Born to Bounce Back - Angel Guo
Angel Guo, our founder and editor-in-chief, is a junior at Phillips Exeter Academy. She plays basketball and is very enthusiastic about DEI and the Golden State Warriors!
At eight years old, the idea of participating in sports was unfathomable to me. While I lived in the Bay Area, which had a successful sports scene, I was distanced from it. This lack of exposure was aggravated by my constant health struggles. My whole life, starting from my very first breath as a premature baby, was dominated by illness. While all my friends played soccer in the warmer seasons, I was stuck at home, racked with allergies from merely stepping on grass. Sports during the winter weren’t even an option, I was stuck at home, alternating between pneumonia, asthma and strep throat every four weeks.
The summer before second grade, I started a summer camp at Pinewood School, a local K-12 independent school nearby. That summer, everything changed. One day, my friends and I stumbled upon the girl’s basketball team practicing. There were Asian girls, girls I’d never seen on a professional playing field before. My intrigue, which grew as I watched them win game after game, eventually advancing to the state championships as the season started, turned into a burning urge to try the sport out myself. If they can do it, I can too!
My first basketball season
After joining my school’s basketball team and advancing to Pinewood’s affiliated AAU team in middle school, I was ecstatic to advance onto the high school level. But then, the unthinkable happened. One sunny day in the fall of my sophomore year, I woke up in my twin extra-long dorm room bed to crippling pain in my lower back and legs. Forget shooting layups - I could barely sit up without help! After multiple doctors’ visits and scans, they targeted the source of my unfound pain as multiple disc herniations. At first, I was despondent, lamenting over time lost with friends and in sports. With time, though, I began to see my injury as a chance to rebuild. If I could survive the NICU as a one-week-old, I could survive old-people back problems too. I could, and would get better and play again, no matter how long that process took.
A painful fall faded into a lonely winter, and I sprang into action, pivoting from actively playing to off-court involvement and physical recovery. The resilience I had witnessed on the Pinewood gym basketball court years prior coursed through my veins. Instead of playing the sport, I managed the JV team, getting to know remarkable athletes and making friends in the process. While I was supporting from the sidelines, my mentality was that of a starter, and I pursued all the opportunities I could get my hands on. I familiarized myself with plays and Exeter's coaching style, stood in as ‘dummy defense’ at practice, and scheduled team bonding activities. Furthermore, I enrolled myself in Sports Business and Analytics summer programs. I was intrigued and motivated by this opportunity to be involved in athletics without directly engaging in them, as the camps exposed me to both the back end and front end of managing sports franchises. Rather than being dejected, I looked into individual player statistics and analyzed the franchise’s strategic actions in acquiring players and boosting their profile.
Meanwhile, I toiled day by day through a physical therapy-based return to sport regimen. Over the preceding months, five minutes of child's pose a day slowly transitioned to thirty minutes of plyometrics. Soon, I could walk up the stairs, run a mile, and even execute a box jump! With this tangible improvement in my physical therapy, I was ready for my return to sport by beginning an intentional routine of self-guided basketball and CrossFit. After weeks of sessions, the supportive community and rewarding and well-rounded workouts drew me in. After every session, I added a few pounds to each lift, and shaved a few seconds off each bike/run - this immediate feedback fueled me forwards. Towards the end of summer, my confidence in my athletic ability bloomed, and I took on small group basketball sessions alongside my workouts. Playing with and against a group of people again revived my competitive spirit. With my layup lines and passing drills over the past months, I felt confident to play basketball in a high school setting as my junior season loomed on the horizon.
Even though I could barely walk a year prior, my ability to bounce back from an injury motivated me to share my story with the world. Given all the challenges I have faced in my journey to basketball, I seek to create a space where athletes like me can share their stories. I am thrilled at the prospect of forming a community of young, like-minded athletes. I shared the idea of creating Bouncing Back with friends and family, and those who were college or professional athletes expressed that they wished such a space existed when they were playing, especially due to the lack of Asian athlete representation in sports media.
Growing up, seeing even a few Asian-American athletes in the media and in real life had a tangible impact on my drive to pursue and enjoy sports. Although AAPI student athletes still face systemic barriers and stereotypes that can limit our opportunity and recognition, we need to work hard to amplify our voices and tear down the master narrative. Through Bouncing Back, I hope Asian student athletes can serve as role models for younger players while motivating each other to realize our full potential on and off the court.
