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#WeKeepPlaying: Chiney Ogwumike, Sabrina Ionescu, other women athletes advance conversation about sports and resilience

Photo Credit: Lamar Carter

Nowadays as the battle against the coronavirus continues, all of us as humans are having to reach down and find a strength that we did not believe we had previously but are discovering we do have.

There is a particularly heartbreaking element of this that makes it especially difficult for athletes with the disruption of typical training regimens and preparation schedules. In addition, 2020 was supposed to be an Olympic year, but this year’s Games in Tokyo have since been postponed to 2021.

Women’s sports – including the WNBA – had been riding a wave of momentum of the beginning of the year after the historic CBA the WNBPA had agreed to with the league, but that momentum has completely been halted.

Chiney Ogwumike of the Los Angeles Sparks, WNBA draft prospect Sabrina Ionescu and others from the women’s sports realm – including Billie Jean King, Katie Ledecky, Carli Lloyd, Katie Sowers participated in the #WeKeepPlaying livestream hosted by Yahoo Sports and the Women’s Sports Foundation.

The aim of the special event was to continue the conversation around women’s sports in this unusual time, focus particularly on the resiliency and mental health of young athletes and offer encouragement that better days will be upon us.

Cari Champion, formerly a journalist with ESPN headlined what was a indeed a lively, enlightening and thought-provoking conversation with some of the greats of women’s sports.


…we were watching the Women’s World Cup of Cricket. They had 86,000 people. It was full. It was amazing. And all of a sudden, we got a text that they had canceled the PNB Open at Indian Wells which was exactly where we were going to be going.

–Billie Jean King (#WeKeepPlaying)

For Chiney Ogwumike, this really hit home for her when she found out that the NBA was canceling games as games were still going on. She was actually heading into to work SportsCenter to do NBA analysis when she got the news.


…A lot of those NBA players – the younger generation, those were guys that I know – Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert. So, hearing this, literally, it’s like, that’s the first person that we sort of all knew, collectively in the sports world, where Covid-19 – it’s really coming close to home.

–Chiney Ogwumike (#WeKeepPlaying)

She also said that during periods like this, we take more time to put emphasis on family – our “original team.”

For athletes such as Ledecky, who had been training the last four years in preparation for the Olympics only to see all of it come to an abrupt halt, it was particularly tough. But she did express optimism at the fact that the Games were only – for now – moved to 2021 and not postponed.


Once we’re able to get back into full training, we’ll hit hard and get ready for next year.

–Katie Ledecky (#WeKeepPlaying)

Lloyd and the United States Women’s Soccer Team were playing Japan in the She Believes Cup when this news made its way to the team. She acknowledged that there was concern over a possible cancellation of the Olympics altogether.


I know that there’s probably so many athletes that may not be able to be a part of it in a year and there’s all different circumstances. But, I’m really looking forward to it because it’s more time to prepare and another year and it’ll be … great. It’ll hopefully rally the whole country and just make things a lot better than they have been.

–Carli Lloyd (#WeKeepPlaying)

As women’s basketball fans know, Sabrina Ionescu and her Oregon Ducks appeared poised to make a run to this year’s Women’s Final Four. She was in her senior season in Eugene and wanted to finish her college career in championship fashion. Instead, the virus tragically cut her collegiate career short and she never got a chance to finish the “Unfinished Business” she once wrote about for The Players’ Tribune.

Instead of rejoicing after a championship, next on her list will be the WNBA – where she is projected to be the No. 1 overall pick to the New York Liberty.


It is an issue that’s a lot bigger than basketball and there’s people that are dying and people that are struggling. Kind of having that perspective and understanding that it’s a blessing to be in the position that I am and hopefully be able to play at the next level and play professionally has kind of helped me through this.

–Sabrina Ionescu (#WeKeepPlaying)

An important element of any athlete’s training regimen is, of course, what she or he eats. Paralympian Scout Bassett talked about how this has given her more of a chance to experiment with food that takes her back to her roots.


I’m Chinese and so it’s been really neat for me to try some of that for … really the first the time.

–Scout Bassett (#WeKeepPlaying)

As mentioned earlier, Ionescu and other draft prospects have the added pressure of getting set for a draft with the backdrop of the Covid-19 fight (and its impact on sports in the background). This year’s draft will be held virtually and the WNBA has announced the postponement of its season that was scheduled to begin on May 15.

Ionescu said she is trying to find things that can keep her occupied as well as complete her schoolwork. We sometimes forget Ionescu is in her senior season as a student at Oregon.

She described the feeling of playing her last game at Oregon and the inability to compete one last time in a tournament as “heartbreaking.”


It’s kind of a hard pill to swallow and I don’t think I’ll really be able to get over it for a long time. But everything happens for a reason and I’m just so blessed to have no regrets through these four years that I’ve been at the University of Oregon … through practices and games really giving the game and the team everything that I had.

–Sabrina Ionescu (#WeKeepPlaying)

Champion then recollected on an occasions earlier this year when Ionescu already showed strength in the face of adversity – when she spoke at Kobe and GiGi Bryant’s memorial at Staples Center in Los Angeles after their untimely demise in a helicopter crash outside of LA. She also had to play a game that same day.


I wasn’t even able to make it out to warmups just because of all the emotions that I had going through that day. But it was an honor being able to be there and speak on their behalf, being able to see Vanessa and the family. It was humbling and that opportunity is something that I cherish and hold close to my heart.

–Sabrina Ionescu (#WeKeepPlaying)

Ionescu, Ogwumike and Diana Taurasi all spoke at that memorial. As everyone knows, he was a major advocate for the WNBA and his daughter was poised and ready to be the next big thing in women’s basketball. There was another element to that memorial that also did not go unnoticed.


If you noticed in that memorial, the women spoke first. Women led the charge and I think that was largely Vanessa Bryant’s choosing. I think that’s the direction society’s moving – just elevating and betting on women. That was our mantra as a member of the WNBPA as we went through our CBA agreement.

–Chiney Ogwumike (#WeKeepPlaying)


Kobe transcended sports. He just was a figure that we all wanted to inspire to be in that greatness level in life.

–Chiney Ogwumike (#WeKeepPlaying)

Ionescu is a projected No. 1 draft pick. Ogwumike was a previous No. 1 in 2014 by the Connecticut Sun. She mentioned that the draft has to feel like the biggest moment in Ionescu’s life after all the hard work she’s put into to get to this point. While the circumstances have unfairly stolen the more typical draft experience from Ionescu and others, Ogwumike still encouraged her to take it all in and embrace it as she enters the next phase of her career.

Ogwumike later fielded a question from a fan who asked if she could trade places with anyone on the panel, who would she. Overall – she would have picked Condoleezza Rice, but athlete-wise, she said Carli Lloyd.

During this trying time, athletes are having to find other ways to maintain their involvement with their sport even if it means the experience of physically being on their field of play has been temporarily taken away from them. For hockey’s Kendall Coyne Schofield, what #WeKeepPlaying means can range from maintaining a workout regimen to learning the history of one’s sport.


LIt’s so important to know the history of your sport and to learn the history of your sport and I think it’s a great time to be able to do that because I’m watching games and learning so much about the game that I didn’t know before.

–Kendall Coyne Schofield (#WeKeepPlaying)

The former U.S. Secretary of State then spoke a bit with Verizon Media’s Guru Gowrappan about why it is important to maintain one’s active lifestyle and not drift into a sense of negligence.


You have to keep perspective about those for whom this is a much bigger crisis than for any of us. Most of us are fortunate to be healthy and to have friends and family.

–Condoleezza Rice (#WeKeepPlaying)


Most importantly, I have a schedule. I don’t allow myself to sort of just drift through the day – I did that the first couple of days and it didn’t feel very good. And so, I get up and I work out and then I work and later on the day I practice the piano.

–Condoleezza Rice (#WeKeepPlaying)

She says that she takes time to golf and encouraged young athletes to embrace the power of visualization of themselves back on their fields of play.

The name Katie Sowers is becoming a household name in not only women’s sports but sports in general. Sowers is an assistant coach with the San Francisco 49ers and became the first woman coach (and openly gay coach) to participate in a Super Bowl.

Sowers looks at her standing in history and her standing on the team as part of a collective effort where she contributes her attributes as part of an overall winning puzzle in San Francisco.


Everyone brings something different to the table and that’s what makes every team so special. Me being a female is just part of my difference that I bring to a collaborative group. When you can recognize that and you don’t pinpoint just one thing – you just know that your differences combined make a greater good. That’s what’s truly important.

–Katie Sowers (#WeKeepPlaying)

Even though this pandemic has temporarily put everyone to the sidelines, Ogwumike understands that the work to advance and expand women’s sports will continue once this concludes. She believes that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign (and winning the popular vote, by the way)


I think in 2016 when we almost had our first female president, we really had a new re-found motivation as women to make things happen. That’s when you saw the U.S. Women’s National Team go out there and talk that talk and walk that walk and win a World Cup. That’s why you see the U.S. Women’s Hockey Team fighting for one league and also backed it up by winning in the Winter Olympics. That’s why you see the WNBA negotiate an amazing groundbreaking CBA. The list goes on and on. You saw U.S. Women’s Gymnastics literally take down an abuser.

–Chiney Ogwumike (#WeKeepPlaying)


I think at that time, we as a society have just sort of realized that, hey, as women we don’t need to be competitive anymore. Right now we are all collaborative in achieving what we want. And that’s the direction we’re heading and that’s why it’s so cool because a lot of people in this conversation today – I’m already cool with. That’s because we are harnessing everyone’s collective power. So, we’re just getting started as the kids say, the young ones say.

–Chiney Ogwumike (#WeKeepPlaying)

Ionescu shared of how her perspective on things particularly changed after the tragic deaths of Kobe and GiGi Bryant. The irony was that GiGi looked to Ionescu as motivation to want to continue her basketball-playing career. Now after her death as well as those of her teammates that were aboard the helicopter, Ionescu now looks at those young women as inspiration.


…Now they inspire me to work harder and be better and keep breaking down barriers for women in sports. And so, I’m just excited to have that platform and hopefully be able to do that at the next level.

–Sabrina Ionescu (#WeKeepPlaying)

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