Maybe it's the change in seasons or the fact that I’m embarking on a new project, but lately I’ve been thinking about second acts. Our lives are full of them. New jobs, new relationships, changing careers, getting married, getting divorced, moving across the country or buying a house across the street. Each of these events turn into before and afters. Before the big event, and everything since. Second acts come with the hopeful anticipation of what could be, as well as a silent fear that things might not work out for the better.
This is the lens through which I view the transfer portal. Every player who enters their name is making a public declaration that they are trying something new – something exciting, but something scary. It’s easy for people to get caught up in the negativity of the transfer portal. The idea that it’s hard to get attached to a team when its players change every season, or that everything is now motivated by NIL and the dollar signs that come with it. And I get those critiques, but I also get that the push to try something new is innately human and college athletes are not immune to those thoughts and desires.
There’s also an element of courage that comes with transferring. Take Hailey Van Lith for example. She was a massive star at Louisville, wracking up points and Instagram followers while leading the Cardinals to two Elite Eights and one Final Four. But when Van Lith’s junior year ended she found herself on the cusp of a before and after. For outsiders it made zero sense for Van Lith to leave a perfect situation at Louisville, but for Van Lith, that was the problem. It was too perfect and she no longer felt challenged. She knew she’d reached her ceiling at Louisville, so she made her public declaration for change and transferred to LSU. It went terribly. But if she hadn’t made that leap, then Van Lith wouldn’t have gotten to the best version of herself, which came a year later after she made her final college stop at TCU. Van Lith took a risk that didn’t work out, and in turn opened herself up to a flood of criticism. That’s the difference between the second act of a prominent athlete and a second act for you or I, we get to do relatively unnoticed, and if it doesn’t work, we can simply pivot again. Take this newsletter, if it fails, I can simply do something else. For Van Lith, the perceived failure at LSU led to thousands of people ridiculing her on social media. That’s not a risk I have to face.
“I took my experience in the previous years and I learned from them," Van Lith told reporters last March. “I think some people go through things and they forget about it. I never forgot. I remembered what I learned in those low moments of my life.”
So after her low moments played out in front of a live audience, Van Lith once again found the courage to start over. Her third act made Van Lith a more complete player, one who could create for others, not just herself, and one that once again became desirable to WNBA teams.
Lauren Betts is another player who defied logic and entered the transfer portal. Players, especially No. 1 recruits with bright futures, just didn’t leave Stanford. It was virtually unheard of, and Betts, and her family, heard that often from outsiders after she entered her name in the portal. Betts’ time at Stanford was horrendous – she lost herself and fell into a deep depression that lingered during her first year at UCLA – yet Betts says she wouldn’t change it. Like Van Lith at LSU, Betts learned things about herself at Stanford and the struggles made her successful second act at UCLA all the sweeter.
“I learned a lot about how I can continue to get better,” she told me last winter. And how strong I am as well. I think that everything does truly happen for a reason, and If I didn't experience my freshman year, I don't think I'd appreciate all the stuff that I have now.”
There’s a lot to be learned from stories like Van Lith’s and Betts’. So when the season starts on November 4, I’ll have my eye on the second acts. Will Olivia Miles thrive at TCU? Will Chit-Chat Wright be embraced by Iowa as the program’s next big star? Will Jada Williams find her spark again at Iowa State? I can’t wait to see which success stories capture our attention. And I also can’t wait to see who fails. Because that means we get to watch them try again.