Aaliyah Alexander and Jamie Loera may have grown up in different cities, but both shared the formative experience of watching their parents and older sisters play basketball throughout their whole childhood.
A love for the sport awakened within them back then, and today, as members of the Eastern Washington University Women’s basketball team, the two of them have been key players in a record shattering season and participated in outreach to become role models for other young girls in the community.
This Women’s History Month, The Easterner is sitting down with various women across campus and shining a spotlight on their accomplishments. This week, women’s basketball guards Alexander and Loera share their stories.
Alexander, an exercise science major, and Loera, a graduate student studying organizational leadership, both grew up in what they refer to as “basketball families,” with parents and older siblings who all played the game.
“I just kind of developed that love for the game at a really young age,” Loera said. “Just being able to follow in [my family’s] footsteps -I learned a lot from them and just kind of wanted to take the game to the next level.”
Alexander had a similar story, noting that her mom, Dianne (Williams) Alexander, who used to play basketball at the University of Washington, and her older sister were particularly large role models for her. Now, both Alexander and Loera have been behind some stirring accomplishments themselves.
“They are the heart and soul of the team. Whether it’s points or rebounds or anything like that, they’re always coming in clutch,” said Matthew Kushar, Assistant Director of Athletics Communications at EWU.
So far in the season, the EWU women’s basketball team as a whole has surpassed their previous record of 14 wins in the Big Sky conference with 16, and an overall count of 26 wins. Though Loera and Alexander are ranked as some of the top athletes in the conference in terms of scoring this season, with a 13.3 and 15.0 point average, respectively, they also contribute greatly to the team via assists. Alexander has an average of 1.4 assists per game, while Loera boasts a whopping 5.5.
“They’re up there [in the Big Sky Conference]. But I think most important is to recognize their ability to be selfless. They get all these stats while being really good teammates and distributing the ball and taking care of the other people on our team,” their coach, Joddie Gleason, said. “They’re really good leaders that people want to follow.”
Things haven’t always been smooth sailing for the two, though. When Alexander was a freshman, she tore her ACL and had to sit out of games for a year.
“Just being able to sit back and cheer on my teammates and be kind of that vocal leader that year, and then persevering and working back and getting healthy with my knee [was an area I grew in],” Alexander said. “There’s a lot of different variables in basketball. It’s kind of why I like it so much – you can really see the growth as a person.”
Loera said one of her first struggles with the sport was when she first moved to Arizona for her undergraduate studies and had to develop personal independence while also dreaming of becoming an elite athlete. Being away from family and experiencing performance limiting injuries were just a few setbacks during this time for her.
“As far as work ethic goes, training, discipline, school, taking care of yourself, I think there’s a lot of ways that a lot of athletes can struggle with those,” Loera said. “I think there’s so many ways that you can grow being an athlete, and for me, [moving] was just kind of one of the maturing stages of my growth.”
Despite the work that many women in sports put into themselves and their teams, Loera said that oftentimes their accomplishments are not appreciated.
“I think that especially at Eastern Washington University, you’ll see a lot of students kind of focus more on the men’s side. We’ve been so successful this year, we’ve definitely gotten a lot more recognition, but yeah. All across the country you’ll see a lot of the female athletes in general will get overlooked,” said Loera. “What’s really special about our team is that we don’t really focus on that negativity.”
Next week, EWU will participate in the Big Sky Championship. The winner of the brackets for both men’s and women’s teams will be eligible for participation in the national March Madness competition. Alexander and Loera described being in their positions as athletes as “a blessing.”
“It’s just a super huge blessing to have this platform. And there are a lot of people that look up to you, and I think it’s huge for individuals in basketball to be able to look up at a team and say, OK, that player reminds me of myself,” said Alexander. “Just being able to look at someone and be like, OK, she’s kind of doing what I want to do. I think that is huge. And when we do have this platform and use it in the right way, I think we can influence and encourage a lot of younger athletes to continue the sport.”
By age 14, many girls drop out of sports at around twice the rate that boys do, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. This statistic is something the women’s basketball team has been trying to change.
“We really try to be the reason why somebody will stay in the sport, because so many young girls drop out at an alarming rate,” said Gleason. “ We have clinics, we go to schools, we have autographs, they’re being really welcoming and open. We had a couple of schools come out last weekend and their coaches were just overwhelmed with the amount of individual attention our players will give these girls, and a lot of these girls are just starting to play.”
When talking about what inspires them to continue on with basketball even through hardships, Loera and Alexander both said it was the sisterhood that they shared with their teammates, and a love for the basketball program as a whole. Gleason said that this bond between the players is a key part of their success.
“This team is a really special group that is breaking records and making history on the court. But I think that most importantly, they’re just great women who champion women,” Gleason said. “They’re each other’s biggest fans, and women supporting women is something that is ultimately one of our biggest responsibilities.”
