“We’ll be shirts. You be skins,”-says every guy who ever played pickup basketball against a girl

For much of my life, I identified as a basketball player. I learned to play in eighth grade, and once my coach helped me take my game to the next level in ninth, I was hooked. Girls didn’t have access to play on elite sport teams outside their high school programs like they do today. 

To find more competitive challenges, I played pickup. As a girl and then as a woman, playing pickup basketball means most of your teammates and opponents are guys. Some players were tentative at first until my skills convinced them I could hang with the big boys. If there was a court, I was there. This was true whether I was on vacation, at work, or in school. Even the guys I dated needed to prove themselves on a court first. One-on-one to a game of 21 would usually be the test. 

The last time I played consistently was in a men’s league in Atlanta. I was 30. And that is if I don’t count my Thursday pickup games with co-workers while living in San Francisco, pregnant with my first child at 32. 

Ultimately, motherhood put the kibosh on team sports. I struggled to find time and the energy to play organized ball, a perennial problem for many women athletes. I never made the decision to stop, life just happened.

While out on my morning run, I passed an outdoor basketball court. A full game was in progress. There were no girls or women playing–just dudes, many of whom could be dads with partners watching their children play on the adjacent playground. I wondered how many of those sidelined moms grew up playing basketball like me. How many still fantasized about lacing up and calling, “Next game!”