Every summer many NBA players, from stars to role players, host basketball camps for local kids, either in the market they play in or in their home town.
The majority of participants in the camps are boys, but this year Steph Curry not only opened up his elite guard camp to girls but also hosted a camp for 200 girls basketball players. Curry recently penned a column for The Players’ Tribune about the issues of gender inequality, the need for girls to be encouraged and told they’re capable of doing and achieving anything, and fixing institutional issues like the wage gap.
Curry cites his two daughters as inspiration for becoming more vocal about fighting for gender equality, but also wrote at length about the experience he had at his girls camp as having a profound impact on him. The two-time MVP was impressed with the focus from all of the girls at the camp, noting that at boys camps there are almost always those that goof off and simply run around “acting wild,” but at his girls camp they were all locked in.
He also noted that he wasn’t just impressed with their performance on the court, but how engaged they were during the off court activities, which included various speakers from sports and business. Curry highlighted one question in particular that showed how, even at 14 years old, girls are already considering the issues they’ll face in male-dominated industries.
And the girls didn’t just bring it on the court, they also brought it off the court. We had a Q&A session with several successful women in sports and business, which historically have been fields dominated by men. And our campers blew me away with their questions. Just, like, the level of thoughtfulness and care that was flowing through them, and the maturity and nuance of it all. It really struck me.
One of the girls — she asked Ariel Johnson Lin, a VP at JPMorgan Chase & Co., about how, if she’s in a business meeting, and has a great idea….. but the meeting is composed of, say, eight men and then her as the only woman….. would she think twice about how to convey the idea? Would she switch up how she worded things, or her body language, or her tone of voice, based on the gender imbalance of her workplace?
Again, I was just blown away. I mean, we’re talking about a 14-year-old kid here, having the knowledge and sophistication to take a simple camp Q&A session to that level. And questions like hers — those really are the questions that young women continue to have to ask about the workplace in 2018. And that’s because it’s still so deeply ingrained in them, even in 2018, that inequality is just a thing you have to come to expect.
Curry goes on to offer the short version of the answer given by Ariel Lin, who told the girls to, “Be yourself. Be good, and try to be great — but always be yourself.” I’m sure the long answer offered more insight and advice on how to handle these situations, but for Curry it’s clear that it was an eye-opening moment to realize that these are things young women have to think about as they prepare to move forward into the real world.
Curry notes that it will be known as his “first annual” girls camp, because he loved the experience so much, and hopefully others in the NBA will follow suit — possibly in conjunction with local WNBA teams — to be more inclusive with camps.
