- What makes women fearless?
Everything.
Women have to be fearless to even try to be
the highest level of their profession.
Like, you have to be fearless
if you think that you're gonna to be the boss at a company,
because you know that you're gonna
have so many obstacles along the way,
because you're a woman.
Simply because you're a woman.
If you're a Black woman, you got more obstacles.
If you're a minority woman, you have more obstacles.
So, what makes WNBA players fearless? We're women.
To women of color, to minority women,
to all women that wanna get into sports,
that wanna get into entertainment,
I think you just have to do it.
There's gonna be so many people that tell you,
"Oh no, you probably shouldn't,"
or try to, like, you might be like,
"Hey, I wanna be a play-by-play,"
and everybody's gonna be like,
"But most women are sideline reporters or analysts.
They're not usually play-by-play."
You need to be like, "Yeah,
but I wanna be a play-by-play."
That's what I mean by you just have to decide, like,
if that's what you wanna do,
you got to do it because there's gonna be people that try
to put you in whatever normal role is the role for women.
Like, "Oh, the women don't typically do that job.
Women don't..." No.
You do what you do.
I was born in St. Albans, West Virginia,
and raised there as well.
So, a lot of people get shocked to hear
that I'm from West Virginia.
They're looking for the accent, which I do have.
It's just not as strong as the homie, Randy Moss,
and other people they might know from West Virginia.
So yeah, I'm country-bred.
I come from a very educated family.
My mom was a college professor.
My dad was an engineer.
I loved it because this is pre-social media.
I'm not that old, but it really was pre-social media.
So, we had a lot of land, cause it's country.
So, I'll be outside playing, I'll be running around.
So like, when I was really young, it was lit.
Well, my parents tell me that I first picked up a
basketball when I was around four or five,
and they said like, I was so small
that the ball was barely bouncing
cause it was barely dribbling off the ground.
But I would say when I can start to remember
taking basketball, like, serious, which sounds crazy,
but around eight, I knew that basketball and me had a thing.
I started to fall in love with how good can I get,
like not having,
not being six foot and an athlete playing
at the professional levels.
It's difficult because you have to think the game,
you have to figure out ways to get what you need to get done
without maybe being as tall, as athletic.
So I think that my height also helped me learn the game
better because I had to know it through and through.
- [Reporter] Are American men ready for this?
- I don't know, but if they're not, they better get ready.
- The WNBA started when I was about 10 or 11.
So when I was around that age, there was the '96 Olympics.
And it was really crazy because
I was watching the Olympic team
and we know all those names on that team.
That's the first time I can remember there were
on Wheaties boxes and all different things
where it was celebrating women athletes.
I just remember thinking,
oh my gosh, I'm going to high school as a ninth grader
and I'm gonna be playing with like, some legit seniors.
And then I just... like, to me,
that was my fondest memory
because there was this anxious energy.
And then when I got there, my friends,
Lisa Lee, Alexis Hornbuckle, they made sure I was good,
and it was exciting to win a championship my first year.
I led my team to three championships.
I chose UConn because Coach Auriemma
is a character, boy, I tell you.
He came to West Virginia, you know,
in true coach fashion.
He's talking about the airport,
he's talking about how small it is.
Our high school team,
we got a lot of recognition.
So there were a lot of college coaches
that would come to our games to scout us.
And then when I saw Coach Auriemma come,
he's sitting on Snook and Diddy's couch,
which is my parents.
And a lot of coaches told me everything I wanted to hear.
"You're gonna come here.
You're gonna start for four years.
You can run this team the same way
you've been running your high school team."
And, you know, it sounded good.
It sounded great.
The thought was, well,
I wonder, are you saying that to everyone
and will promises not be met?
So what Coach Auriemma did
was literally the complete opposite.
He was his authentic self as we know him to be.
And he came in and he was like, look,
we have another point guard that we got the year before.
I don't really play favorites in a sense of
if you're young and you're good enough,
you'll play on my team.
It doesn't matter if you're a freshmen,
sophomore, junior, senior.
He was like, "Look, you got talent.
We can see that.
We wanna see how far we can take your potential
because we think you have a high ceiling,
but that's on you.
Everything that happens at UConn is on you."
And I was like, "I like the thought of that."
In sports, there's injuries,
and when there's injuries in sports,
you have a next man up mentality.
And so our coaching staff at UConn,
we had a couple injuries to the two guard position.
So Coach Auriemma was like,
"Look, you can play the two
because you can play the one."
And it was just that simple of a conversation
to where he was like, "You're now our two. Get it done."
And I was like, "Alright."
[crowd cheering]
We're going into my senior year,
and everyone knows that UConn,
is basically the standard of excellence.
So imagine me getting all excited.
I'm leaving West Virginia.
I go to UConn and I don't even win a championship.
I'm 0 for 3 at UConn... like we have to,
it was championship or bust.
And we talked about it.
We didn't like, act like it was just gonna happen.
We were like, we have to win a championship.
And the best thing about that year to me
was the energy that my teammates gave me
in a sense of Tina Charles and Maya Moore,
they took it on their shoulders,
that they were gonna make sure
that I didn't leave without one.
And that, to me, was the best part.
When we went into the NCAA tournament undefeated,
that was the worst thing in a way,
because it's like, you don't wanna
go undefeated all season long just
to arrive at the Final Four
or the championship and lose your first loss.
Like, no one cares then.
[players cheering] [whistle blowing]
For me, when we won, it was that level of relief.
It was excitement.
It was a little bit like, oh my gosh,
now they gonna kick me out of here?
I gotta leave UConn?
The goal was to get the seniors a championship,
and we did that.
To be able to be in the record books
for the University of Connecticut,
knowing who else played for UConn,
yeah, it was, it's still humbling.
When you look at who I'm beside,
it's like, they're the homies,
but they're also the OGs and the GOATs,
and so it's like,
there's a feeling, it's just hard to describe.
Just so people can understand,
and college sports on the womens' side,
we had our championship game
and then three days later, I was sitting
in New York about to get drafted.
So it's not-- there is, it's a quick turnaround.
We had a parade, we flew back.
We had to pick out an outfit, sign with an agent,
and it was a fast turnaround.
So when we got back to the draft,
I had heard some noise that I could either go
one all the way through to 10.
And we had a bangin' class draft that year,
but I ended up getting drafted number four
to the Minnesota Lynx.
And that's the team that I won two championships with, so
life is funny how it works out.
WNBA players typically go overseas in the off-season
because the WNBA season is in the summer.
And so after our season,
we usually have about two weeks before we go play overseas.
And when I say usually about two weeks,
your overseas team will be like,
whenever your last game was, you're on the clock.
The timer has started and you have two weeks
to report to your destination.
My first year I played in Israel.
In Israel, like, you can go to the grocery store
and you can say, "Hey, where's the lettuce?"
And they could be like, "Oh, it's over there."
Like, they can talk to you.
No problem.
So that's like, the easy on-ramp for WNBA players.
And, the nightlife is poppin' in Israel.
It felt comfortable, as comfortable as you could be
being in another country.
My second year on, I started playing more so in Europe.
I played in Russia for five years.
I played in Hungary, Lithuania, Turkey.
I played in Australia.
So you start to tour the world
and you start to see the world and see different cultures.
And you start to see the luxury we have being in America.
Initially, when I first got traded,
no, I was not ecstatic.
In 2011, I was a starter
that was an All-Star.
Imagine you have an All-Star year,
the best year of your career.
And your coach comes to you and says,
"Hey, we love how you're playing,
but we would love you to come off
the bench because we think that
that would be what was best for the team."
Initially, I was like, oh, wait, why me?
Like, there's five starters.
Why do I need to come off of the bench?
Like, something he told me, he was like,
"You're the one that's gonna handle it the best."
I was young.
I had high aspirations,
so coming off the bench wasn't something
that I was like, "Ooh, yes, I love it."
But then the next year, when things started,
I had to just make my mind up that,
"Alright, you're coming off the bench
whether that was the plan for your career or not.
So what are you gonna do about it?"
I ended up winning WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year.
I got traded back to the Minnesota Lynx.
We won a championship in 2015,
and then 2016, we lost to the same team
that we had beat the previous year
with a buzzer beater. Great for TV, terrible for me.
In 2017, we were on a mission.
We circled the finals on our calendar.
Like, we got to get there.
Like, I don't care what we gotta do, we gotta get there.
And so then when we did make it to the finals, I don't know.
It's a weird feeling to explain when,
if you set a long-term goal,
that a lot of things have to go right
for that goal to go right,
and then you're like, "Oh wow,
we set the goal and we're here."
It was like, it's this exciting feeling.
And then we ended up winning that year
and I just felt like that was a big moment for me.
- I got my hair ready
so that it's still straight.
I'm ready to go, we are number one.
- What I loved about Atlanta was the culture.
I loved, like when I was there, how it made me feel.
I love the people, I was in the thick of things.
There was a lot going on
and also wanting to, post-basketball life
to be in broadcasting, analysts, the entertainment industry.
I knew that Atlanta is where it's at.
- [Reporter] Renee Montgomery, guard for the Atlanta Dream,
says she's skipping the remainder of the 2020 season
to focus on social justice reform.
- When I was deciding on whether
to play in the 2020 WNBA season or not,
there were so many things at play.
First of all, I had jobs that I had lined up
that all got canceled because
everything I was doing was in sports.
So, the Women's NCAA tournament that I was gonna be calling
that got canceled.
The Men's 3x3 tournament got canceled.
G League got canceled.
So, those are my actual other jobs in the off-season.
They're all canceled.
So now I'm going into the WNBA Season,
which would have been the only job
I could still actually do during the pandemic.
I had to make a decision in a sense of,
it was a financial decision.
It was a decision on pro sports.
The WNBA only has 144 players
so it's not like you can press pause
and be like, "Alright, I'm back next year."
You never know what could happen.
I was talking to my family.
I was talking to, you know, my Snook, my fiancée,
and I was just trying to figure out
what was the best decision for our family.
And I was telling them my thought process
and not one person was like,
"Oh, I don't know if you should do that."
No, everybody was like, "Look, if that's how you feel, do it."
And so that's what empowered me to be like, "Alright,
I'm just gonna do it."
There's something happening.
So I wanna be a part of that something.
What I was trying to do
was trying to do boots on the ground.
I had went to the protest and people saw,
we were given out waters.
Okay, what else can we do?
We love giving out waters, but like,
how can we take this thing to the next level?
We still got the steppers on the way.
DSSD Studio Steppers.
We got our guys ATL Drum Line in the building.
Tell a friend to tell a friend we're about to have a party.
The day after I opted out,
I threw a Juneteenth pop-up block party
at Olympic Centennial Park because
we knew that's where the protests were happening.
That's where the people would be.
So let's just bring the party to the people,
because there wasn't much to celebrate at that time.
But Juneteenth, is a holiday that needed to be celebrated
especially at that time.
One of the things that we noticed was
when we were downtown,
we saw that a lot of the homeless community
was gravitating to the parks in different areas
because that's where waters were being handed out.
That's where masks were.
So we brought food and fed a large amount
of the community there.
And that's kind of what lit the fire, the bug.
And when it came to the WNBA
and what they were doing in the bubble,
I felt connected.
I felt like they were doing their thing in the bubble,
we were doing our thing in Atlanta.
They were letting me know what was going on.
They were reaching out like,
"Hey, we're talking to Senator Warnock right now.
We would love for you--", like, I felt connected.
I felt like we were moving as one.
That was the best part about the summer of 2020,
that not even just WNBA players,
but the NBA players,
the athletes of individual sports.
It was like, all athletes made a conscious decision
that, alright, let's try to lead this thing
and steer the ship in the right direction.
When you talk about social justice
and you talk about what we were going
through in 2020, I need a mentor.
I need help.
I needed people that's been there before.
I needed people that understood
what was going on to help guide me
and lead the way in.
I think More than a Vote was one of those groups
that they were like, "Hey, listen, we see what you're doing.
We're doing something similar.
Do you wanna do what you're doing
and we do what we're doing together?"
And I was like, "What? Yes!"
Like, of course, this is exactly what I wanted to do.
Very rarely do you see athletes
that are like, "Yes, politics, we're into it."
So it was like, we're not all super hype about politics,
but we understand that we have to be into politics
because as Stacy Abrams told me, politics is into us.
- Black women, the highest turnout
and the most active voting block in the country.
- I understood that when you speak out,
when you go against the grain
that people aren't gonna enjoy it.
But if it's something that needs to be said,
or if it's something that's on your heart, say it.
We're getting going people.
Let's get it going.
When I was thinking about retirement,
and I was thinking about, what I wanted to do,
where I wanted to go,
the first thing I wanted to do was
be an owner.
It's, it's... it's the truth,
like, I wanted to be an owner of the WNBA,
because I wanted to have more of an impact.
We kept on talking about,
how can we take it to the next level?
How can we create more change?
How can we help more people?
And it's crazy cause my fiancée, throughout the idea,
I used to say it's a crazy idea,
she's like, "Well, why don't you buy the Dream?"
And I looked at her like,
"What are you talking about buy the Dream?"
'Cause as a player, that's something that's just not common.
The more I sat and thought about that,
the more I was like, that's not a bad idea.
I knew one of the things about becoming
an owner of a WNBA team
is that you can't be a current player.
You can't be an active player and owner at the same time.
So, if you're gonna take yourself serious,
I had to take a jump, and I retired.
And then I text Cathy, our commissioner,
Cathy Engelbert, I told her,
"Hey Cathy, I'm gonna be retiring soon
because I'm serious about wanting
to become one of the owners of the Atlanta Dream."
When LeBron sent that tweet,
I was ecstatic because when you have an athlete like that,
with that much attention talking about,
"Hey, we need to do something for the Atlanta Dream.
They need new ownership."
And if it needs me to be it,
then we're gonna have to get that done.
I felt empowered.
I'm like, okay.
Yeah, I'm ready.
But that kind of just confirmed it for me.
That's when we reached out to the More than a Vote camp
and was like, "Hey, if LeBron's serious, if everyone's serious,
like, let's just figure out how to get things done."
Even once the ink had dried, I still was like,
is this for real?
Like, I still was like, I couldn't believe it.
Because, like I talked about, I moved to Atlanta
way before I played for the Atlanta Dream
because I knew Atlanta was my city.
I knew that Atlanta was gonna be my new home.
And for me to now be ingrained in that culture
to be a part of it,
to be one of the co-owners of the Atlanta Dream, is surreal.
Right now, we're still making changes
to better the organization.
That's gonna be an ongoing process.
We wanna rebuild, but with a solid moral foundation,
I think that that's where we're going to where
we're gonna have a certain culture in Atlanta
that we wanna lean into.
That's gonna be community-driven.
2020, wasn't just a one-time thing.
A lot of people thought with the WNBA and the Atlanta Dream
that 2020 was the grand finale.
No, 2020 was the beginning.
If a topic or an issue needs attention,
then we're gonna provide that attention to the topics.
And then on the court,
we wanna be that team that excels as well,
because we wanna be one of those teams
that is an organization that's hard to pass up on.
It's still a little bit crazy
that you don't see more athletes
that are also owners and also in the front office,
because like, who could run your organization
better than somebody that grew up watching it?
Was a part of it?
Gave most of their life to it?
Like, who else would you want to watch that brand?
And so I hope that this starts to become a normal thing,
that we see athletes going straight to ownership
and athletes going to the front office
because athletes have the vision.
- And, of course, Renee needs no introduction.
- What's up everybody?
No, like, yeah.
I would say I'm one-third of Think Tank Productions,
all three of us,
Serena, myself and VP,
we all started Think Tank Productions,
so we're excited to talk to you guys.
- At 34 years old right now,
I feel like I have so much energy towards different projects
that I wanna see come to life.
Montgomery & Co. is a family podcast that we have
that's business and sports, because I think
it's an interesting dynamic to see
minority women talking big business,
talking sports and being a part of that big business.
We can tell more stories.
We can tell dope stories, fun stories,
stories that need to be heard,
but we can do different things
with a platform that's now being built.
I'm living my dream.
Like I hope people know that, like, I'm living my dream.
I would watch the games for free, but I don't, listen...
I'm not giving them my check,
but I'm just saying, I would watch the games for free.
So I'm just thankful.
The keys to my blueprint,
I would say is being authentically me.
Throughout my playing career,
I took pride in controling
my controllables in a sense of,
I'm not going to practice late.
You're not gonna see me with a bad attitude in practice.
I'm gonna be the same human every single day,
because that's the things I can control.
And so now that I'm no longer a player,
I'm gonna still be that same athlete,
just in a different workspace.
And so for me, that's the blueprint.
Being you is the blueprint because you
have something that makes you unique.
A lot of people ask me like, well, how am I so
Hakuna Matata life all the time?
And it's like, I choose to be.