On this episode of Listen Up, Bailey is joined by Isis Young former college basketball player who recently signed a pro contract to play in Germany for the Saarlouis Royals. They discuss the unique journey of Isis playing at four different college programs while also getting a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism. Isis touches on the impact two knee surgeries had on her basketball career and what helped her get back on the court along the way. Plus, they chat about what her expectations are for Germany and how there is someone already there waiting to show her the lay of the land. Listen Up! 

Read the transcript of the video below.

Bailey Arredondo:

All right, okay, here we go. Welcome back to another edition of Listen Up, brought to you by Stack Sports, and today we are joined by Isis Young, former Syracuse, Florida, Fordham, Siena women’s college basketball player. She also broadcast a variety of basketball games throughout the East Coast, and now gets a chance, a crack at professional basketball in Germany for the Saarlouis Royals. Isis, thank you for taking the time today. Have you been to Germany?

Isis Young:

Hey, thanks for having me, one. Two, I have not been to Germany, but coolest fact ever, my little brother is a professional soccer player in Germany. He has been so for four years, so I have somewhat of a connection to Germany, so to speak. He will become my official translator once I get over there. He’s fully aware and not really excited about the job, but that’s what it’s going to be. But yeah, so I know nothing about Germany except what I know about him and following his team.

Bailey Arredondo:

So what does he told you about Germany?

Isis Young:

He’s told me that if you order fish, you got to be specific because they will bring you out a fish head.

Bailey Arredondo:

Oh.

Isis Young:

That is not something that we normally, yes, eat here. That’s pretty common over there. They drive really fast on the highway. Here, our speed limit might be 75, over there it’s about 85, and then people drive 10 above the speed limit, and so they’re racing. And so I will have a car over there, so he gave a suggestion just to get acquainted, be comfortable, and don’t kind of get nervous with how fast cars go. And that I might get beeped at because I’m only going 65 and I’m supposed to be going 85. Otherwise, he really likes it.

 

He’s there for soccer, and so football over there is huge. And so lots of followings, lots of fans, and then you know what comes with fans, right? You have great days, and they love you, you have bad days, and they don’t. And so, he really appreciates though the fan base that he has in Germany. It’s consistent. They really love sports over there. And he says they talk about women’s basketball over there too, so he thinks that that will be really great for me to just be in that country for my first year.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, what a great brother to not only share all this insight, but be welcoming and say, “Hey, you’re coming to Germany. Might as well give you the lowdown since we’re both going to be playing our respective sports.” So when do you leave?

Isis Young:

I leave on August 15th, so it’s counting down. I’ve started to do the, “Okay, I’ve got six weeks, and now I have five, and this is what it’s going to be. What am I going to do for my last two weeks?” So yeah, August 15th is the day.

Bailey Arredondo:

So what does an early July day look like for you then? Are you researching German things? Are you looking up your teammates? Are you talking to your team? Give me a day in the life.

Isis Young:

Yeah. So our team recently just finished being fully put together. We have our full roster now as of maybe a week ago, so I followed everyone on Instagram. Kind of haven’t had conversations. We’ve had group chat conversations with our team about passports and booking flights, logistical stuff like that, and just what day we’ll start practice. So I’m sure those conversations will ramp up soon as it gets closer, but I follow my teammates on Instagram. I know a couple of them actually, which is great, so that’s exciting for me. One of my teammates, she played at Georgia Tech. She played a couple of years before I was there when I got to Syracuse, but while I was there, she was a GA. And so, I ran across her a couple of times, so it’ll be nice to see a familiar face.

And then another fact, my assistant coach is from Baltimore. So I’m from South Jersey, so he’s about two and a half hours away. He’s been in Germany for 13 years, plays point guard on the men’s side of our program, and so it was just really nice to have a conversation with him to see someone who is thriving overseas in a different country, both basketball-wise, but he’s also this next year, he’s going to be playing and then also coaching with our team. So just the really cool person I’m excited to just be around and learn from, kind of be a sponge, but also glad that I’ll have someone who I can talk about Wawa with and it won’t seem like I’m the most boring person there.

So that’s kind of what it looks like, really. It’s just team stuff. But I work for my mom during the day, so I work about 8:00 to 4:00 every day, and then I get in about two workouts. So I’ll do strength and conditioning, I have a trainer right now that’s working on that with me, and then I’ll do a variety of basketball workouts, whether it’s with my dad, a trainer, by myself, my little cousin will come and rebound and I’ll bribe him with hot fries that every time he goes, that’s what I get him afterwards as a thank you. And then playing a lot of pickup. And I was in a summer league in Philly, so doing that. So it’s pretty busy.

I’m not really one to sit at home and just kind of do nothing, but also I’m trying to enjoy everything and just get a mix of, “Hey, I’m seeing family,” “Hey, I’m working out,” “Hey, I’m getting ready for overseas,” all those things.

Bailey Arredondo:

Isis, let’s go back to coming out of high school in South Jersey and embarking on this basketball journey. You were ranked a top 10 guard in the country. You knew you had a career in basketball, wherever that might take you. What was your mindset heading into college?

Isis Young:

Honestly, it was really just to crush it. I just kind of pictured the fairytale story of getting there as a freshman, if not starting, than being one of the first people off the bench, getting to learn from the upperclassmen, possibly getting on the all-rookie team the SEC, because I went to University of Florida first, and really just doing that. And so, you talked about the end of high school. The first thing that happened that let me know that my plan is not the plan that’s going to happen is I tore my ACL.

So it was my 17th game of my high school career, and I tore my ACL. And so the first year that I was at Florida, I sat in redshirted, which is just extremely tough, Obviously battling an injury like that and going through surgery at 17, 18 years old is something that I would not wish on anyone, but then also doing part of that away from home, again, I’m from Jersey, and so I went to Florida, so I was a distance from home, and then just rehab. I tell everyone I think that was the toughest thing I’ve ever been through is just rehab. Learning how to walk again, learning to run again, trying to become myself again as a basketball player. And then the mental aspect of you may never look how you looked before.

And that’s just the reality of it. It’s only the great athletes, the tip-top ones that come back from injuries that seem better than they were before. Most of the time now you can kind of tell the limitations, and so all that was kind of weighing on me as a 17, 18 year old, which was a lot. So coming out of high school, I definitely was met with some obstacles, but I kind of made the most of it and just got through it. And by the time I was ready to play, my redshirt freshman year, I was good to go, and I felt comfortable. My knee was strong. So that was the most important thing for me at that moment.

Bailey Arredondo:

Let’s touch on the surgeries because you didn’t just have one, you had two on the same leg.

Isis Young:

Yep.

Bailey Arredondo:

I’m curious, you touched on the mental fatigue it had, but athletes and injuries play a detrimental part in an athlete’s career. And I think of what would happen if Kobe never tore his ACL. What would happen with Derrick Rose if he didn’t have his knee problems and knee surgeries after he won an MVP season?

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

Was there any doubt that you would ever play again?

Isis Young:

Oh, 100%. So I tore my ACL five years after I tore the first one. So I was at Fordham, I has just left Syracuse. I was a grad transfer, and I was getting ready to play at Fordham, I was expected to start. I was one of those on the newcomers list too, the A10, and so I was getting a lot of hype about that, really excited to play for that team, be close to home. And so when I tore it, which was in the first two weeks of practice, the first two weeks that I was on campus. So this is not even technically pre-season right. This was the pre-pre-season before lots of classes started and things like that.

And so when I tore it, I think I was just devastated, honestly. I remember my dad telling me later, he was like, “Your mom, when you told us, she had just said to me, ‘I’m devastated.'” And he said, “You’re devastated. Can you imagine how she feels?” But the first thing I did was I cried it out, my doctor gave me a hug because I think he knew how broken-hearted of a moment it was, and I went home to my dorm and I just wrote out all my options. I just said, “Okay, we can not play again, we can rehab it and we can become a coach. We can just rehab it and try to play again. We can just rehab it to play a college season and then call it there.” I’ve always wanted to play professionally, but I was becoming okay with like, My knee just may not last to make it to the professional level.”

And then one of my options was just to go home. I had just gotten my master’s degree from Syracuse. I had a good college career if we’re going from the University of Florida to Syracuse. If it ended there, no one would have said anything bad about my career. I could have been proud, my kids would have been proud of me. And so, just all that went through my mind. But at first, I honestly just wanted to come home. I just told my parents like, “I just got here, I’m a transfer. I don’t know the team. They don’t know me. I’m completely new. And I have a degree in something that I really want to do that I know I can make it a career, and so we might just hang basketball up and I’ll just come home and rehab and try to find broadcasting work for the season.”

And then I had my last option, which was the best option, which was to rehab it, to not put any pressure on rehab. However long it took is however long it’s going to take to get back. As I go along, I’ll see how I feel about playing again, and that I’ll just do broadcasting in the meantime. And I will say that throughout my rehab, the more that I broadcasted and saw games, the more I just said, “I have to play again. It’s just no way that I could just stop now.” I just kept envisioning myself playing and what I’m learning, and I’m taking notes for myself as well as I’m broadcasting and analyzing the game.

And so I think just the more I called games, the more I said, “You still see yourself playing, and you still have that in you, and let’s rehab like you want to play again.” And my rehab guy made it happen, and God made it happen. It was tough though. I would tell you devastation. It was tough. And I think anyone who goes through injuries can tell you, it looks different for everyone. Everyone has their different struggles, but it was a point where my knee wasn’t getting completely straight. And so that’s one of the main things about extension and ACL is you have to get your knees straight because it’s really important that you can play on a full range of motion or you’re probably going to get injured again.

And so I had a meeting with the doctor three months after my surgery, and he said, “At this point, we’re looking at maybe having another surgery because your knee’s not getting straight. Or we’re just going to have to maybe let you be like that and try to prevent injuries.” But he had told me, he said he would like to do another surgery and clean out my knee because of all the scar tissue, and so I think that kind of flipped a switch in me just to be like, “No, I’m not doing another surgery. We’re just going to make it work.” And so that’s what happened. It’s straight today though, so that’s good.

Bailey Arredondo:

What or who helped you the most through that transition?

Isis Young:

Great question. I would say God first and foremost, just having a lot of faith that the plan that I’m on and the path that I’m on is a plan, that these things aren’t happening to me because I did anything wrong or that I wasn’t prepared or I’m not strong enough, it just simply happened. And then I really think the team. I think the team felt just, “Oh my goodness, we were so excited to play with her.” There were no seniors on the team, and so I was going to be the only senior on the team, and I’m a grad transfer. And so again, I’m coming in and having this air about leadership, but I really don’t know how to lead my teammates because I don’t know them.

And so they were just super supportive, just super supportive about rehab, about coming to practice. They still would ask me questions about our plays in the game and watching film and different stuff like that, so they made me feel so apart, honestly, that I didn’t feel like I was rehabbing alone and just not there. But also honestly, you said who or what, the what is broadcasting. Just broadcasting games got me through it because I just had something else to focus on rather than being sad that I was injured and that everyone else was getting to play this game that they love so much, and for some reason, I’m out another year and I can’t.

And so broadcasting got me through. Just to be able to focus on that and build my career while I was in school was a really a light, honestly. I don’t think I would have made it as well as I did if I wasn’t broadcasting.

Bailey Arredondo:

Let’s touch on broadcasting Syracuse and Newhouse specifically.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

You don’t know this, but the first time I ever met you was at an admitted student orientation for prospective students coming into the program. You were one of the current student tour guides-

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

… and you were helping us get acclimated, answering a lot of questions. And I remember when you introduced yourself with the other classmates, I told my mom, I said, “Oh, she might be someone I need to talk to. It looks like she has her life situated, she knows what she’s doing.” And I remember when we were getting split into groups to go on the tour, I was split off and I wasn’t in your group initially.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

And when we were leaving the room, we were going left, you guys were going right.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

And I grabbed my mom and I said, “I don’t care if we’re in this group or not. We have to go in Isis’s group,” because I could just tell you have an aura about you that you know what you’re doing, you’re passionate, but you also have an understanding of the full encompass of life. There’s more to life than just Newhouse and what you’re doing.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

So aside from that, how did Newhouse and Syracuse change your life beyond the basketball court?

Isis Young:

Yeah. Thank you for that. I think athletes struggle sometimes with only having an identity as an athlete. You wake up as an athlete, you are a student-athlete, you go home as an athlete. Sometimes we forget that we’re also people. There has to be something that exists outside of your sport because otherwise, when your sport isn’t going right, which clearly I’ve experienced a lot of in terms of being injured, you have to have something that can continue to uplift you or focus on.

And so I think Newhouse did that for me. I remember getting the email that I got into Newhouse and crying. I remember because I could see it. I could see just the possibility, I guess, of going to this school, learning this information, getting these connections, and doing that all while I’m playing basketball and playing at a high level. And so I think for me, Newhouse just gave me, one, a career. Two, a ton of relationships that have been awesome to me that I’ve cherished and that continue to grow, even though I’m not there. And then I think a sense of community, just understanding that we all really help each other out.

We talked about it all the time that Newhouse is super competitive and you’re constantly competing, which I think is one of the reasons I thrived in it because competition is all I know, but also understanding that it’s a community, that you’re supporting the next brother or sister in Newhouse that’s around you. The Newhouse mafia is a real thing. Getting alumni who follow me and say, “Hey, this is Isis, the basketball player. Well, this is also Isis who goes to Newhouse.” That was really cool for me, and so it was cool to be able to add that to my identity and to thrive in that.

Honestly, it’s a sense of pride. I walk around and I broadcast, and I think I’m representing Newhouse. I have this thing, everyone thinks it’s a joke, but it’s not. I only broadcast in my Newhouse pin. I make sure that I visit Newhouse every year and I get about eight or 10 from Professor Stomski, and if I don’t have my Newhouse pin, I feel completely off. But I think it just reminds me that you come from a standard. You come from a standard that has to be upheld, and every time I broadcast and I’m on air or I’m representing myself in work in life, I represent Newhouse like I represent God, like I represent my family.

It gave me a lot, but also just the opportunities to really get into broadcasting and start my career. And the people that believed in me. The relationships that I got from Newhouse are awesome and are second to none in my life, honestly, besides my family.

Bailey Arredondo:

And Newhouse is nothing short of a game-changer, as we both know.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

I want to touch on just you’ve played for four different programs throughout college. I think that’s rare air.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

Give me some of the advantages and disadvantages of playing with four programs.

Isis Young:

Yeah. The first advantage I thought of was a lot of gear. I’d go to the gym every day in a different T-shirt from a different school, and so that’s always fun. I’ve got the best color wave. I have orange and blue, like that Gator orange. Then I have the Syracuse orange. Then I have Fordham and it’s white and maroon. And then I have Siena that was just yellow and green. So I can really wear all the colors of the rainbow besides red, for some reason. Red just was not in the plans. Besides red any given day and go work out. So I love how much gear I have.

Again, the relationships are huge. Just being able to meet two or three people who really stick with you from each school has been awesome to me. Because I was at Syracuse the longest and because I feel like I really started my, I guess personal story or legacy or kind of just my life, really, with broadcasting and kind of putting it all together and feeling like I discovered a purpose that I could have, to be on TV, to be a part of representation, and to be a role model. I call that my college home. If anyone ever asks me, I’m like, “Yeah, Syracuse is my college home.”

I would say a disadvantage though is just the constant hopping around, just the constant need to adapt, go different places, and create those new relationships because you’re constantly building trust again, and you’re constantly meeting new people. And all of those things take energy, and to some degree, you’re kind of always uncomfortable because you’re in a new place every other two to three years. And then I also think, like anything else, life moves on. So all the relationships that I had that I started with my freshman year of college at Florida definitely aren’t the same now seven years later when I went to three different schools that are nowhere near Florida.

It’s been a lot of give and take, I feel like, with just the different schools that I’ve been to. But also from a basketball standpoint, I’m just really well-traveled in that way. I played in the SEC, the ACC, and the MAC, and was at Fordham and didn’t play, but obviously now know the A10. So from a broadcaster standpoint, it’s great because I’ve got really good relationships and information about all of those conferences, but also just being able to play against some of the best competition everywhere, really all alongside the East Coast, which is dope.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now playing professional is certainly an accomplishment of its own for any athlete, but not many can say that they’re going overseas to pursue their dream. What are you most nervous about?

Isis Young:

Oh, honestly, just the culture. Really just thinking I know where the Subway shop is and walking the wrong way, and then realizing I have no idea where I am and I don’t know German, and it’s going to be hard for me to communicate. So maybe getting lost, I think honestly is what I’m most nervous about. I’m so excited to play basketball in Europe. I feel like the European style of basketball has definitely transferred over here to America, and so I don’t feel like that will be much of a culture change for me in that way.

I’m really excited to just experience the fans, the atmosphere, the traveling to different countries. It’s interesting because overseas, their countries are like our states. So how I can go from Jersey to DC, I could also go from Germany to France, and I can be in Paris like that, which is kind of cool. And so I’m really excited about that and just experiencing the culture, but it’s awesome what a game can do in your life.

A game of basketball brought me a career in broadcasting, it brought me a lot of relationships, it taught me a lot about my character and helped build my character. And now it’s taking me overseas to make some money for something that I just love to do. Something that I was whining I couldn’t do because I was injured so many years and now I’m getting paid to do it, which is awesome.

Bailey Arredondo:

Let’s end with this, Isis. You have to close a chapter to start a new one, and this certainly feels like a big change coming for you, bouncing around from different colleges, the surgeries, being an analyst and a broadcaster in what is truly a male-dominant business. What message would you have to any girl, any person rather, that maybe is hesitant to follow their passion? Whether it’s injuries that stopped them, whether it’s life changes, so many different circumstances, what message would you have?

Isis Young:

Yeah. I never forget, Beth Mowins said this during a talk she gave, we were getting ready to call an ACC game last year together. We did an all-female broadcast, and she said, “It was Mark Twain, I believe, that said, ‘Why wouldn’t you go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.'” And so I would just say to take a chance. To be resilient. We’re all going to get knocked down. You’re going to be met with obstacles. It’s inevitable that life is going to kick you. It’s inevitable. Life goes right for no one all the time.

Expect the different changes, expect to be uncomfortable, but if you don’t take a chance, you’ll just never know. I can’t tell you how bad my first interview was where I interviewed my teammate in the icebox, the first-ever broadcasting I did. I wouldn’t even look back at it now because I would cringe and I would probably laugh like, “Why did I think I could do this?” But if I didn’t take that chance and do it, and then show someone and get feedback, we wouldn’t be here. My life wouldn’t look how it looks. So I would just say, take a chance. You got to bet on yourself and then bet on yourself again.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, Isis, I certainly learned a lot. I’m sure our audience learned a lot about you and your journey, and what an excitement it is for you to embark on this new journey and we’re excited to keep up with that. So I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the program today.

Isis Young:

Thanks so much, Bailey. It’s been awesome to be here. So good to talk to you. It’s always fun to catch up with Newhouse fam.