In this episode, I share one of my favorite personal stories of adversity, mindset, and triumph.
In this episode, I share one of my personal stories of adversity, mindset, and triumph. At the Division 1 women’s college basketball level, the three-point shot is one of the most important of the game. In high school, I had practiced for years and years as a jump-shooter and then during my freshman season at Illinois, a mental block took over and I couldn’t hit the rim from behind the three point line!
I knew I had to fix my shot to become a top player - but how? A couple years later, the moment came where it was time to fix my shot once and for all - and I went back to the basics. I repeated the mantra form that I learned when I was six-years-old: toe, knee, elbow, ball. Slowly but surely, I retrained my entire body to shoot with a cohesive, aligned flow.
Listen to today’s episode to hear the backstory of one of my favorite and frequent mindset practices of going back to the basics.
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Anne Oneil 00:03
Hey, hey, GBLers, welcome to get busy living a podcast to discover what ignites people to be bigger than themselves. I'm your host Anne O'Neil.
Anne Oneil 00:14
Have you ever noticed when life seems insurmountable, that's some of the most common advice is well simple, like just sleep on it, or listen to your heart, or trust your gut. Oftentimes, we know deep down in our being just how to pull ourselves forward through a difficult experience or time period. And while many people know me as being a successful basketball player, and even being drafted into the WNBA, behind all those accolades, there was this huge story of adversity. And actually, maybe even a couple I might share here. But I wanted to have share a personal story from one of my mindset practices, I call back to the basics. So let's set the scene and give you some background to my story. There I was 12 years old, walking out of gym class in the sixth grade, when my gym teacher stopped me and said, Hey, you got a letter in the school mail today. She handed me the envelope, and I looked down and it was addressed to me from the University of Northern Iowa.
Anne Oneil 01:14
I remember vividly walking to my locker with this letter in my hands and opening the letter so slowly inside my locker, so no one could save. And it was a typed out letter that said, we would like to recruit you to play on our Collegiate women's basketball team. So there was that letter sent my entire trajectory and sent my dream destination into the future ahead. And I knew from that day forward, that I wanted to be a division one college basketball player. And at the exact same moment, from that day forward for literally seven straight years, if you wanted to find me, you came to the gym where I'd be shooting countless shots over and over again perfecting my game. So let's just say close to a million a year tournament games, Nike All Star camps, nights in the gym shooting with my dad. Throughout all of those years, it was finally time to take my game to the next level. So going into my senior year of high school, I narrowed my list of colleges down to five universities, Stanford, Duke, Purdue, Illinois, and Iowa State.
Anne Oneil 02:19
I took five weekend official visits that fall to each school and I chose the University of Illinois. It was a great school. And we have the second best recruiting class in the nation, a lot of potential and plans to build a great program. But as you may have heard all great plans, well, sometimes they don't go as planned. And many things showed up for me that freshman season. But one that didn't, was my three point shot. That year, the coaching staff urged me to adjust my three point shot and become more of a set shooter. And I had trained those last eight years as a jump shooter throughout the court. And for all you listeners out there, a jump shooter is when there is air underneath your feet, and you release the ball and set shooter, your feet are planted on the ground when you release the ball. So guess what, of course, that didn't work for me. My habitual body mechanics could not adjust to the new way of shooting, it was almost like my lower body was doing one thing and my upper body was doing another thing and they were just not in sync.
Anne Oneil 03:21
I ended up that season making four three pointers out of 33 games. So for a shooting guard that should be much, much higher, like usually making at least one or two threes per game. So my overall experience at Illinois wasn't the best fit and I decided to transfer to Iowa State University following that freshman season. And I remember a moment in time I was finishing up the spring semester at Illinois, and I was in this back grungy wreck gym shooting all by myself and trying to figure out how to shoot all over again. And I know this is hard to imagine, but I could literally not hit the rim or the backboard from behind the three point line. It was airball after airball, the the mental and emotional block had taken over my entire body. And I could not find that rhythm to shoot the three point shot, let alone even hit the rim. So I remember standing there all by myself and I was staring at this rim as the ball bounced off in this dark gym. And in a moment, I said, I'm going to figure out this three point shot. And one day I'm going to be in the ESPN three point shooting contest.
Anne Oneil 04:32
And it was a declaration and a goal I made ultimate myself and never shared with anyone else. So what's up next, throughout the next two years at Iowa State, I had another adversity show up and I tore my ACL knee ligament, and this is a significant knee injury and surgery for any athlete. I had to focus all of my time and energy on rehabbing that knee. I had to learn how to bend in balance, and jog and run and squat and jump, and really just try to learn how to play basketball all over again and be ready to play on the court. So needless to say, there was no time to focus on my broken three point shot. But let's fast forward to my junior season. I found myself shooting free throws during a preseason workout with the cyclone coaching staff. My free throw shot at the time was just okay, it wasn't consistent, maybe around 60 to 70%, free throw shooter. And again, for shooting guard, you want to be much higher maybe in the 80s. That psychological block from the three point line had now seeped into my free throw. And in one moment, one of my all time favorite coaches assistant coach Jack easily, he walked through the free throw lane as I was practicing. And he quietly said, that's just not going to cut it.
Anne Oneil 05:52
And he walked on through the lane to the next cord. And in that moment, I knew it was time for me to transform my shot because he was right, it wasn't going to cut it being a player in the big 12 conference and being a reliable shooter for the cyclone team. So I took a deep breath, I grabbed my ball. And guess what I went back to the basics. I literally remember walking these eight steps all the way back underneath the rim. And I started shooting the ball from under the basket, kind of like you do when you're six years old, and you're learning how to shoot a basketball for the very first time. I repeated myself as I did when I was a first grader, the basic shooting alignment form of toe knee, elbow ball, if you can visualize that everything is in alignment toe, the elbow ball, and I shot one handed shots under the rim over and over and over again until I had retrained my entire body, how to shoot with this cohesive and aligned flow. And inch by inch, I moved my way backwards, shooting these one handed shots until I finally reached the free throw line at 15 feet out. One handed shot had been working up until this point.
Anne Oneil 07:05
So I said Why change anything now. So throughout that entire junior season, I shot my free throws one handed and ended up leaving the big 12 conference and also set a school record at the time with 87.6% Season free throw shooting performance. This season finished and I was like wow, back to the basics transformed my free throw. I wonder if I can make that happen with my three point shot. So following that junior season, I had an entire summer going into my senior year. And once again, you could find me back in the gym shooting one handed shots under the rim just like a six year old. And then shooting one handed shots at the free throw line and then shooting one handed jump shots at the three point line. My entire focus was on simple basic form that toe knee, elbow ball on every single shot. And anytime I missed or my form felt a little off, I would walk back underneath the rim and I'd shoot a few shots from one foot out to get back in alignment. So to sum it all up, back to the basics worked big time. That senior season was the college basketball experience I was dreaming of back when I opened that recruiting letter when I was 11 years old. Our cycling team had a super successful season.
Anne Oneil 08:26
We went undefeated at home and Hilton Coliseum and won 23 games and we made the NCAA tournament. For the first time in two years. We even had written NCAA or bust on our sneakers. That's how important it was for us to have a big year. And for me personally all of that back to the basics worked. It even helped me to lead the big 12 conference in free throw and three point percentage. And I even led the nation three point shooting percentage for a couple of weeks. Can you even believe that? Toward the end of that season after one of our final home games. I was pulled aside and told that I was asked to participate in the ESPN three point shootout at the men's final four. And I truly wish I had more details of this moment in time. But it is such a blur to me because I immediately remember bending over and starting crying. I literally had so much joy everything that I endured, persevered through and set my destination into the future I was able to figure out and have such a great year and get that ESPN three point shooting. It was just such joy as I flashback to that player who was air balling all those three point shots in the rec gym.
Anne Oneil 09:41
That was the grungy one in Illinois four years earlier. And when I had declared only to myself that I would figure out the shot and make the ESPN three point shooting contest one day, just literally such joy and that reengineered shot. Well it even got me drafted into the WNBA And I was the 30th pick to the Sacramento Monarchs, a dream I never thought was possible. Throughout my college years. It was never even a gold destination of mine and showed up by going back to the basics. So there you have it, one of my most favorite personal stories of adversity, mindset and triumph. And throughout my journey throughout my career, and throughout my life, whenever I'm up against something that feels insurmountable or too complicated, or too heavy, I remind myself of this experience, and I take a step back, and I take a deep breath, and I say, let's go back to the basics. Starting at the simple, overlooked and basic things. It has this organic way of piecing the path forward in a brand new light