WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu once had to recruit her own basketball team

Even as a child, nothing could keep Sabrina Ionescu off the basketball court. The 27-year-old New York Liberty point guard was always drawn to the game and went to great lengths to make sure she could play it.

In middle school, her school informed her that they didn’t have enough players to field a girls team. When she asked if she could play with the boys, they said no, and told her that she should be “playing with dolls.”

Ionescu refused to take no for an answer, and instead set about recruiting classmates to sign up for the girls team.

“Having a twin brother who was in the same grade and had the ability to play on a team while I didn’t just didn’t sit right with me,” Ionescu recently told CNBC Make It while promoting her new partnership with BODYARMOR. “[Recruiting classmates] just seemed normal to me. I really wanted to play.”

The future WNBA champion was able to convince enough girls to join, ensuring that her school would have a team that season.

“We weren’t very good, but we got second place,” she told Make It. “So it’s better than no team.”

Reflecting on the experience years later, Ionescu said it was an early example of the resilience that has become one of her trademarks.

“It definitely shaped and kind of fueled who I am as an athlete,” Ionescu continued. “Never being satisfied with the result, in terms of the way they made that decision, and figuring out a way to get it done.”

The three-time WNBA All-Star said that at the time, she didn’t consider the impact and importance that having a team would have on her development as a player.

“When I was in it, I didn’t realize the gravity of how that was going to shape me and my career,” she said. Ionescu credited her parents, who fled Romania and settled in California before she was born, for raising her with strong values.

“Looking back I can see how those values and morals that my parents instilled in me from a young age, like being a go getter and not accepting the box people put you in, has worked out for me and helped shape who I am,” she said.

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