Player Spotlight: Taylor Bigby

Happy Friday! I can’t believe we’re finally here.

It's the last weekend of March Madness, and it marks the final opportunity for me to unapologetically steer every conversation toward women's basketball.

I’m currently going through a range of emotions.

I forget what life’s like outside of college basketball.

And that’s a scary thought for someone closer in age to these players' parents than the kids playing the sport.

Bare with me today

Unfortunately Scottie’s got plans tonight, so I’ll be going phone-less beginning at 7pm until I’m home so that I can watch the recordings blindly with no spoilers.

Pray for me

💥BTW: Shout out to the Inaugural winners of WBIT, Illinois 💥 

TODAY’S STORY
💥PLAYER SPOTLIGHT: TAYLOR BIGBY

WHO IS TAYLOR BIGBY

Taylor Bigby is a Sophomore at the University of Southern California, teammates of a Between Courts favorite, Aaliyah Gayles, who has one of the most inspirational stories I’ve ever read.

Before playing at USC, Bigby played at the University of Oregon.

And just like everyone else at Oregon, she quickly transferred after her first season.

While most students are overfilled with joy and happiness to escape the confines of their parents house after a few years of sneaking out in High School, Bigby had a strange mix of feelings.

Right before her move-in date, her parents had recently separated.

Instead of having both of her parents with her on her special day, her mom was there for her the first few days, left, and then her dad arrived.

While dealing with the recent news of her parents, adjusting to life as a D1 student-athlete, she sprained her ankle at the beginning of the season expecting a full recovery just a few days later, but ended up spraining her ankle 6 more times.

Ultimately sidelining her for the entire season, from November to March Madness.

DISCOVERING MENTAL HEALTH

As Bigby describes herself, “I’m a person that bottles up their feelings a lot. I had to become vulnerable with being okay with not being okay. I always knew mental health was a real thing, but I never thought it could happen to me. You feel like you’re at your lowest. For me, everything was coming to an end. My parents got divorced, I’m injured, and it just felt like nothing was working out.”

When you think about it, it is kinda wild that you can go the first 18 years in your life not really knowing what mental health is or how to look for the signs or how to work on it for yourself because you’re too busy being a reckless teenager that probably still uses a vocabulary that would get you blacklisted in a second.

As Taylor puts it, Oregon was extremely gloomy, there was nothing to look forward to when you woke up everyday, no sunlight, and lack of sun in the dorm rooms.

While what felt like never ending obstacles being thrown at her with family struggles, relationship struggles, and injuries, Taylor really leaned on her faith in God and support system.

Taylor ended up getting close with one of the team managers at Oregon and they started waking up early every single morning to on a walk. For Taylor, these walks coupled with a few journal entries, limited screen time, and spending more time with her teammates in the gym, ended up being what allowed her to feel like she had space to clear her mind and gave her something to look forward to.

“When i was going through hard times, it felt like it was never going to end. I didn’t have hope for something to change.”

WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING

Let’s talk stats for a second

The expectations for college athletes are insane.

And as a massive fan of college sports, I know my part in this

Hand up!

• Injuries, emotional stress, and physical strain put student athletes at a higher level for anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts compared to regular students.

• 48% of female college athletes have reported signs of anxiety

• Mental health concerns are 150-250% higher today than pre-covid.

• 1 in 3 studnet athletes have sleep difficulties

• 1 in 4 studnet athletes havae a sense of loss

• 10% of studnet athletes feel depressed at a level that makes day to day life difficult

When you’re schedule is Morning Workout —> Class —> Study —> Workout —> Study each and everyday, I can only imagine the toll it takes on someone who just became eligible to vote.

Take Taylor’s situation for example

When you have so many external factors piling up that you’re dealing with in the first time in you’re life, you’re expected to show up and perform at practice because you’re going up against someone better than you, someone that’s trying to take your spot, and someone who’s in High School that just signed to take your spot.

FINAL THOUGHTS

My final thoughts…

Reading stories like Taylor’s and reading the stats like the ones up there really make me wanna re-think some old tweets of mine.

But in all seriousness, while there are more stories like this one out there, we are seeing universities, primarily Division I, higher more staff in the mental wellness departments, to improve this.

Now I’ll let Taylor close it out for us.

“It’s easy to ask yourself ‘Why is this happening to me?’ But I’m also a firm believer that God gives His toughest battles to His strongest soldiers. So I’m happy I was able to overcome that.”