‘YOU HAVE TO LET THE GAME COME TO YOU'

College hoops star ALIYAH BOSTON on her championship path and why Black women in sports deserve more respect

-  ALIYAH BOSTON

IF TITLE IX DIDN’T EXIST, women simply wouldn’t have equal opportunities to play the sports that we love. And I personally wouldn’t have had the experiences of being recruited to a top college basketball team and winning a national championship. Or had the prospect of being drafted into the WNBA— perhaps, God willing, even to be a professional team’s No. 1 pick.

Winning the NCAA national championship in April was special. Last year, we came really close and then we lost in the Final Four.

Our attitude afterwards was: This is it, we can do it this year. We had a special team, and we worked so hard. So for that buzzer to sound and know we had just won a national championship was amazing.

A lot of young kids, especially young girls, saw my emotional moment in 2021 [when I cried] after we lost against Stanford. But they have now seen how we were able to turn things around, come back and win this year. I think it shows them the passion that we play with. And, that it’s okay to show emotion.

I hear comments from people saying: “Why are you trying to show emotion? Just play the game.” Emotions are how you play the way that you play. You want it so badly that emotions just come out. It’s good for young women to be able to see that, and that you can turn around any situation. Had Title IX not been passed, my life would have been very different.

From St. Thomas to South Carolina