Soccer star Megan Rapinoe and her girlfriend, basketball great Sue Bird have become the
sports world's new "it" couple.
While the soccer player has been making plenty of headlines in 2019, there's much more to
Bird than just being a World Cup champion's partner.
Cruising toward a breakdown
Bird has a reputation for her cool public face, but when her mom's partner passed away
in 2012, right before Bird competed at the Olympic Games in London, Bird felt the pangs
of losing someone she dearly loved.
She told ESPN,
"I was sad, but I was juggling everything OK.
Nobody was any the wiser."
But all those bottled-up emotions came to a head during Bird's first post-Olympic outing
with the Seattle Storm.
She said,
"The team told everyone I was sick.
But the truth was, I had to go home.
It was as if all the emotion, everything that I had put to the side for that month, just
hit me in one moment.
My battery was on empty."
She went on to sit out the 2013 WNBA season, to recover.
"Being on the bench more than anything last year was frustrating, y'know, but sometimes
you just gotta play the cards you're dealt."
Bird's big dreams
While some kids know who they want to be at a very young age, Bird's hoop dreams came
into focus a little later in life.
She's said that her fifth-grade yearbook lists her as wanting to be a lawyer, and a doctor,
and a professional soccer player.
But it wasn't long before she found her true calling on the basketball court.
"To be able to do something and get paid for it that you love to do, you know, that's gotta
be everyone's dream, you know?
So, you know, that's why I think it would be great if i played in the WNBA.”
Her basketball aspirations revealed themselves at a pivotal time, she says, landing her on
the front wave of the newly emerging sport.
Speaking for a profile for the Washington Jewish Museum, she said,
"The WNBA started in 1997 and women’s basketball was getting hyped in ’95…The UConn Huskies
went undefeated and it was really publicized.
1996 was the Atlanta Olympics...And then there was the birth of the WNBA.
So during those three years I’m 14, 15, 16.
I’m in high school, getting recruited a little bit."
After developing an interest in basketball as a teenager, Bird carried her ambitions
into college, playing for the University of Connecticut.
She dove headfirst into the sport, with no real backup plan should things not work out.
Turns out, she didn't need one, making her mark as a baller by helping her team win two
NCAA championships.
In her senior year, the team went undefeated with a record of 39-0,after which Bird was
awarded the NCAA's Wade Trophy and named the Naismith College Player of the Year.
A fierce competitor
Like her soccer icon girlfriend, Bird has a fierce reputation of her own.
According to ESPN,
"She also has a knack for hitting clutch shots, the daggers, which gained her the nickname
Sue Bird, or 'DB' for short, from admiring fans on internet message boards."
She's reportedly been this intense ever since she was a kid.
Her close childhood friend, Brad Barnett, told ESPN,
"My dad always tells the story: '[Sue] was staring down the girl who won like she wanted
to go over and bite her.'…He said then she was going to be something special.
That's how competitive she was even that young."
"I have vivid, vivid memories of some of my early coaches, AAU coaches actually, being
like 'Sue, please shoot.'
I would almost like get in trouble for not being selfish."
Coming out
Bird has said that it wasn't until she was a co-ed at UCONN that she realized she was
gay.
But she didn't come out to her family until after college in 2003, when she was playing
professional ball with the Seattle Storm.
She claims she didn't hold back on telling her family because of any sort of internal
struggle or outside pressure.
As she explained to the Seattle Times,
"It was just that the journey took me to my 23rd year of life to be able to figure it
out.
It was a combination of being more comfortable, being a little older and more mature, and
then finally just not caring."
"There's, like, like a very high value in somebody who's a public figure, coming out
and talking about their sexuality, and what that means for kids, for society."
After receiving unwavering support from her family and friends, Bird eventually revealed
her relationship status with Rapinoe.
She told ESPN in 2017,
"I'm gay.
Megan's my girlfriend…These aren't secrets to people who know me."
Megan almost blew it
While attending a Media Day ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics, Bird had her first encounter
with Rapinoe, and it wasn't exactly love at first sight.
Bird was doing a media photoshoot when Rapinoe approached her, and jokingly asked if she
was getting ready for a game.
Bird wasn't impressed.
"She was like 'Hey, what's up, how's it going?'
She's like, 'Getting ready for a game?'"
"Yeah.
It was just like that, too.
That was not even exaggerating."
According to Rapinoe, the women met up again months later at the Rio Olympics, and then
officially struck up their relationship in the Fall of 2016.
Rock solid
Bird has managed to not only become a role model to young female athletes, but she's
also widely respected by her teammates, and her competitors - not just the fans she influences.
“I'm a female, I play in the WNBA, and that's something for little girls to strive for,
but it's more so important for little boys to see that there's strong females."
Bird shoulders plenty of pressure as the Seattle Storm's point guard, but she seems to handle
it all with ease.
Team CEO and general manager, Alisha Valavanis, told ESPN that Bird is the epitome of a franchise
player and is quote, "part of its soul."
"We sort of are doing the exact same thing, we're just on different teams."
Rapinoe says those same leadership qualities extend to their personal relationship, telling
the outlet,
"I joke she is my No. 1 go-to-for-advice person.
She's just so level-headed."
On or off the court, it sounds like we could all use a Sue Bird in our lives.
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