For the first time in University memory, we have a women’s club basketball team. Spearheaded by co-captain Audrey Nelson ’25, the team provides a space for women and non-cisgender men to engage in competitive basketball alongside other experienced players, breaking down gender barriers that historically kept them out of organized play.

When Nelson arrived at the University in the fall of 2021, she was ready to play ball. As an avid varsity basketball player in high school, the abrupt halt of regular practices and games in college was an unsettling shock to her system.

“I’ve been playing basketball since I was in third grade, and it’s always been that place that I go when I’m stressed,” Nelson said. “It makes me feel better.”

However, as Nelson quickly learned, getting back on the court was not so simple. Unless she was willing to be the only woman in the room, opportunities to play competitive basketball below the varsity level were virtually nonexistent.

For men, on the other hand, recreational basketball at the University had been thriving. There was a dedicated club team competing in the Men’s National Club Basketball Association (NCBBA) New England South Conference, as well as three tiers of on-campus intramural competition: A league, B league, and C league.

While both the club and intramural teams are technically open to players of all genders, only the no-experience-necessary C League is truly co-ed in practice. Even then, the gender balance is often skewed.

“I [used to come] to pickup almost every single day, and there were never any women,” said Ava Guralnick ’25, a club team player who didn’t cross paths with Nelson until her junior year. “I just thought that there weren’t any women interested, because they weren’t showing up.”

Nelson recalled her own hesitation to participate in casual pickup practices.

“I would show up and see all the men, and then I’d be like, ‘Oh, there’s no hoops,’ and leave,” she said. “I wish I hadn’t done that, but I did. It’s easier said than done.”

At different points in their university careers, both Guralnick and Nelson played and practiced with the competitive club team.

“When you play with men, you have to prove yourself in a way that you don’t have to prove yourself with women,” Guralnick said. “I think I hold my own for the most part, [but] even when I play on the [men’s] club team, it’s still like, you have to prove yourself. Teammates are still misogynistic in ways. It’s very undertone, but still there sometimes, right? And that’s just how the environment is.”

Nelson agreed. The difference between playing basketball with men and playing on a co-ed team isn’t about skill, but the constant awareness of being an outsider.

“[When you play with men] you’re thinking about your face, you’re thinking about what your expressions are doing all the time, and the way you walk,” she said. “It’s not any individual, those guys are great. It’s just the culture.”

This gender discrepancy also manifests in more concrete disadvantages.

“Bluntly, there is a physical difference,” Nelson said. “I can definitely pull my own under the basket, but the amount they can jump higher than me, the amount they can push me around—I don’t mind, it makes me better sometimes—but it’s just endlessly frustrating not being able to play the way I’ve trained to play.”

Women also typically play with a size 6 ball, which is one inch smaller and two ounces lighter than the men’s size 7 ball.

“If you’re playing with guys, you’re playing with a ball that you didn’t spend 13 years of your life playing with, and that’s just [an] immediate disadvantage,” Nelson said. “And of course, it’s not fair to be like, let’s use [a] 28.5 [inch ball] because there’s 12 of them and one of you.”

This semester, however, things are changing. With its 15-player roster, the new women’s club team is just getting started.

“Being able to have the space after three years is just amazing,” Guralnick said. “It felt really good after the first try out, the first practice, to be able to play with women again.”

That’s not to say getting a team off the ground was any small feat. With the support of co-captain Elise Krautheimer ’27 and club financial manager Lily Goldfine ’25, Nelson had to push through a long series of headaches and red tape.

“I underestimated the amount of bureaucracy,” Nelson said. “The most difficult thing was going between different organizations…the Athletics Department, [Office of Student Involvement], and then also the National League. They’re all saying different things, they’re not working with each other, so I was the main point of connection between all three of them.”

In many ways, the challenges faced by Nelson, Guralnick, Krautheimer, Goldfine, and the other 11 members of the women’s club basketball roster underscore the broader disparities in men’s and women’s sports. Unequal access to resources, funding, and institutional support are evident at every level of play from the professional peak, where the average WNBA player earns just 1.55% of their NBA counterpart, to Nelson’s own high school, where the national anthem was played exclusively at men’s varsity games.

“There’s a culture on various campuses where it’s like women’s and men’s sports are competing against each other,” Nelson said. “We played at Yale [University] a couple weeks ago, and we were supposed to have court number four, then we showed up and the Yale men were playing on court number four… I was like, ‘Hey, I thought we were playing on four,’ and [the Yale women’s captain] was like, ‘Oh yeah, they just took it, and they won’t get off, so we’re gonna have to use court three instead.’”

For now, Nelson and her teammates find immense value in playing the game they love, the way they always played it.

“Coming back to it as a serious sport, with people who are also serious about it, with women who aren’t afraid to go on the court and be aggressive, as well as having a good time and being kind to each other, that’s awesome,” Nelson said. “I want that to be true for the [next generation] at Wesleyan.”

And the next generation is here for it. One of the first-year students on the team, McCall Beall, is planning to stick around.

“[I like] having an option that has a level of commitment, [keeps me] in shape, but is also flexible around my schedule being in college for the first time ever,” Beall said. “It’s been a non-stressful, good outlet.”

As more players like Beall join their ranks, the future of women’s club basketball is looking bright. Their next step: securing uniforms.

 

Audrey Nelson is Assistant Sports Editor on The Argus.
Sophie Jager can be reached at sjager@wesleyan.edu.