athlete that
did the little things on the court where I'm hustling
after the balls, I'm making the huge defensive stops and
plays like I was able to embrace that part of me,
(32:13):
and no matter what I do, it could be something
as simple as I don't know, wanting to get into
marathon running. I know now in order for me to
be good at what I want to do, I got
to put in the work to do it. Nobody's going
to do it for me. And so I've always been
a hard worker. You could say whatever you want to
say about me, you can't say that I'm not a
(32:34):
hard worker. And so that discipline, that level of competitiveness, right.
I think that there are some moments in your life
where you got to tone that down because learning to
use those qualities for good and not necessarily like you
still have to turn your brain off of like, hey,
(32:56):
you know, I don't have to be as aggressive anymore
because I'm not on the court anymore, but I can
be aggressive in ways where it's like, hey, my goal
is to sign up five clients this week, So for
the next Monday through Friday, I'm focused on getting those
five clients and setting tangible goals for yourself. So I
think for me, it was it's that work ethic, that discipline,
(33:19):
and the mental toughness. I didn't quite understand when my
coaches were telling us you gotta be mentally tough, you
gotta be this, you gotta be that. But now being
in the real world, especially the world of sports broadcasting,
oh my gosh, it's a cut through industry. And I
think with the hardships that I had, the tough coaches
(33:39):
that I had, are the setbacks that I had, and
even the good moments that I had, I don't internalize
stuff like I used to. So if I have a
bad day on air, I mean I might hear from
my director and producer I say, all right, thank you
for the feedback the next game I'm locked in. So
(33:59):
it's helped a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
So you brought up some adia that I want to
talk a little bit more about, like all these messages
that you get as athletes, right to be aggressive and
stay strong and be tough and all of that, but
also as a black woman, we get messages that like
be softer, like don't take up too much speed. And
so I think it's an interesting kind of feel because
especially I think in basketball, like predominantly those are black
(34:22):
women on the teams, And so how do you balance
like this idea that this is how you have to
be one way on court? And then you know, like
you mentioned like, okay.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Is it do you turn it off?
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Like how do you kind of moderate kind of walking
in both worlds?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
For my younger self, I did not. I don't even
think subconsciously I even realized if I was taking that
same mentality that I had on court into my personal life.
And it took for me to go through therapy and
have that unbiased person there to tell me like, well,
why do you have this? Like it's almost like a
fight or flight mold, so to speak, right where we
(34:56):
don't even realize subconsciously that it's filling over into our
person the lives. For me, I've always been a soft girl,
but I can also to be very nonchalant, and that
is because that came with well, I had to be
this on the court, and ain't nobody else gonna give
me nothing, so I can't here. And it's like, that's
(35:17):
not a good way to think. That's not healthy, especially
now even in my dating life, relationship life, that has
taught me a lot of there are just things you
should just be a human. You don't have to be
in ready to go mode all the time like you
can just be. And so that is something I'm still
(35:38):
actively working through of knowing when to turn it on
and turn it off. I'm in that season of a
learning and it takes a minute. You know. I've been
unlearning nineteen years of what's been drilled into my head
and so here I am again six years out and
I'm still learning every single day. So my best advice
(36:00):
to all the athletes that are unlearning, whether if it
stinks from their athletic career or even their childhood traumas,
it's okay to be paid to it yourself. Be graceful
with yourself as you are in your season of unlearning.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
And relearning more from our conversation after the break, something
else you mentioned earlier in the conversation is it sounds
like there's some unlearning around perfectionism, right and you know,
like wanting to be as good as possible and like
excellent on the court, but you know, again, the real
(36:37):
world doesn't operate that also off the court.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So what can you.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Say about like unlearning perfectionism and really understanding that it's
okay to kind of show up and do your biz
without being perfect.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Oh, I feel like you have had a conversation with
my therapist before we got on this call. Literally, that
is what we're working through right now. I have a
serious issue of perfectionism. This whiteboard behind me that I
can only see, I will write something three times and
(37:09):
if it's not perfect, I will erase it. That's a problem.
It's a problem. I didn't even realize how bad my
perfectionism was until I had these real conversations with my
therapist of like, okay, let's write this down. And so
one thing that I wrote down is I'm a perfectionist
(37:30):
and I like control. And when I say control, not
a control freak, I'm not a control freak. It's in
those seasons of how we always say you gotta trust God,
right because He's in control. And I know that logically,
but subconsciously, somehow my anxiety pops out. And if I
don't feel like I'm in control of a certain situation
(37:51):
or whatever's happening around me, then I feel defeated. And
so I'm working through that now. I wish that I
could give some advice that part, but that is something
that I'm so learning. But I've noticed that in a
lot of us, and if it wasn't, we were riding
the bench and none of us really wanted that. But
even to being an overachiever, I've always been an honor
(38:12):
roll cum laude, all these things, you know, And so
I think a bit of the perfectionism just comes from
a bit of childhood trauma as well as my experience
of being an athlete that I am actively and utterly
working through every single day. Perfectionism is one of the
things that you'll see in a lot of athletes, and
that's just because we want to be the best of
the best.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah, I mean, it feels like a very hardline to
toe because you don't become great without continuing to practice
and like continuing to work on your craft. And so
it feels like you have to be very careful of
not spilling over into like perfection is where that then
bleeds into all the other areas of your life.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah. Yeah, so you've.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Already shared a little bit about this nea. But if
there was something that you could go back and tell
your eighteen year old self, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Just lie about girl five out and Joel enjoy the
present moment? I think obviously too, you know, I mean
social media has always been a thing since I mean
I was growing up, but it wasn't as major as
it is now. And so now when I see athletes
that may follow me on social media, I mean their
(39:17):
bios are down to six' four one eighty four point
ZERO gpa, Student, like where's the? Personality where's the funny?
Quotes where's the music? Lyrics where it's just being? You
why does everything have to be? Documented where's just? You
and SO i would tell my younger, Self, listen enjoy the,
(39:41):
Ride embrace what you. Feel don't be ashamed of being
cool you. Are don't be ashamed of having bad, days
cause you're gonna have bad. DAYS i mean even when
we get over into, adulthood sometimes you might walk into
the office and be, like, look today is just not my.
Day we can, pray, plan plan all. Day Usually monday
(40:02):
mornings is like my quiet, time my time to just
kind of, reflect especially coming off the, road my time
to get myself. Together this, MORNING i did a little,
yoga little, MEDITATION i read a chapter of my, book
had my. Tea but then Next monday it could look completely.
DIFFERENT i could be rushing out of the. Door that
(40:24):
still does not mean THAT i failed the. Day it
just simply means that this is. Life we can, plan, plan,
plan all, day but sometimes things just don't work out
the way we want. To and SO i WISH i
could tell my younger self that everything is going to
work out just. Fine just enjoy the moment and stop
(40:47):
trying to think ahead and what's going to happen. Next
just relax and.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Enjoy very timely. Message thank you for, That. Nia so
where can we stay connected with? You where can we
find out more about purpose to be? Heard in any
social media channels.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
You'd like to? Share you can follow all of my
socials AT mir that is in as A nancy on,
AIR nia on air that is On, Instagram, twitter. TikTok
it's me on air with an, underscore but it's still
me on air as you can find me For purpose
to Be. Heard we're actually in a rebram. Period i'm super.
Excited we've been working on some great content to bring to,
(41:25):
athletes original content that we want to bring amongst other,
things community building that we'll be working on towards the
end of twenty twenty five and so. On but you
can Follow purpose to Be heard At purpose to, TOO
B B E, heard H a R. D then you
can also check out our website www dot ptbh dot.
(41:48):
Net feel free to reach out if you check out this.
Episode AND i always just look forward to meeting all.
ATHLETES i don't care if you played twenty something odd years.
AGO i don't care if you just got done playing last,
week or maybe you decided to leave your sport before you,
graduated even current. ATHLETES i just love talking and connecting
(42:09):
with other athletes and other humans BECAUSE i want to
be that person that my younger self needed so. Bad.
Athlete kudos to every single athlete right now that is
doing their things and trying their best to help as
many athletes as. Possible it definitely thanks the community to
make things.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Happen be sure to include all of that in the show.
Notes thank you so much for sending some time with
me To, DANIA i appreciate.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
It of. Course thanks for having, me Doctor. Joy what
a great.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Conversation i'm so Glad nia was able to join me
for this, conversation And i'm really excited that she kept
it real and reminded us that the game might, change
but the goal stays the, same to keep showing, up,
evolving and owning every single space we step, into whether
you're leaving a, sport a, job or just letting go
(42:54):
of who used to. Be, remember you get to pivot with.
Purpose identity isn't tied to one, title and Like nia,
said you can be the player and the play. Caller
to learn more About nia and the work she's, doing
be sure to visit the show notes At therapy For
blackgirls dot, com slash tvgu and don't forget to text
(43:16):
us episode to two of your girls right now and
tell them to check it. Out did you know you
could leave us a voicemail with your questions for the
podcast if you have a, question or a movie or
a book you want us to, review go ahead and
drop us a. Voicemail you can do that At memo
dot fm Slash therapy For Black girls and let us
know what's on your. Mind we just might feature your
(43:37):
question or suggestion on the. Podcast if you're looking for
a therapist in your, area visit our therapist directory At
therapy For blackgirls dot com slash. Directory this episode was
produced By Elise, Ellis indechubu And Tyree. Rush editing was
done By Dennison. Bradford thank y'all so much for joining
me again for THIS tvgu. Episode look forward to continuing
(44:01):
this conversation with you all real. Soon take good.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Care
Hey y'all, we're back with another episode of TVG University.
I'm your host, Doctor joy Hard and Bradford, and today
we're joined by another very special guest. We'll get right
into our conversation afterword from our sponsors. Nia Simone is
(00:29):
a powerhouse who knows all about pivoting with purpose. A
former D one athlete turned rising star in sports broadcasting,
She's proved that your story doesn't end when the game
clock runs out, it evolves. In this episode, Nia opens
up about the identity shift that came with stepping away
from competitive sports, how she built a new lane in media,
(00:52):
and the importance of showing up as her full, authentic
self in an industry that hasn't always made space for
voices like hers. We're talking about self discovery, representation, and
redefining what it means to be a woman in sports.
So whether you're an athlete, a creative, or someone standing
at the edge of your next chapter, this one's for you.
(01:12):
Let's get into our conversation. If something resonates with you
while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social
media using the hashtag TVG in Session. Well, thank you
so much for joining us. Today, Neia, of course, thanks
for having me. Yeah, So for those who may not
be familiar, can you tell us a little bit about
(01:34):
your background and how you got to where you are
now in life?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Of course right? Antonia Small born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia.
Been playing basketball since the age of four all the
way into the age of twenty two, so very very
long time. My mom put me in various different sports
growing up, and I think basketball is what made sense
because I grew really fast. So former Division one basketball
(01:57):
player now sports broadcaster. False but of many things. I'm
also an entrepreneur, athlete advocate. I'm the owner of Purpose
to Be her productions and amongst other things that I'm
building out right now specifically for athletes. So excited to
be honest here more of myself.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I'm very excited to chat with you. So I don't
know if you know this, Nia, but I am like
a newly converted women's basketball staying like I'm in full
blown like much manness, get my bracket ready and all
the things.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So excited.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So I would love to hear from you, like as
somebody who has been in this field, right, Like, what
are your thoughts around like the birth and like the
energy and excitement that you feel like is surrounding women's
basketball right now.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
About time, doctor Joy, About time. It is long long
over due. I mean women's basketball has always been this exciting.
And I'm not being biased because I'm a former women's
basketball player, but I mean it seriously is I can't
remember growing up before we even had a WNBA team
here in Atlanta. My mom would expose me very early
to seeing what my feature could look like. And so
(03:02):
I would go to the Georgia Tech women's basketball game.
So Georgia say women's basketball games, and so to just
know the amount of women whose stories still haven't been
told or may have some life, you know, fall under
the crevices because of just the lack of storytelling, the
lack of coverage when it comes to women's basketball. I mean,
(03:23):
it's incredible. It's about time. And I'm so happy to
see just all these women from the w nbare women's
college basketball, I mean women's sports as a whole, to
finally see us get the recognition that we've always deserved
because we work just as hard, if not more than
our male counterparts. It's about time, doctor Tory.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, I'm very excited, and I'm not like a big
sports person in general, So I have two little ones
who have kind of converted me to like just being
a spectator. But I have really fallen in love, I
think with women's basketball because of the storytelling, right, Like
I'm really enjoying like getting to know more about the
women and their lives and their families. Like that's what
really draws me in. So I still don't.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Really even know all the rules and like what am
I even.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Paying attention to, But I'm very excited by what I
see off the court, right, and like just wanting to
follow these stories. So besides just good old kind of
patriarchy and there's a sprinkle of some racism and all
of that, are there other reasons do you think why
women's sports hasn't been covered at the same levels?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
You know, of course you said racism, sexism, even homophobia.
You know, when it comes to the WNBA, I believe
about a quite half percentage are part of the LGBTQ
plus community. But also too, I think another part place
to it is just society. Society has always said that
women should let the man lead, which is I'm not
(04:41):
against that, right, but there's a certain standpoint where it's like, no,
we're not just gonna stay in the kitchen and raise
the kids and stay at home and not go out
and beat us. Go out and explore different parts of
us and celebrate different parts of us. So I think
when you factor in again all those things that I've named,
aside from just society putting this stigma that women have
(05:05):
to be feminine and they can't compete and they can't
work and if they're too loud and voisterous there they're
too much. I love how we now even society is
pushing back on the level of how women show up
in this world. We're saying, oh no, not here, not here. No,
I am talented, I'm smart, I'm beautiful, I'm athletic. I
(05:28):
bring a lot to the table and I'm gonna back
it up. And if I needed to see you on
the court, then that's fine too.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Some let's talk about some of your time on the court. So,
first of all, for people who may not be familiar
with some of this terminology, what does it mean to
be a D one athlete?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Like what is D one? And what are the other D.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Stings for division? So how many divisions are there? Like
what classifies what division you are.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So Division one or D one is the highest level
that you could play at on the collegiate level. So
there's Division one, there's Division two, there's Division three, and
then there's also NAIA and n CCAA and all these
different leagues, so there's a lot of different leagues. I
remember going through my recruitment process. I've always been playing
(06:14):
high level basketball. I started playing ball at four, started
playing travel ball NonStop at the age of eight. Then,
of course the goal once you get to high school,
it's no more, Hey, we're just playing for fun, We're
playing for a scholarship. Even what I see for this
generation now, and I can only imagine how much pressure
is putting on them now with NIL and the transfer portal,
I mean, so much has changed, and I'm only six
(06:36):
years removed getting caught up in the whole D one,
D two, D three thing. Once you get in it,
it's just like, Okay, But where am I gonna go?
Where number one my coach is gonna value me, Where
I'm gonna get my best education and have the best
four years of my life because it goes by quickly.
Where am I gonna go where I feel safe? I
feel heard. I feel seen, even if I don't have
(06:58):
a good day on the court or on the field,
whatever sport you play. I know that regardless of which
I chose this institution because I felt like this was
the best that suited me, and so like many of us,
we kind of just have to go and find out
for ourselves. If I could tell my younger self, one
thing is don't get caught up then the whole D one,
D two, D three thing, because you can still go
(07:20):
on and have a successful career post whether it's post college,
and you want to go and play on the professional level,
that's possible to do at a D two D three
Naia level, go on to have a good education. You
don't want to just go to a school where you're
eligible to play, but then you're not even working on
the degree that you really want to do. So if
I desire to be a doctor and I want to
(07:43):
go the pre ment track, and for whatever reason, either
a the institution that I decided to sign to didn't
necessarily have the pre mint routes, now I have to
settle for biology or anything of that sort. Why go
through all the stressors of kind of setting back your
dreams and goals only to be eligible, because at the
end of the day, it is a business. And I'm
not saying that every culture, every institution does not have
(08:06):
the best interest in their athletes, but at the end
of the day, it's a business and they're trying to
make their money. So if you can play, you're healthy,
and you're you're a good student on and off the court,
that's all they really care about.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So encouraging people to kind of look at the bigger picture,
right like, this ball is not the only thing.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
It is not the only thing. Please think ahead. And
I always when I talk to athletes now it's like
it's okay to have a Plan B or Plan C.
That doesn't mean you are unsuccessful of achieving Plan A.
But we have the factor in so much when it
comes to being an athlete, things are out of our
control when it comes to career ending, season ending injuries.
(08:45):
Maybe for whatever reason, it didn't work out at the
institution that you were at, so now you have to
find another institution to go to. I mean, it's just
so much that factors in that it's okay to think about.
It's not a bad thing to think about because you
don't want to walk across that stage in May or
December whenever you graduate, and then you're like, oh wait,
(09:08):
this is up to me now, Like what am I
supposed to do? I got this degree in communications, but
I don't want to do anything in communications. I only
got it to be eligible to play. That's hindering yourself
because you literally spent four years of your life giving blood, sweat, tears,
waking up at six am, practicing two three times out
of the day to only go to a class that
(09:29):
you don't really care about. You're only in it to
be eligible. Then it's like you did all that work
for nothing. Yeah, so what would you say, Neil?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Are some of the most kind of common mental health
challenges if you remember, like your time as a student athleader,
even just talking and working with other student athletes. What
are some of the mental health challenges you see as
that route anxiety?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Anxiety? I think as humans and I've learned to embrace it.
Like I tell people all the time, I have high
function and anxiety. I've been diagnosed for it. I take
daily medication for it, I meditate, I go to therapy
simply because when we factor in the traumas that we
felt as athletes, and you could have had a great
experience things that that's sort. But when I say traumas,
(10:13):
I don't mean just going to an institution and things
didn't work out or having a traumatizing the experience. It
could be something as simple as I had this knee
injury and I am so afraid to put any weight
bearing energy on it because if I do, I might
hurt it again, or having those splashbacks from an injury
that all stems. It's trauma, right, So if you don't
(10:34):
necessarily go and see anybody about it, it builds and
it builds and it builds. As athletes, we are over achievers.
We are okay when we want to work in our craft.
If we really love the game, we're in the gym.
We're gym rats. Or like I said, if you played
any field sports, you're out in the field. You're getting
those extra hits in or extra catches in, some extra
(10:57):
ball hitting for tennis players, whatever that looks like. We
are always perfecting ourselves. We are perfectionists. If we don't
perform well on the court, well guess what, already automatically
we're considered failures. Right, It's more of the self taught
because everybody else around you, from your coaches, your teammates,
(11:18):
your professors, your parents, siblings, and whoever else is counting
on you. They're constantly putting in their ear like, hey,
you've got to pick this up. You know, they're encouraging you,
and you're thinking about all the people that you have
behind you that are believing in you. And so I
think as athletes, what we have to unlearn is that
we are human. We heat are human beings, and just
(11:43):
like you have a bad day at the office, you
can have a bad day at the office on the court.
There's nothing wrong with that. It's about how you respond
to it. But for us, and this is what I've
observed through even some of the youth athletes that I
train now as a boxing coach, I'm constantly telling them like, hey,
like my kids every time I have them go in
(12:03):
and do a three minute round of jump ropes, and
some of my kids, I can see when they're frustrated
because they can't get over the rope, they can't find
their rhythm, and then they're looking at all the other
students who actually have mastered jump roping. But that's because
they've been in class. So longer than they have. Where
I am now as a coach doing the things that
I wish somebody was telling me, Hey, it's okay, you
(12:25):
made a mistake. Let's put the jump rope to the
side and let's just do air jump ropes. Then I
want you to pick back up the jump rope and
try it again, but take your time and find your rhythm.
And so I think the same goals for any athlete,
whether you're a professional athlete, you're a collegiate athlete, you're
a retired athlete, showing grace to yourself and acknowledging what
(12:47):
it is that you feel. And so I think a
bit of anxiety shows up because we've always been in
a spotlight. We've always kind of had some sort of privilege, right,
so when all of that stops, some of us we
still in our own way have some type of doubts
with anxiety or depression and other bits of us we
(13:10):
kind of don't ever get out of it. I just
wish that there were, at least during my generation. I
can think about the generation before me where I'm not
necessarily coddling you. I'm still showing you tough love, but
I'm also encouraging you and uplifting you and reminding you
you are human. You're gonna make the stakes. Bottom line,
(13:31):
It's okay, pick yourself back up, let's try it again.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I appreciate you schating, Anya, because, like I said, I
have an eight and eleven year old who do all
the sports, and I'm looking at them so like there's
the mom side of my brain and there's also like
the psychologist side of the brain. I'm looking at how
other parents are reacting, and I'm like, these kids are
very young, Like this feels very stressful some of the
situations like oh, you're at the free throw line for
the game winning shotter and I'm thinking, like they're so little,
(14:00):
and so there's all this energy, and so I guess
I'm wondering, like what does it look like to kind
of raise an athlete and have like a competitive nature
towards sports, but that you also have this side of
like showing yourself grace and like trying not to become
a perfectionist because you're not a robot, right, Like you're human.
Like what kinds of things should we be looking for,
(14:20):
maybe in a coach or even as parents, of like
how to instill competition and like encourage that, but also
like grace and really embracing your humanity.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
You know, doctor Jordan's a great question because I'm still
learning that myself, even as a young coach, right and
talking to these parents. Number One, I always try and
cultivate in each of my classes a safe space. Again.
I'm not gonna sit here and say, oh, guys, I'm
gonna hand out lollipops and sing, oh happy day to you. No,
we're gonna come in here, we're gonna work, We're gonna
(14:52):
leave here, we're gonna be selling better about the work
that we put in today. But even when I see
sometimes my kids say I may have a bad day,
I'll start up. How was school? Guys? What do we
do today? How are things like? It's just something as
simple as making people feel seen and heard and not
when you just walk into the gym, all right, get
(15:13):
on the line five five down in backs, Hey guys,
what's up? How are we doing today? Everybody good? That
kind of puts people at ease, right, But also to
think having a coach or a parent or a mentor whoever,
to be able to see and acknowledge, like I have
a kid, he loves loves coming into practice, loves it.
(15:36):
But there was one particular day something was off about
him and I gave him a moment. You know. I
saw he was frustrated jump rope and I saw it
all in his face, and so I pulled him to
the side. I pulled him in the corner and he
told me what was going on, and he started bawling,
and I allowed him to cry. I allowed him to
(15:56):
get it out, and then I taught him a breathing technique,
and I said, now, if you still that you need
to take a little second to get yourself together, you
let coach know and I'll give you five minutes. Do
you breathe in techniques, cry it out, and then come
back and join us, because I want you to be
able to finish. You are a warrior, so finish unless
(16:17):
you have an injury. Let's finish today. Even if it's
not your best day, It's okay. We still have tomorrow.
I don't believe in coddly, I don't, but I do
believe in making sure that every single athlete that walks
into that gym or whatever feel seen and heard, even
if it's just something as simple, Hey, how is your
(16:37):
day all right? Let's get to work more.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
From our conversation after the break, So you already mentioned
as anxiety as being like one of the most common
challenges for student athletes. Do you feel like there were
adequate resources for your time as a student athlete to
really help you to address I know lots of teams
(17:01):
now have like embedded sports psychologists, but that may not
have been the case with your time on campus. So
can you talk about the resources and the ones you
think should exist to really help student athletes?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Sure? Yeah, no, I unfortunately did not. I don't even
think I knew what mental health was. But I didn't
know what mental health was, and I don't think I
really knew it until I went through it myself and
went through my own challenges. But unfortunately, no, I mean
even growing up in the black community already, when you
bring up the words mental health, it's automatically we think, oh,
if you're going to therapy, you're crazy, something's wrong with you.
(17:34):
And it's like, No, I believe that every human even
if maybe holistic therapy and talking to someone may not
necessarily be your saying. There's art therapy, there's some music therapy,
but there's something out there for everyone, And I feel
that every human being, athlete or not, should have that
outlet and resource and space to be able to let
(17:57):
out whatever it is. Fortunately, and even still now, I
mean I just went back to my alma mater, and
I didn't hear a thing about at least a sports
psychologist coming on board or some type of therapist or counselor.
Of course we have on campus counselors, but I mean
they're dealing with not only the athletes, but also the
regular student body too. So I do believe that there
(18:22):
should be some form of mental health evaluations when it
comes to not student athletes, but coaches as well, because
I can only imagine what it's like to be a
coach on the collegiate or professional level. It has to
be a very high stressful job, and so I empathize
when I think about some of my past some previous
coaches that I had in college, and I think about them,
(18:44):
I'm like, they have mouse of feet, They had families
to take care of, and if you have a rough season,
then your job's on the line, bottom line. And so
I do believe that everybody should have some form of access,
whether if it is a sports pide, collegists or some
type of team therapists on the team, because there is
(19:05):
trauma that lies in sport, whether you want to say
it or die. Yes, it's fun when you watch it.
We're watching the end result of every athlete's long week
they may have had in practice. You don't know if
they're battering an injury. You don't know if a parent
or a loved one is sick. We don't know. And
so again, going back to every coach and player, I
(19:26):
believe that there should be mental health evaluations and there
should always be access and resources available to both athletes
and coaches twenty four to seven period.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, and it does seem like a lot of it
is kind of couching this idea of performance coaching, right, like,
so oh, we'll bring in like this person to help
you to kind of, you know, visualize yourself making the ball,
getting it through the hoop.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
But it does feel like it needs to be more encompassing,
and I do feel like I've seen some schools really
approach that, though I'm sure it's not as well funded
and you know, kind of will resources it probably needs
to be.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And funny enough, you say that just to follow up,
and this is again my institution. I love Alavamsa University,
but I did go to a historically black college and university.
So when we talk about these smaller institutions versus your
Power five schools, your South Carolinas, your NC States, your Texas,
they have resources that we just don't have unfortunately. And
(20:21):
so that's another thing where it's like, Okay, maybe these
schools really do want that, right, but when we talk
about budget and resources, it's just not available to us
as it is with other institutions. And so that's the
other setback in Pitfall is like, Okay, so how do
we address this issue? How do we make sure that
each of our athletes and we can't save all of them,
(20:44):
but majority of our athletes that come through our institution,
they leave here feeling not only successful for achieving a
successful career as well as academic career, but act the individual,
you know. So I do think that there should be
more emphasis on it and figuring out how are historically
(21:06):
back colleges and universities as well as smaller institutions, your
D two's or your lower division ones or mid major
division ones have the access of resources as well to
being able to have that. We also deserve that.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So you already talked about the importance you feel like
of like having a plan b as an athlete, right,
is that something you went into college understanding, like, yes,
I'm gonna do the basketball thing, but I also plan
to like get a degree and like use this degree
outside of it. Talk to me about the balance between
being a very active athlete but also having commitments for
class and maybe even other extracurriculus.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
My mom has always been she's teen moms, she's super active,
you know, and stuff like that. But my mom made
sure that she put me around spaces that was going
to inspire me, you know, not hinder me, but inspire me.
So when she took me to these basketball games, it
wasn't just about studying these athletes and what it takes
(22:01):
to be on the collegiate level, but she also made
sure that I was paying attention to everything that's happening
to make a game day experience so special. And so
when I was young, I believe this was maybe like
my sophomore year of college or my freshman year of college.
I was actually a ballgirl for the Atlanta Dream for years,
(22:25):
and I remember on this one particular day for us
because we were the ball kids. Technically we were under
the basketball operations team, so we were there at the
same time. The athletes a ride, right, So we're getting
the water and the gatorade together, we're rebounding for them,
We're tidying up the place, making sure everything's good. We're
mopping up if somebody drop some sweat or some water.
(22:47):
You know, we were always there. But also two in
the midst of being a part of that experience, I
was also able to see the broadcasters and the social
medias and the ticket sales reps. So Bray was just
going of like, Wow, I don't just have to be
an athlete to be a part of this every day.
I can also go and be a sports broadcaster, or
(23:09):
a coach, or a strengthen conditioning coach, or a ticket
sells rep or a CEO, a president of a team.
I got a chance to see that at fifteen, sixteen
years old, and so I'll never forget. There was one
day I saw this beautiful, tall black woman and I
saw her put on the broadcast headphones and I said,
(23:31):
oh my gosh, I want to do what she's doing.
And that woman was Leashiina Robinson, one of the most
incredible sports anchors and basketball analysts in our generation right now,
in our era, I should say, and I mean, I
think representation goes a long way. And so I encourage
all parents to not put your kids in a box,
because if you put your kids in a box, or
(23:53):
if you don't really mold them to think bigger than
just ball, like this orange ball take you so far,
whether if that is coaching or being a strip coach,
or that's being a CEO a GM whatever, that looks
like those things are possible. So I think representation is key.
(24:15):
I think that exposing very early is key and encouraging
your kid. Like I told my mom one day, I
told her I wanted to be a veterinarian, I want
to be a lawyer. Then I want to be a
sports broadcaster, and all those things she encouraged one hundred
and ten percent today and so now she's my biggest supporter,
and I thank her for it because if it wasn't
(24:37):
for that experience of her, you know, making me sign
up to be a ball kid, I don't think I
would even have had the idea of being a sports broadcaster.
So again, just to answer your question, I think it
really comes from within, and it's okay to have a
plan be or plant. See, the ball is going to
stop bouncing one day, even is I mean Lebron? When
we look at Lebron, he's forty years old and we
(25:00):
don't know how much longer Lebron has until he decides
he wants to retire. So, even if you go on
to have a successful career in the NBA, WNBA, MLS,
MLB wherever, it's going to have to stop one day
and you have to think about, Okay, what else do
I like to do? You know, it could be something
that has nothing to do with sports. So I think
(25:23):
those are cheap and it's nothing wrong with the plan beer,
plancing or planning.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
So was it ever your dream to do sports beyond college? Like,
were you thinking pro athlete or had you always been
planning to do something maybe sports related but not necessarily
being a player.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well, if you were to tell me A's plan and
not God's plan, the plan was to finish out my
four years playing on the collegiate level, get a pro contract,
to go play overseas for a couple of years, travel
the world, retire, and then get into my sports broadcasting career. Well,
it's not how things planned out. I knew maybe by
(26:03):
my junior year of college, that I no longer wanted
to play pro ball. I just I did it. I mean,
it can be aware and tear on your mental and
physical well being, and I couldn't imagine myself going another
five six years of doing that. So I knew by
my junior year. At the end of my junior year,
(26:25):
I didn't want to play pro anymore. I just wanted
to focus on my career. I did just that.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
So yeah, and what was that transition like to kind
of have that, you know, be in a lot of
ways your identity, to be focusing on other areas of
your life.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
It was tough. I'm not going to sit here and
say it was rose pedals and daisies, because it wasn't.
There were a lot of days I was unsure about myself.
There were a lot of days that I would be
asking God why. And I've always been told to never
question God because his plan is bigger than all of ours.
(27:00):
For me, I graduated nine months before the global pandemic,
so imagine graduating college already. Postgrad is tough, okay, but
now you're adding a global pandemic so the whole world
is shut down. Is this what adulthood is like? You knows? Oh? God?
So I had an interesting intro into adulthood. I went
(27:22):
nineteen years of my life playing the sport that has
got me through any and everything to having to wrap
that up and now learned a global pandemic. So I
at first was just I was all over the place.
(27:42):
I was having anxiety attacks in my sleep. I've always
been pretty skinny, but when I got to college, I
gained a lot of muscle. I got to the point
where I didn't even I didn't want to work out.
I didn't want to see a gym. I didn't even
want to see a basketball. It took a minute for
me to actually fall back in love with watching the
(28:03):
game as a former athlete, which is I've heard a
lot of us talk about. And I remember there was
one particular day just moved back home with my mom
and she was downstairs. She had just got done cooking dinner,
so she's got her back turned and she's washing dishes,
and I started crying. I was just sitting at the
table crying, and I couldn't tell her why it was
(28:27):
so much. I think that was happening in my brain
that finally my brain was like, you got to let
this out. And I cried and I cried and I cried,
and my mom, of course didn't know what to do,
and I just told her, I need help. I need
to talk to somebody. My mom was like, we can
talk to me, and I'm just like, oh, oh, no, idea.
(28:48):
Bless her heart, she means well. So I'm sure as
any parent, they want to help their kids. They don't
want their kids seeing her kid cry and saying they
need help. And so from there, twenty twenty, I took
it upon myself and he recommended me to his therapy
and I have been in therapy ever since and it
has been the best thing that has ever happened to me.
And I don't believe I will ever stop.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So yeah, so that is quite a transition, right, Like
you are already transitioning out of identifying as an athlete,
and then there's also a pandemic, right, and then everybody's
trying to figure out when the world is happening. So
I'm really glad that you had therapy as a support then.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
And I also just think of my community in my
support system. My family is incredible, even some of my
professors and old teammates. I think oftentimes it's athletes because
of the stigma that has put on us that we
have to be mentally tough, right. Sometimes we don't know
how to turn it off when we leave the court
or the field or the locker room, and so we
(29:46):
feel as though if we go to our teammates, or
if we go to a mentor or a parent or whoever,
we're gonna think we're weak. And one thing that I'm
learning now in therapy is that there is strength and vulnerability.
And for the longest, I thought that I was weak
(30:06):
if I showed a bit of vulnerability, and so now
I'm embracing all parts of me. There are days I'm
an impath. So if I see somebody crying, I don't
know that I'm gonna cry too, and I'm okay with that.
I have no problem with it. I love it. Crying
is a former release. I took up boxing also a
little after I started therapy. Don't ask me how I
(30:29):
got into it. One day, I'm at a gym and
my strength coach he's got a new gym and they
got all an these fancy punching bags so I'm like, ooh,
this it is. And I mean I picked up those
gloves and I never put them down. So finding those
outlets too, right, finding new hobbies, falling in love with
this new version of yourself. It's just in your chapter.
(30:51):
That doesn't mean all the accomplishments, all the accolades, and
all the incredible things you've done in your career goes
out the window, because it doesn't. That's for life. You
are an athlete for life. But embrace this new chapter
that you're in. If you've wanted to play tennis your
whole life but you never had the opportunity to do that,
you can do that. If you want to go hike,
(31:11):
if you want to get into knitting, if you want
to get into sculpting or pilates, you can do it.
If you want to take up a new language, you
can do it. So I think we have to get
out of putting ourselves in this box that because plan
A was to be an athlete, and everybody expected me
to be this outstanding and overachieving athlete. Now that that
(31:34):
chapter of my life is ended, that does not mean
that I am still not whole and I don't matter.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So we always hear that there are so many valuable
lessons that come from athletics, right, like the discipline and
other things. What lessons and values do you feel like
you've been able to translate to other parts of your
career and just your life in general.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
My work's thick, Oh my goodness, if I'm not going
to do anything else. And I'll be honest with you,
I was not the athlete that filled up the status
sheet from night to night. I was an athlete that
did the little things on the court where I'm hustling
after the balls, I'm making the huge defensive stops and
plays like I was able to embrace that part of me,
(32:13):
and no matter what I do, it could be something
as simple as I don't know, wanting to get into
marathon running. I know now in order for me to
be good at what I want to do, I got
to put in the work to do it. Nobody's going
to do it for me. And so I've always been
a hard worker. You could say whatever you want to
say about me, you can't say that I'm not a
(32:34):
hard worker. And so that discipline, that level of competitiveness, right.
I think that there are some moments in your life
where you got to tone that down because learning to
use those qualities for good and not necessarily like you
still have to turn your brain off of like, hey,
(32:56):
you know, I don't have to be as aggressive anymore
because I'm not on the court anymore, but I can
be aggressive in ways where it's like, hey, my goal
is to sign up five clients this week, So for
the next Monday through Friday, I'm focused on getting those
five clients and setting tangible goals for yourself. So I
think for me, it was it's that work ethic, that discipline,
(33:19):
and the mental toughness. I didn't quite understand when my
coaches were telling us you gotta be mentally tough, you
gotta be this, you gotta be that. But now being
in the real world, especially the world of sports broadcasting,
oh my gosh, it's a cut through industry. And I
think with the hardships that I had, the tough coaches
(33:39):
that I had, are the setbacks that I had, and
even the good moments that I had, I don't internalize
stuff like I used to. So if I have a
bad day on air, I mean I might hear from
my director and producer I say, all right, thank you
for the feedback the next game I'm locked in. So
(33:59):
it's helped a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
So you brought up some adia that I want to
talk a little bit more about, like all these messages
that you get as athletes, right to be aggressive and
stay strong and be tough and all of that, but
also as a black woman, we get messages that like
be softer, like don't take up too much speed. And
so I think it's an interesting kind of feel because
especially I think in basketball, like predominantly those are black
(34:22):
women on the teams, And so how do you balance
like this idea that this is how you have to
be one way on court? And then you know, like
you mentioned like, okay.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Is it do you turn it off?
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Like how do you kind of moderate kind of walking
in both worlds?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
For my younger self, I did not. I don't even
think subconsciously I even realized if I was taking that
same mentality that I had on court into my personal life.
And it took for me to go through therapy and
have that unbiased person there to tell me like, well,
why do you have this? Like it's almost like a
fight or flight mold, so to speak, right where we
(34:56):
don't even realize subconsciously that it's filling over into our
person the lives. For me, I've always been a soft girl,
but I can also to be very nonchalant, and that
is because that came with well, I had to be
this on the court, and ain't nobody else gonna give
me nothing, so I can't here. And it's like, that's
(35:17):
not a good way to think. That's not healthy, especially
now even in my dating life, relationship life, that has
taught me a lot of there are just things you
should just be a human. You don't have to be
in ready to go mode all the time like you
can just be. And so that is something I'm still
(35:38):
actively working through of knowing when to turn it on
and turn it off. I'm in that season of a
learning and it takes a minute. You know. I've been
unlearning nineteen years of what's been drilled into my head
and so here I am again six years out and
I'm still learning every single day. So my best advice
(36:00):
to all the athletes that are unlearning, whether if it
stinks from their athletic career or even their childhood traumas,
it's okay to be paid to it yourself. Be graceful
with yourself as you are in your season of unlearning.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
And relearning more from our conversation after the break, something
else you mentioned earlier in the conversation is it sounds
like there's some unlearning around perfectionism, right and you know,
like wanting to be as good as possible and like
excellent on the court, but you know, again, the real
(36:37):
world doesn't operate that also off the court.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So what can you.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Say about like unlearning perfectionism and really understanding that it's
okay to kind of show up and do your biz
without being perfect.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Oh, I feel like you have had a conversation with
my therapist before we got on this call. Literally, that
is what we're working through right now. I have a
serious issue of perfectionism. This whiteboard behind me that I
can only see, I will write something three times and
(37:09):
if it's not perfect, I will erase it. That's a problem.
It's a problem. I didn't even realize how bad my
perfectionism was until I had these real conversations with my
therapist of like, okay, let's write this down. And so
one thing that I wrote down is I'm a perfectionist
(37:30):
and I like control. And when I say control, not
a control freak, I'm not a control freak. It's in
those seasons of how we always say you gotta trust God,
right because He's in control. And I know that logically,
but subconsciously, somehow my anxiety pops out. And if I
don't feel like I'm in control of a certain situation
(37:51):
or whatever's happening around me, then I feel defeated. And
so I'm working through that now. I wish that I
could give some advice that part, but that is something
that I'm so learning. But I've noticed that in a
lot of us, and if it wasn't, we were riding
the bench and none of us really wanted that. But
even to being an overachiever, I've always been an honor
(38:12):
roll cum laude, all these things, you know, And so
I think a bit of the perfectionism just comes from
a bit of childhood trauma as well as my experience
of being an athlete that I am actively and utterly
working through every single day. Perfectionism is one of the
things that you'll see in a lot of athletes, and
that's just because we want to be the best of
the best.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah, I mean, it feels like a very hardline to
toe because you don't become great without continuing to practice
and like continuing to work on your craft. And so
it feels like you have to be very careful of
not spilling over into like perfection is where that then
bleeds into all the other areas of your life.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah. Yeah, so you've.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Already shared a little bit about this nea. But if
there was something that you could go back and tell
your eighteen year old self, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Just lie about girl five out and Joel enjoy the
present moment? I think obviously too, you know, I mean
social media has always been a thing since I mean
I was growing up, but it wasn't as major as
it is now. And so now when I see athletes
that may follow me on social media, I mean their
(39:17):
bios are down to six' four one eighty four point
ZERO gpa, Student, like where's the? Personality where's the funny?
Quotes where's the music? Lyrics where it's just being? You
why does everything have to be? Documented where's just? You
and SO i would tell my younger, Self, listen enjoy the,
(39:41):
Ride embrace what you. Feel don't be ashamed of being
cool you. Are don't be ashamed of having bad, days
cause you're gonna have bad. DAYS i mean even when
we get over into, adulthood sometimes you might walk into
the office and be, like, look today is just not my.
Day we can, pray, plan plan all. Day Usually monday
(40:02):
mornings is like my quiet, time my time to just
kind of, reflect especially coming off the, road my time
to get myself. Together this, MORNING i did a little,
yoga little, MEDITATION i read a chapter of my, book
had my. Tea but then Next monday it could look completely.
DIFFERENT i could be rushing out of the. Door that
(40:24):
still does not mean THAT i failed the. Day it
just simply means that this is. Life we can, plan, plan,
plan all, day but sometimes things just don't work out
the way we want. To and SO i WISH i
could tell my younger self that everything is going to
work out just. Fine just enjoy the moment and stop
(40:47):
trying to think ahead and what's going to happen. Next
just relax and.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Enjoy very timely. Message thank you for, That. Nia so
where can we stay connected with? You where can we
find out more about purpose to be? Heard in any
social media channels.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
You'd like to? Share you can follow all of my
socials AT mir that is in as A nancy on,
AIR nia on air that is On, Instagram, twitter. TikTok
it's me on air with an, underscore but it's still
me on air as you can find me For purpose
to Be. Heard we're actually in a rebram. Period i'm super.
Excited we've been working on some great content to bring to,
(41:25):
athletes original content that we want to bring amongst other,
things community building that we'll be working on towards the
end of twenty twenty five and so. On but you
can Follow purpose to Be heard At purpose to, TOO
B B E, heard H a R. D then you
can also check out our website www dot ptbh dot.
(41:48):
Net feel free to reach out if you check out this.
Episode AND i always just look forward to meeting all.
ATHLETES i don't care if you played twenty something odd years.
AGO i don't care if you just got done playing last,
week or maybe you decided to leave your sport before you,
graduated even current. ATHLETES i just love talking and connecting
(42:09):
with other athletes and other humans BECAUSE i want to
be that person that my younger self needed so. Bad.
Athlete kudos to every single athlete right now that is
doing their things and trying their best to help as
many athletes as. Possible it definitely thanks the community to
make things.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Happen be sure to include all of that in the show.
Notes thank you so much for sending some time with
me To, DANIA i appreciate.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
It of. Course thanks for having, me Doctor. Joy what
a great.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Conversation i'm so Glad nia was able to join me
for this, conversation And i'm really excited that she kept
it real and reminded us that the game might, change
but the goal stays the, same to keep showing, up,
evolving and owning every single space we step, into whether
you're leaving a, sport a, job or just letting go
(42:54):
of who used to. Be, remember you get to pivot with.
Purpose identity isn't tied to one, title and Like nia,
said you can be the player and the play. Caller
to learn more About nia and the work she's, doing
be sure to visit the show notes At therapy For
blackgirls dot, com slash tvgu and don't forget to text
(43:16):
us episode to two of your girls right now and
tell them to check it. Out did you know you
could leave us a voicemail with your questions for the
podcast if you have a, question or a movie or
a book you want us to, review go ahead and
drop us a. Voicemail you can do that At memo
dot fm Slash therapy For Black girls and let us
know what's on your. Mind we just might feature your
(43:37):
question or suggestion on the. Podcast if you're looking for
a therapist in your, area visit our therapist directory At
therapy For blackgirls dot com slash. Directory this episode was
produced By Elise, Ellis indechubu And Tyree. Rush editing was
done By Dennison. Bradford thank y'all so much for joining
me again for THIS tvgu. Episode look forward to continuing
(44:01):
this conversation with you all real. Soon take good.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Care
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