2023.03 -- US Storybook 2022 updated 4.14 - Flipbook - Page 39
challenge came from within herself. “I think I struggle with confidence a lot, because I have four
siblings, I’m the middle child. So, you know how the middle child is, and I feel like… being talked
down on a lot when I was younger, I didn’t really know who I was myself, because I’m hearing
just everything from everybody else.”
“Having to be a leader, I had to tell people what to do, had to be assertive. Be more confident
with what I was saying, instead of how I was before. I was more timid. I was more nonconfrontational. I would get really clammy, and really super nervous, and I’d overthink
everything, every single outcome. But I had to push past that side of me in order to fulfill a role I
had.”
And fulfill Trinity did. To the extent that she was even able to help other young players with
struggles that until recently had been her own struggles. Trinity recalls one girl in particular.
“[She] was a lot,” Trinity confides. But after a while, the girl began to open up. “She revealed to
me that she wasn’t as confident with herself… She would act like she was all that, but she was
very vulnerable and very insecure about herself.”
“I let her know that what people think shouldn’t matter to you, especially at such a young age.
You know, you have to be yourself. You have to take yourself where you need to go.”
Trinity’s impact on these girls isn’t a coincidence. There’s something about seeing a female
coach, who comes from where you come from, who looks like you do. “I think it helps the girls
a lot with their confidence, like seeing that there’s a girl doing something that they want to do.
It might give them the motivation to get where they want to be, rather than just seeing boys in
the media playing basketball.”
A lot of the young leaders in PeacePlayers talk about trying to be the person they needed when
they were younger. Trinity and Javonn are leaning into that, but they’re also becoming exactly
the people they need right now.
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