Interviews with athletes Amari Carter, Elizabeth Williams, and Chiaka Ogbogu on coronavirus

In this special episode, Amira interviews Arizona senior basketball star Amari Carter (2:04) about the abrupt end to her NCAA career, and how she's feeling.

Then, Lindsay talks with WNBA star Elizabeth Williams (17:07) and pro volleyball player Chiaka Ogbogu (39:13) about how the coronavirus impacted their professional seasons in Europe -- emotionally, physically, and financially.

Transcript

Lindsay: Hello and welcome to Burn It All Down, Lindsay Gibbs here. This isn’t your regular weekly group chat episode – that will be in your feed in a couple of days. But here at Burn It All Down, the co-hosts, we really want to use this time during the coronavirus pandemic to elevate the voices of women in sports who have been impacted, and so this week we simply have conducted too many interviews to all fit in one episode, so we’re giving you a bonus. In this episode you’re gonna hear 3 conversations: I talked with WNBA star Elizabeth Williams and pro volleyball player Chiaka Ogbogu, who are both in the middle of their professional seasons in Europe when the coronavirus really erupted on that continent. They both told me what that experience was like for them, how they made the decision to come back to the United States, and really how that will impact them financially.

Then my co-host, Dr. Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor of history and African American studies at Penn State University, has an interview with Arizona basketball player Amari Carter about what it feels like to have her final year of NCAA basketball end so abruptly. These are three really important conversations, we’re gonna start off with Amira’s conversation with Amari, and then you’ll hear from Elizabeth and then Chiaka. Thank you so much for listening, and for supporting us at patreon.com/burnitalldown. We really appreciate your help during this time, and enjoy this special show.

Amira: Alright, I am joined now by Amari Carter. I am so thrilled to have Amari on the show – I actually had the opportunity to have Amari as a student when she was at Penn State, and then she took her talents to Arizona, which is warmer, has a lot more sun than State College, and has had a terrific grad year out there. I wanted to hit up Amari to talk about the season that Arizona had that has been kind of lost in the shuffle of the abrupt end of the basketball season and the cancelling of March Madness, but then also what that looks like to have the tournament end so abruptly, or really never start, and what it means, especially for someone like Amari, who was in her grad year. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today, so first of all welcome, Amari, to Burn It All Down.

Amari: Hello, thank you for having me. 

Amira: Of course. So I just have to start – you guys have had a tremendous year, 24 and 7, 12 and 6 in the conference, a number of top 10 wins including an overtime win over Stanford who was #4 at the time, y’all really came out of nowhere and surprised a lot of people this year. What has it been like to be on this Arizona women’s basketball team for this season?

Amari: It’s been an amazing experience. I think in the very beginning of the season no one expected us to do what we did this season, we didn’t even start the season ranked. When we got our first ranking we were like, oh, we’re a good team. We kept moving up, and we’re like, oh, we’re a really good team. We finished non-conference undefeated and that was one of our goals we passed like okay, now it’s time to go into conference play, and conference play is really tough because we started our first three games on the road. The first conference game was Arizona State at Arizona State, a rivalry game, my first PAC-12 game, but it was really fun. That’s a lot to take in, and Penn State didn’t have rivals–

Amira: Right. [laughs]

Amari: So we never had a rivalry game. We’ve had big games, but it’s not the same. But that was just really fun, and it’s unfortunate that we didn’t get to finish it off the way we wanted to because we were gonna be in the tournament for the first time in…

Amira: Fifteen.

Amari: Yeah, like fifteen years or something crazy like that. We finished the season off with that big win over Stanford. We were gonna host probably the first two rounds, so we had so much to look forward to and it was just…It just sucks not to be able to get that.

Amira: Yeah. One of the things that stuck out to me when I really realized you guys had something special going on is I saw images of your fans, your home fans, that arena was packed. It really seemed like y’all had a really big fan base too.

Amari: Absolutely. Our fans were amazing all year. We just had a good basketball year, the community bought into what we had going, and they came up and supported us. I met some fans who said they were recruiting fans to come to games that didn’t even know anything about basketball, they just wanted to bring people to be in a fun environment, and that was really cool. We had big games where we had over 10,000 fans, that’s not very common in women’s basketball. Just the support, like, Tucson isn’t really a basketball town, and when our team started producing and started winning games, big games, even the games we were supposed to win, it was still a fun environment and I think the fans really bought into that.

Amira: Yeah. I remember…It’s hard now to look back, but things progressed really fast and originally it was just the announcement that they were gonna move and limit and control fan attendance, and I remember when they announced that thinking about the impact that it would have to play a game with no fans in front of empty seats, and then very quickly from there it was followed up by an announcement that the entire tournament had been cancelled. What was your immediate reaction when you heard that news?

Amari: When it was first announced that there would be no fans, it was disappointing. I was upset, personally, I was like, this is my first tournament, this is our first tournament in a long time, most of us, a lot of us had never been in a tournament, this will be our experience. So that was disappointing and like, okay, I’ll deal with this, it’s fine, you’ll still be there, still play. And then they announced that we weren’t gonna be playing at all, they cancelled the tournament, and it was just…I didn’t know how to feel. Me and some other seniors just didn’t know what we were thinking at the moment. It was so raw, the emotions, and we were actually on our way to practice. We were still in the gym and things, just in case, because you never know. It was probably less than ten minutes before we walked into practice and we found out, and then we came in and we sat and we talked as a team, and it was just…I think a lot of us were trying to process it in that moment, because it was so new. Literally ten minuets they announced it before we were supposed to go in the gym. It was just such a…[sighs] like, raw, emotional time.

Amira: Yeah. It still feels a bit surreal.

Amari: Yeah, I still don’t believe this is happening.

Amira: We talked a little bit about this…It’s so hard, especially with basketball, especially when anything can happen in March. I know that we’ve seen since then a lot of people eager to crown Oregon saying this was their year, because of Sabrina. Dawn Staley had a bone to pick with that because they’ve been ranked #1, but really the loss of the tournament takes away those Cinderella stories, teams who’ve been so hot, who are writing their own history. I think you guys needed two more wins for an all-time school record for the most wins in a season. That’s kind of what we miss from the tournament is those other stories that have yet to be written, and now we have no idea what could’ve happened.

Amari: Yeah, it’s very surreal. I never thought it would end this way. I thought it would be our team…The possibilities would’ve been our team not being good enough to make the tournament, or a bunch of injuries, something very tangible or something you could control and this is…I think it hurts more because you can’t control it, so you just have to deal with it. I think that’s the biggest thing.

Amira: You know, the NCAA is talking – they talk all the time…But one of the things that they are thinking about is how to change eligibility. A lot of it will only affect spring sports, so for a lot of people finishing up winter sports, this is it, and especially for seniors, you know…I saw your coach, Adia Barnes, who’s had an amazing season, right? Just coach of the year running, just phenomenal coach, but Scott Van Pelt was soliciting photos of seniors to celebrate senior night for those who didn’t get them, and she said about the group of y’all on the team, “This group was about to lead us to our first NCAA Tournament in 15 years. Not only that, we were more than likely going to host the first two rounds after winning 24 games this season. We needed just 2 more wins to break the school record! An incredible group of young women.” And shouted y’all out to have your senior night. Particularly for you, Amari, who was in their grad year, to have your collegiate career end like this seems particularly burdensome. 

Amari: Oh yeah, for sure. I’m still upset about, still sad about it. It still hurts. Thinking about college basketball and that team, I don’t think I’ll ever look at it the same, because it hurts, but yeah. I think it hurts a little more because I wasn’t gonna come back and play basketball at a collegiate level, after my fourth year I graduated from Penn State, I was done. I was looking for jobs, I was going on with the rest of my life. So when I did decided to come back I wanted to come back to a program that I knew was gonna do something special, and we did. To not have the final ending, not to have that final buzzer go off, I think that’s something that I’ll always think about, about this time.

Amira: And I think one of the things that’s so difficult is we’re facing this unprecedented pandemic and we’re dealing with lives on the line and we’re dealing with these really heavy things, but there’s all of this unprocessed grief that we don’t get to name – being upset about sports, right? Being upset about the proms or the commencement or even the big trips people had planned, they seem insignificant in the face of thinking about life and death but they are no less painful. That’s its own kind of grief, of all the things that were upended and interrupted by this, so I think we’re definitely trying to hold space for these other feelings because I think it’s really weighing on people, it’s really contributing to mental health issues to just people who have anxiety and depression, because it’s not even about a return to normalcy but it’s about mourning a range of things, including lost opportunity.

Amari: Yeah. I agree, it’s so oppressive and we have no idea what to do. Everything’s shut down, you can’t even be in the same spaces with a lot of people. Right before that practice when it was announced was the last time my whole team was together in one spot. I don’t think we’ll ever be in the same space ever again. That’s crazy to think about. We spend so many days in a row traveling, playing, practicing, meetings, food, meals, all these things, you’ll never…That's the last memory you have of that group. I take it back, we had one more meal, but that was the last time we’ll probably ever be together in one space. That’s a lot to process, having your basketball career end, that’s a lot to process in itself, to end so abruptly and so out of your control, that’s a lot to process. People have dreams of playing processionally, you don’t know where that’s gonna go. The NBA, WNBA, overseas leagues, don't know what it’s gonna look like or how they’re gonna operate. So it’s just a lot to process in that we don’t know. We’re living right in the moment. How do you plan for certain things? Do I apply for a job, do I look for  an agent? Things like that, there’s a lot of athletes in that position right now. I think it’s unfair for people to say that sports, athletes should not focus on the disappointment of the sport ending, because a lot of people trained through blood, sweat and tears for their sport that you watch on ESPN, that you watch and come to games for, so really it’s on you to show a little empathy, if anything.

Amira: Yeah, I mean that’s the thing. Usually when I talk to college athletes I ask what’s next for you, what’s your next steps, but like you just said, it’s too hard to even think about next week, mind you, next month, next year. We don’t know what that looks like. It’s also just this uncertainly of your future, but yeah, it’s tough.

Amari: Yeah, that uncertainty is anxiety-inducing, like how do you plan for something when you have every week or every couple of days another shutdown, another restriction, travel bans. There’s so many things to plan for, and you just don’t know.

Amira: Exactly. Well, I know how incredible you are so even though things are uncertain I know that you have the skills and the mental fortitude to navigate this, so we’ll all be here cheering you on. I’m personally always in your corner, but I am sorry that this season ended like it did. I’m so pleased you had the run you had and a terrific collegiate career. We’ll always keep playing highlights, we’ll keep trying to celebrate and hold space for the abruptly ended possibilities that we never got to see, but keep doing what you do, and take care.

Amari: Thank you, I will.

Lindsay: Hi everyone, Lindsay here, joining one of our favorite recurring guests here, Elizabeth Williams. She is a WNBA All Star and Euro League star as well and has just made it back stateside after being kind of caught in between seasons with the Euro League so, Elizabeth, thank you so much for coming and talking to us today. How are you feeling?

Elizabeth: Feeling good, just trying to adjust to being back stateside. Yeah.

Lindsay: So tell us what team you were on and what you were doing in Europe besides just having a billion blocks per game, which I kept seeing highlight of all the time. 

Elizabeth: Queen of the blocks. Yeah, so this overseas season I was playing for Fenerbahçe in Istanbul, Turkey. We had just finished up Turkish Cup, that was March 3-7, and then we were just playing, wrapping up Euro League, and had some Turkish League games as well. We played our last Euro League game on the 11th, that was the first game of the quarterfinals, and then not long after that Euro League announced they would be suspending and then we actually played Turkish League that weekend but we played with no fans and then this week Turkish League finally announced that on Wednesday or Thursday they finally announced the league would be suspended, so we all hopped on flights on Friday back, because we heard the US might be shutting borders, so everyone was kind of scrambling. So yeah, now I’m back in Atlanta.

Lindsay: So just so people understand, because I think it can get confusing between the different leagues and Euro league, can you explain a bit about how the system over in Europe for basketball works? When you’re kind of playing in two leagues concurrently.

Elizabeth: Yeah, so teams will play in their domestic league, we play in Turkish League, and then a couple of teams will play in either Euro League or Euro Cup and in that case you’re competing with other teams throughout Europe. So Euro League games are once a week and Turkish League games are once a week. Some teams play twice a week, and then if your team is in Euro Cup or Euro League you’re only playing once a week with your domestic league.

Lindsay: Oh wow, okay. So at what point did it hit over there, in Turkey, did you start paying attention to the coronavirus updates and start thinking this might actually impact me personally and this league. When did you start, was it February, was it not til March?

Elizabeth: Um, I didn’t think it would affect the league until the NBA announced their suspension, I think that’s when all the leagues kind of realized oh, maybe something’s gonna shift or change. But Turkey in particular was really late to the party. Partially because they were saying, hey, we don’t really have a lot of cases here. They were really strict about their borders with Italy and China and cancelling those flights. Generally their government wasn’t super concerned, and our league ended up being the last one to be cancelled along with Russian League and I think British League or something. But me personally I think once the NBA announced their suspension I was like, well, now this is more of a possibility. Obviously Euro League soon followed and yeah…

Lindsay: How scary is it to…I mean, it’s been scary enough I know for me to be just following these updates and stuff, and I’m in DC in the home where I live full time, in the country – how hard is it to also be following those updates when you’re also hearing rumors about Trump randomly announcing that the flights might all be cancelled? Is there a sense of panic, does it make it harder to be so far away from home?

Elizabeth: It makes it harder because I try really hard to…It’s hard to watch him, but I try to watch the messages so I at least have some idea of what’s going on because sometimes it’s hard to follow things on Twitter when you’re 7 or 8 hours ahead, but luckily those press conferences were usually at a time of day when I could try to watch and keep up, so I try to tell my teammates hey, this is what’s going on. And then when that first travel ban happened, people were starting to scramble, and we technically still had games, so people weren’t really leaving. Some people wanted to leave and Turkish League was like, no, we’re playing games! Yeah, it was really weird. It was a mess.

Lindsay: So you’re told you can’t leave or you’ll be breaking your contract?

Elizabeth: Well, at that point my agent reached out to me, Alison reached out to me as well as the Turkish agent, and the Turkish agent was trying to reassure that we’re safe and our health is #1 and we’re fine, and then Alison was just saying if you wanna leave we can talk to the club and make that happen. But at that point we were just waiting on the Turkish federation to make it official, we didn’t just wanna bounce and the team would have a game the next day, but other players in Turkey just left anyway, it was kind of a personal choice.

Lindsay: What was it like playing the games with no fans?

Elizabeth: Uh, that weird, especially because we were playing Gala and they’re our rivals, so that game’s usually insane. The fans, there’s crazy security, apparently last year the fans were throwing bottles at Kelsey Plum…

Lindsay: Oh my god! That’s maybe too far! [laughs]

Elizabeth: Yeah, but that game’s always crazy. When we played it at home for the first half of the season it was standing room only, just insane. To play that game with no fans was kind of awkward initially because when you’re going through warmups it’s almost like a scrimmage because you’re used to hearing all the fans and stuff screaming, but then obviously you start and you understand the competitiveness of the game. There are moments in the game when things get heated but there’s no fan reaction, so it’s really hard to feel like you’re in this rivalry game environment.

Lindsay: Yeah, I can’t even fathom. How much during all of this are you in touch with other WNBA players? I know there's some in Italy where of course the virus was really and still is really spreading fast and dangerous; of course there have been players in China. How much are the WNBA players in touch with one another throughout this time?

Elizabeth: I think we, in general when we’re overseas, we try to talk to each other a lot and communicate, these types of things, and then I obviously was still really involved with the AC and trying to be on calls and figure out what’s happening with the league and especially once the NBA announced what they were doing, it was like, what’s gonna happen with us? All that kind of stuff. I was talking to those players, and then overseas the people who were playing in Euro League, we were just trying to figure out what the next steps was. Some leagues like Poland for example just said the season was completely cancelled, and then other leagues like France who have teams in Euro League including some of the men’s teams, they were like, alright, we’re suspended until the first week of April. And then players were saying, well, kids are gonna be out of school until at least April 7th, so they don’t know if it’s gonna start after that. All of us were kind of talking to each other and confused as to what’s actually gonna happen.

Lindsay: Yeah, it sounds like just absolute madness. I guess it’s a little bit different for you all, I’ve been taking to some LPGA and WTA players who of course are paid by the tournament, based off of winnings, so when these tournaments are cancelled those opportunities for money go away. Contract-wise though I know a lot of players make the bulk of their money overseas, although thanks to the work of you all and the collective bargaining agreement that’s changing a little bit. But how much is the financial picture a factor in wanting to earn the most of that paycheck you possibly can? And I’ve read in a few places that there’s some concern that in a few of the smaller leagues that they’ll use this as an excuse maybe not to pay at all, because the seasons didn’t get finished. How much of this is the contract and financial picture a factor?

Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s a huge part of it. We make a lot of our bonus money around now, you know, like Euro League final four, people make bonuses, league championship playoffs, so a lot of players make a good amount of money around this time of year. That’s money that I don’t think teams are gonna pay based on their current standing. And then they’re probably gonna argue that since they’re out of work the sponsors are not working, so they’re not generating any money to basically pay us. It’s gonna be interesting because at the end of the day I think FIBA is gonna be the ultimate decider as far as what teams are going to have to pay, because I don’t think there’s anything contractually that considers this type of crazy circumstance.

Lindsay: Right, yeah.

Elizabeth: So it’s gonna be like team preference and then for the teams that try to fight I think FIBA’s gonna make a final decision on how much they actually have to pay everybody.

Lindsay: That’s so scary though. And then of course you get, here, we don’t know when sports are gonna return. There’s all the focus has been on the NBA and whether or not they’re gonna be able to salvage any of the season, but of course if they do try and salvage the season that could very easily run into WNBA season and there are a lot of teams that share arenas and it gets really complicated really quickly. It doesn’t look like it’s officially official but that the Olympics will be at least postponed though we don’t know, like I said, anything more concrete than that, but what’s the latest that you’re hearing about the season and how involved is the executive committee in these ongoing conversations?

Elizabeth: Yeah, as far as I know, the Olympics are being postponed.

Lindsay: Okay, yeah.

Elizabeth: Because I’m pretty sure we got an email…I haven’t checked, I saw the email in my inbox from Carol–

Lindsay: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I didn’t see what it was about. [laughs] But yeah, as far as the W season, like you said, there are teams that share facilities and arenas with NBA teams, so that’s gonna create some more conflict. I think with the Olympics being postponed it might actually help us a little bit, because we might end up using that break that was initially in the schedule to move things around if things start later, but it’s still up in the air. We had a call with Cathy last week but there wasn’t really…A lot of it was “let’s wait and see.” Because we’re in that awkward place right now where you just have to wait and see. But I know that the league really wants to make sure that we have a season, so yeah

Lindsay: Yeah, because you were just coming off of…I was hoping to have you on just to talk about the CBA, and then all of this stuff happened, so it feels like that was news from four years ago the way this news cycle is going! But you did, I mean, you write about this huge collective bargaining agreement, and all this momentum. How do you think that will impact the league if there was a situation where the season couldn’t happen? 

Elizabeth: Oh yeah, that would be really devastating. We pushed so hard with the league to make sure we could get an agreement out that was really great for both sides and we did have a lot of momentum, so hopefully we can make something out of it. Hopefully whether games start later, or even if we actually do start on time but just have to move things around, I think it would be really important to have some live sport back. But more specifically us, how we’ve been pushing for women’s empowerment and making that big deal happen.

Lindsay: Yeah, there’s momentum and you don’t want to lose that. Obviously health and safety comes first, but it’s hard. I agree, I would be devastated, for sure, if that didn’t happen. So, how are you as athletes, from what I hear, schedules and consistency mean a lot. How are you dealing with having to stay inside? I’m guessing you don’t have a basketball court in your apartment, though that would be great if you did! But how are you dealing with just the thought of being in this social distancing world for a month or two, and being an elite athlete and needing to stay in game shape?

Elizabeth: Yeah, actually right now I’m just using this time to chill.

Lindsay: Great. [laughs]

Elizabeth: We are coming off of Euro League and Turkish League games, so I’m not really doing much of anything, which is a first. So I’m kind of trying to get used to that. I’m trying to do stuff in the house that I’ve been putting off like organizing the office and doing things that I’m like, ahh, I’ll do it later! So that’s…I don’t know, it’s just different. It’s weird, like you said, not having a schedule. I tend to make up a schedule whether it’s like at this time I’m gonna do laundry and then at this time I’m gonna work on a puzzle…

Lindsay: [laughs] you schedule puzzle time, that’s perfect.

Elizabeth: Some things just so I don’t feel like I’m wasting the day away, even though I am kind of wasting the day away.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Elizabeth: But it’s technically only really like day 3 of quarantine for me, so if you ask me on Friday or Saturday I might be banging my head against the wall.

Lindsay: You’re not going quite as mad as I am yet. Well, okay, a couple of fun questions to end this with: free agency was wild this year! Did you expect it to be that exciting and what do you think about this Atlanta team?

Elizabeth: Yeah, I was not expecting any of that at all. I don’t know. Free agency, there’s always moves, it’s fine, whatever. But I felt like it was just day after day, one thing after another, just trades…So yeah, it was a lot. But yeah, our team has a really different look. Obviously we have some of the same pieces but I think it’s a lot more different than people would expect, but I think coach did a good job of bringing in people and piece she felt like we were lacking in or could be better in, so it should be exciting. And we’re gonna be in a new arena, new logo, all these new things, so I think just generally a new feel. 

Lindsay: Have you been able to reach out to any of your new teammates, I guess Courtney and Glory and Kalani I think are the three big names…I’m sure I’m missing a billion people. Have you had any chance to talk to anyone?

Elizabeth: Well Courtney was playing in Turkey, so we saw each other a number of times. We joked, like “Hey, teammate!” 

Lindsay: Oh, that’s good. 

Elizabeth: We played them in the finals of Turkish Cup too, so we talked a little bit then. And then I don’t know if I talked to Glory after…I saw Glory when we played them for Euro League, but I don’t think at that point that had happened. But we have our group chat with the players, so we’ve all said hey.

Lindsay: So you’re gonna figure it out from there. I guess finally, are you now that you have this downtime, are there any specific shows that you’re looking forward to binging? Movies you’re looking forward to binging, now that you’ve got a little time to do that?

Elizabeth: Um, so I watched like 7 seasons of Shameless – so I’m gonna start that again. 

Lindsay: I’ve never seen that. I guess you like it, you’re saying it’s good?

Elizabeth: Yeah. It’s different. Sometimes it’s a lot! But I like the root of the show. 

Lindsay: Okay, gotcha.

Elizabeth: I always watch Jeopardy and now that it’s on Netflix I’ve been binging that.

Lindsay: I think that’s such an Elizabeth Williams thing to binge, that’s amazing, I love that.

Elizabeth: You don’t actually have to watch it, you can just listen. So I can be in the kitchen or doing something else and it can just be in the background.

Lindsay: Perfect, just some noise. Alright. Well listen, thank you so much for joining us, I’m really glad that you got back stateside and back in Atlanta. Hopefully, hopefully we will be seeing you playing basketball in the WNBA sooner rather than later, and thanks for joining us. 

Elizabeth: Thanks for having me.

Lindsay: Hi, Lindsay Gibbs here. Thank you flamethrowers for listening to Burn It All Down during this wild time; hopefully we are keeping you entertained as you are practicing social distancing. A very special guest with us here today: we have Chiaka Ogbogu who is a professional volleyball player and a member of our US national team. She was a star at the University of Texas and we’re just so appreciative that Chiaka has joined us today to talk a little bit about how the coronavirus has impacted her life. Thank you so much for being here.

Chiaka: Hi, thank you for having me!

Lindsay: So there is no professional league, obviously, in the United States for women’s professional volleyball right now. So you play overseas, which we’re used to talking about on this podcast, we talk a lot about overseas basketball players, and this past year you were playing overseas in Italy. How did that opportunity come about? Just tell us a little bit about how you got to Italy to play professionally.

Chiaka: Yeah, of course. A little background, as you mentioned, there is no domestic league in the States so fortunately and unfortunately for a lot of us who do aspire to play professionally in volleyball we have to play overseas in order to continue our careers. For me that opportunity happened as soon as I graduated the University of Texas. I was a winter graduate so that presented me the opportunity – this was also in 2017 – to leave in January to continue my career to play overseas. This past season specifically the contract was presented to me by my agent while I was playing in Poland, so this was technically my 3rd season overseas. A really notable team, I was obviously really excited to play for them, and it’s really disheartening to just see how the country is being impacted by coronavirus, but also just sports and women in sports and yeah, unfortunately my time ended for personal reasons with this team, but that’s a little background on overseas playing.

Lindsay: So when did you start with this team in Italy?

Chiaka: I started with them in October.

Lindsay: Okay.

Chiaka: Generally professional seasons overseas start around September, October, and end anywhere around April to May.

Lindsay: We all started to hear a little bit about the coronavirus, if you’re paying really close attention to the news, about it being in China around the beginning of this year. When did you start hearing about it and when you first heard about it being in China did you think it would have any impact on your life?

Chiaka: I would say that for us we started hearing rumblings about it in January, and that’s crazy for me specially and my team, we were actually in China in early December–

Lindsay: Oh, wow.

Chiaka: –competing. Yeah, now that I look back and think about it that’s insane, a pure coincidence. It’s unreal. So yeah, our team started hearing rumblings about it in January, I think, like most of the country, we kind of saw it as a distant issue, never expected it obviously to grow to the levels that it’s grown to and impact so many people, so we had heard about it. I think February is when we understood that this was probably leading to be a global crisis and that’s when we started hearing news about there being cases in Italy.

Lindsay: At this point were you getting any guidance from your coaches or the team or leaders of the team, the league itself, about safety precautions and the disease, or were you just finding out all of your information from the news?

Chiaka: I would say mid-February the information that was presented to us was kind of vague, just that there’s kind of cases of a flu-like virus that have been going around in Italy and so the advice that was given to us was to make sure that we’re not in the super touristy heavily populated areas for the time being. So for me and the city where I was located, Conegliano, is 40 miles north of Venice, so Venice is typically where I would spend my off-days, particularly if I had guests, so that happened to be at that time, and I think still now, the most affected area in Italy. 

Lindsay: Oh wow. So it immediately impacted your life. We’re hearing a lot about how quickly things spread in Italy, a lot of people are telling us in the United States that we’re a few weeks behind that. What did you see personally once things started to spread and the disease started to escalate?

Chiaka: Yeah, personally for me being a volleyball player I think just the messaging about basic hygiene started to present itself more.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Chiaka: We typically would be like, well, I hope we’re all washing our hands right now! I hope we’re practicing basic hygiene, but just they kept reiterating that message. When things started to get real for me is when we had our first cancellation of matches the league played. I remember, I believe it was around February 23rd we were supposed to play a match and they cancelled that match the morning of, I remember. I think the team had already driven 6 hours to us anyways, I felt so bad for them.

Lindsay: Oh wow.

Chiaka: Yeah. That’s when things started to get real. And then we resumed play behind closed doors March 7th, and then I remember we were supposed to play a few other games March 8th and the next day they suspended the league indefinitely, so that’s kind of when I started to realize that yeah, this is definitely going to not only impact us but the people in this country in general. Up until 2-3 weeks ago when I was in Italy I thought everything kind of still looked normal even though I understood that a lot of things were started to get cancelled, school and things like that, but yeah, until they started closing everything except supermarkets and pharmacies it honestly looked relatively normal.

Lindsay: So your team did play one game without fans, one match without fans, right? 

Chiaka: Yeah, we played one.

Lindsay: What was that experience like?

Chiaka: Ahh, it was bizarre. 

Lindsay: Yeah.

Chiaka: I think we all understood that it was precautionary measures and we completely appreciated that but yeah, it’s just not how you envision yourself playing a game. I think part of sports is not only what the athletes do on the court or field but it’s the entire engagement of the fans and staff and just not having that arena packed, especially the gym that we played in they typically sell out matches, just not having that engagement felt a little off. It honestly felt more like a friendly match or practice versus a game that counts towards points, stuff like that.

Lindsay: Yeah, so at what point did you decide…So the league is suspended, what were your options at that point? I assume one option would be to stay there until things maybe return to normal if that’s possible. What were your options and what made you decide to come back to Texas?

Chiaka: Yeah, so technically it was a government mandated decree that all sporting events, live events, all types of public event that would gather a lot of people be suspended until April 3rd. So when we got this news around March 8th that everything would be suspended for the next month obviously one of the options was just to stay there and see how things go, and at that point nothing had really been completely shut down. Schools were shut down obviously, concerts, sporting events, all that stuff is cancelled, but our day to day still seemed relatively normal, we were still practicing.

I think when it got to the point where the government obviously issued everyone to social distance and be self-quarantined and businesses and other establishments started to close, I think that’s when things got a little scary for me. I was weighing my options with my agent and seeing that, at the time, America hadn’t been hit so hard, and thinking about my family and just wanting to essentially be home with my family and the people that care about me and support me and just wanting to embrace that moment a little bit, also knowing that things in Italy had been pretty tough and although everyone is very hopeful, just hearing every day the numbers escalating just made me really sad. At that point in time being there wasn’t necessarily good for my mental wellbeing. 

Lindsay: Yeah. It’s so hard to be away from loved ones anyways, I would assume.

Chiaka: Yeah.

Lindsay: And then when there’s a crisis even more so. So when you decided, was this before or after Trump had announced that there was some sort of travel ban from Europe?

Chiaka: This was after.

Lindsay: Okay.

Chiaka: I had thought about it before but, funny story, my boyfriend called me, it is 2:30 central eastern European time, whatever, and he is freaking out, he’s like, Trump just issued this travel ban, they’re closing down the borders, etc, etc, and it’s 2:30 in the morning, I’m already disoriented. I’m freaking out. 

Lindsay: Oh my god.

Chiaka: I start looking at my phone and I’m getting all these messages and missed calls from people who are also trying to inform me of this and I’m reaching out to other Americans who are playing in the league and just asking – obviously everyone’s asleep at this point – so yeah, I basically stayed up from 2:30 to the rest of the morning, I remember having weights and practice that morning too, just trying to process everything, and I think that day, although I hadn’t made my final decision, for my health whether that’s physical or mental, I don’t think I can carry on like this here.

Lindsay: Right. Now, how did this impact your contract and everything, business wise for you, were you breaking a contract, were you giving up money? What goes into making that decision?

Chiaka: Yeah, those are options I definitely had to think about. Essentially right now because the league has not been officially canceled, they’re still preparing to continue on hopefully after April 3rd, I essentially terminated my contract.

Lindsay: Okay. And that’s gotta be a tough decision because like you said this was a big league, one of the premier leagues that you were a part of?

Chiaka: Yes, definitely. Not only that, just business aside, I think for me it was difficult because I had really grown to love the entire organization I played for, especially the players and the staff and I knew that leaving obviously would not necessarily disrupt everything we’d been working on but in a sense, yes, because we started the season with 14 players and having 1 or 2 less just completely impacts the rest of the season. But I definitely had to weigh the business side of it as well, but for me, just being able to be with my family and my boyfriend during this time and also just being able to have more of a peace of mind was for me for valuable than the monetary value. 

Lindsay: That makes a lot of sense. Of course, volleyball is a sport that has in the past decade overtaken women’s basketball for participation numbers and it feels like it’s on the upward track and more people have been paying attention to women’s professional leagues here in the US lately. We now have a few established…and I wrote for the newsletter I write, Power Plays, one of my predictions going into the year was just what a big year it was going to be for volleyball since the sport has increased attention at the Olympics, and now we’re faced with a situation where we don’t know if there’e going to be an Olympics, we don’t know if it’ll be postponed, there’s so many question marks. I wanted to ask you, because you play for the US team: what have you heard and how has this impacted the national team so far?

Chiaka: Yeah, basically from what I’ve been told the IOC is continuing on their plans to host the Olympics in Japan, but obviously excluding any other major crises that are going on, but as far as I know they’re trying to continue hosting the Olympics. I know that a couple of governing bodies, national teams, have spoken out in hopes to obviously postpone the Olympics in light of everything that’s going on. I think for us right now, our national team is based in Anaheim, California, and I’m sure you’ve also heard right now that California is on a mandated self-quarantine, I think that’s the right language, I’m not sure, until I believe they said April 19th. So obviously that affects the girls who are now training in the gym. There are girls whose pro-seasons ended early based on how that’s just how their league happened or injuries or whatever who are training in Anaheim, so my heart goes out to them too because obviously not all of them are from California, so to have to move away from their homes to train and then realize that this situation is very serious and now they don’t have the space or avenue to train has to be tough.

And then on top of that you’re away from your family and loved ones…So as far as our national team we’re all trying to stay as positive as we can and check in on each other. I’ve definitely received a lot of love and support from my teammates and I’m hoping to do the same for them during this time, and I think right now just how can we keep our minds and bodies as in shape and sharp as we can in this time. There are a lot of unknown variables but yeah, there’s a lot we can’t control and we need to just see what the IOC ultimately decides.

Lindsay: Do you have any way to train right now, or is it just kind of working on your general fitness levels?

Chiaka: I think it’s just working on our general fitness levels. I think volleyball’s unique because…I guess I would compare it to working on your shots if you had a hoop, if you’re in your backyard of neighborhood court it’s a little different, but us playing volleyball, an indoor sport, it makes it a little more difficult to hone in on specific skills. I mean, there are things you can do in your home like pass a ball against the wall but there are certain things that you kind of need another player or the equipment to do specific skills. But yeah, I think right now most of us are just focusing on general fitness.

Lindsay: I hate to even put this out there, but what would the impact be on women’s volleyball if these Olympics are cancelled? And how much do you think that hurts the sport overall?

Chiaka: I’ve thought about this, I thought about the Olympics being canceled, which I hope at most will be postponed. For women’s volleyball, I think right now there’s a big buzz for women’s volleyball. I’m pretty sure they’re saying volleyball is the fastest growing women’s youth sport right now.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Chiaka: Which is amazing, so with all that attention we’ve been garnering overall with volleyball I think the Olympic stage honestly is just the biggest stage for volleyball to be seen in this country. We don’t have the luxury obviously of having our own league, so this is kind of like our chance to showcase the sport and obviously showcase the sport at the highest level. For that not to happen would possibly hurt our chances of getting a league in America sooner, but yeah, again, that’s something out of our control.

Lindsay: Yeah, because obviously we all want to do what’s best for the health and safety of the world–

Chiaka: Definitely.

Lindsay: –but it’s tough when these decisions, because the Olympics are such a huge opportunity for women’s sports, I think the impact of such a decision could disproportionately impact women’s sports as well, especially sports like volleyball that are really trying to capitalize on this momentum that is gaining on the grassroots level. Well listen, thank you so much for joining Burn It All Down, and I hope the next time we talk to you it’s gonna be good news, we’re gonna be talking about the Olympics, we’re gonna be talking about your continued pro career, and we’re gonna be telling everyone how to watch you and cheer you on. For now, what’s the best way to follow you, any social media accounts or anything that you wanna plug? 

Chiaka: Sure – right now I’m on Twitter, my handle is @ChiakaOgbogu, just my first and last name. You can also find me on Instagram @Chiaka11. You’ll probably find me because I’m sure there’s not a lot of Chiakas on Instagram or Twitter, so…

Lindsay: Awesome. Look, I think social media’s all we’ve got right now, so!..Thank you so much for joining the show, we really appreciate it.

Chiaka: Thanks for having me, I appreciate it. Love it. I hope you’re staying safe and sane and hopefully like you said we’ll have better news.