LAS VEGAS — Sydni Summers lives in crop tops. To the California native, they are year-round attire. Which is why it’s strange that on this June day, surrounded by her new teammates at UNLV, Summers is wearing a baggy, full-length T-shirt. After transferring from San Jose State, this is the first time Summers is meeting her new squad. So they don’t know that this is an out of character fashion choice. They don’t even know her.
She doesn’t want them to. Not yet, not all the way. Summers’ T-shirt is her confidant, and she hopes it can keep a secret. At least for a little while longer.
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With nine new players on Rebels’ roster, introductions are in order. During a team meeting, coach Lindy La Roque goes over protocols, practice plans and schedules, before coming to a final item. “We have another announcement,” La Roque says. “Sydni has some news.” She motions Summers to join her in the front of the locker room.
Summers takes a deep breath and remembers a phone conversation she had with La Roque before arriving on campus.
“The quickest way you can build some of the healthiest relationships is to be vulnerable,” La Roque had told her. “Things are going to be hard, and you’re going to need to trust your teammates.”
Still, the words feel like thorns coming out of Summers’ mouth.
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“I’m not really sure how to start this,” she says. Then, she begins to cry. La Roque stretches an arm around her shoulders.
“I’m pregnant,” Summers finally says.
It was supposed to be a typical doctor’s appointment. Summers, who started her career at San Jose State, needed a few vaccines in order to enroll at UNLV. Her mom suggested that Summers get a physical as well – she would soon turn 21 and this would be the last chance to use her pediatrician before having to search for a new doctor.
The doctor’s exam was routine. She checked Summers’ pulse. She looked in her ears and her eyes. She took her blood pressure. Then, she checked Summers’ stomach. Summers laid back as the doctor started pressing on her belly.
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“You have a lump on your left side,” she said. “Did you know that?” Summers shook her head no.
“Are you pregnant?” the doctor asked.
Summers laughed; there was no way. She’d been getting her period regularly. Plus, Summers had been participating in full contact basketball drills and hadn’t noticed any differences in her body. That “lump” wasn’t even visible in a crop top.
The doctor stepped away to run some tests and returned with a knowing look. Not only was Summers pregnant, she was five and half months along.
“That was my first experience of seeing her cry to the bone,” her mom, Cynthia Summers, said. “You could just tell she thought her whole entire career was over.”
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All Summers had ever wanted was to be the best. Once, after her dad, Brent Summers, took his 2-year-old daughter to the grocery store, he carried two gallon jugs of water into the house and sat them in the entryway while he retrieved the rest of the groceries. When he got back, they were gone. His little girl had managed to carry them to the kitchen herself. Basketball was no different for her.
She was running around her dad’s gym with a basketball as a toddler, and refusing to leave when it was time for Cynthia to take her home. “She wasn’t even out of pampers yet,” Cynthia says with a laugh. “I would chase her and pick her up. She’d still have that ball in her hands.”
By the time she was 8, Summers was playing on a team with 11-year-old boys. In high school she was a three-time all league player, before committing to San Jose State, where she made the Mountain West All-Freshman team.
During her first two seasons of college basketball, the Spartans went 17-46. But Summers was a bright spot, according to La Roque, who marveled at her ability to shoot from anywhere on the court. Brent advised Summers to transfer to whichever school treated her the best. That was UNLV.
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So when he found out she was pregnant, Brent wasn’t thinking of his 20-year-old daughter. He was thinking of the little girl who carried two water jugs. The one who spent all of her time with him in the gym, where he trained athletes. The one who had finally found a program where she could be happy. He felt her dreams slipping away.
Summers did too.
“I was panicking,” she said. “I knew I had to tell Coach Lindy, but I was scared. I was worried about my scholarship.”
Legally, Title IX offers protections to students and student athletes who are pregnant. Provided an athlete is in good academic standing and does not “voluntarily” withdraw from her team, it is against federal law to revoke or reduce a scholarship. Academically, schools must provide excused absences for pregnancy and childbirth as well as medical leave and the opportunity to make up any missed assignments.
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Still, Summers wasn’t alone in her worry. Just because rules exist, doesn’t mean they are always followed. And outside of the legal parameters, there are many more logistic issues that new mothers have to face.
According to a study by the NCAA in 2023, 72 percent of female athletes fear that pregnancy could end their careers. And just down the road from UNLV, WNBA star Dearica Hamby filed — and recently dropped — a lawsuit against the Las Vegas Aces for allegedly discriminating against her and trading her for being pregnant. Stigma still exists, especially around unmarried pregnant Black women.
“There are cultural implications for women of color, particularly Black women in this country related to pregnancy,” said Candice Williams, Ph.D., who received her doctorate in counseling education and wrote her dissertation on pregnancy and motherhood in student athletes. She now works in the NFL, but her research remains some of the only in-depth material on the subject.
“There are discrepancies where Black women are (two to four) times more likely to die in childbirth. … So add on top of that, the stigma, the stress related to that stigma, the stress related to support, both within the institutional organization or athletics department.”
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But Summers is playing in a new era, one that is normalizing women having children and returning to sports. The guard will make her Lady Rebels debut on Saturday against New Mexico, less than two months after giving birth.
That’s all thanks to her determination. Summers was on a treadmill days after her daughter was born. She didn’t miss a step, basketball-wise, because Summers participated in drills right up until she gave birth, even helping with pregame warmups while showing off her baby bump.
“She wants to be on the court so bad,” teammate Destiny Brown said. “She’s determined, showing up every day, going hard in conditioning, going hard in warm ups. Imagine being a player and a mother. She’s still pushing through and showing up every day.”
Experts and those in basketball have seen a shift in how pregnancy is portrayed among athletes in the last 10 to 15 years.
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“It’s something we should anticipate becoming increasingly common as access to the full range of reproductive health services, including contraception and abortion are off limits,” says Juliet Williams, Ph.D., a gender studies professor at UCLA.
When Candace Parker gave birth to her daughter in 2009, it was a surprise to the public. Many WNBA players had children during their careers, but Parker had played just one season of professional basketball. Typically, players waited until they were done playing, or at least until they were more established to have children.
By the time Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier gave birth to her daughter in 2021, four seasons into her professional career, the shock of an early-career pregnancy had worn off. Both women returned to the court in less than three months.
Several college coaches have had babies and then immediately returned to the sideline. In 2021, Arizona coach Adia Barnes made headlines for pumping breastmilk for her newborn at halftime during the NCAA Tournament. Last season, Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell and Oklahoma State’s Jacie Hoyt returned to coaching within days of giving birth.
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“It wasn’t all that long ago that girls and even young women could be denied educational opportunity on the basis of pregnancy,” Juliet Williams said. “They were certainly subject to all kinds of discrimination.”
That discrimination stretched into athletics, forcing many women to choose between motherhood and sports.
Summers didn’t plan on having children until much later in life. She wanted to play basketball. She wanted to earn her degree. She wanted to have a life. She thought about playing professional basketball or pursuing a career in communications. Although motherhood among elite women athletes has become less taboo, Summers has unique challenges without a partner. Returning as a college student also proves more difficult.
Last season, Florida junior forward Alexia Gassett shared a video on TikTok in which she discussed finding out she was pregnant just minutes before facing South Carolina. Gassett was married and ultimately stepped away from basketball this season, despite having eligibility, in order to raise her child.
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Stepping away wasn’t an option for Summers, she said. She had her parents. She had her teammates and coaches. She had her village. She knew she would keep her pregnancy. She would have her baby and she would play basketball.
Summers had thought about all of those challenges while holed up in her childhood bedroom after learning of her pregnancy.
Then came a knock on her door.
It didn’t take long for Brent’s heartbreak and worry to melt into love and support for his daughter. He reflected on his own journey to fatherhood. In college, he had a daughter, Lakilla, who died of myocarditis at 14. Cynthia, meanwhile, struggled to conceive.
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Sydni was their miracle.
So Brent reassured her that this baby was going to be welcomed. Cynthia agreed. No matter how scared Sydni was, the three of them (soon to be four) could handle this together.
With her parents by her side, Summers called her new coach.
If there are two things La Roque knows, it’s basketball and babies. She has two young children, and three years ago, when she was pregnant with her daughter, La Roque’s water broke on the sideline during an exhibition game. “’I don’t know if there’s a coach more equipped to help you through this than me,’” La Roque said she told Summers.
Summers was due in October, but she told La Roque she didn’t want to redshirt and miss the season.
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“I can’t sit out,” she said. “I would probably go crazy.”
La Roque was willing to support Summers’ request, with one condition: She must spend the summer with UNLV.
“I was hoping to just not come during the summer, and then they’d just see me pregnant in the fall,” Summers said. “But Coach Lindy said I had to tell them beforehand. I had to let them trust me, and I had to trust them. I had to be vulnerable.”
Which is how she found herself standing in front of a group of women she didn’t yet know, announcing a pregnancy that she had just found out about. As soon as the words “I’m pregnant” came out of Summers’ mouth, her teammates rushed to hug her. Some even cried happy tears.
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“I’d seen (on social media) players that were pregnant and had babies,” Brown says. “But I never had it happen to one of my teammates.We were all excited to have a team baby.”
“I always thought it would be cool to have a team baby too,” Summers said with a smile. “But I never thought I’d be the one having it.”
The village grew, as La Roque, her staff and the team jumped into action to create a safe place for Summers and her unborn baby. Athletic trainer Joshua Batshoun helped with her nutrition and tracking her doctor’s visits. Summers never attended an appointment alone. Brown became her emergency contact, and when teammates grocery shopped they would text Summers to see if she needed anything.
On Sept. 26, Summers arrived at UNLV for media day. Her jersey barely stretched over her baby bump, but the communications staff needed a headshot. Once the camera started clicking, her teammates convinced her to do a full-blown photo shoot and post images on Instagram. One teammate half-jokingly suggested getting an NIL deal with a diaper brand.
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Summers hadn’t been hiding her pregnancy, but she also hadn’t shared it with the world. This would be a big step, so initially, Summers pushed back.
“At no point did we ever feel like this was a scarlet letter that we had to cover up or hide,” La Roque said. “So when she was ready to kind of post and share and tell the world it was like, ‘Well, let’s amplify it. Let’s repost. This is our girl and we are excited for her.’”
Summers’ post did receive support and was widely shared. But she didn’t see it. Right after media day, she learned at a doctor’s appointment that she needed to be induced. After more than 30 hours in labor, her daughter Naziyah Grace Summers was born. Naziyah means “Goddess of Miracles.”
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“That little one is a miracle,” Summers said. “Surviving five months of getting hit (in practices) is crazy. I was playing basketball and falling down and everything.”
Summers says the best thing for both her and Naziyah is to continue school and playing basketball. But that means sacrifice — both for them and for Summers’ parents. For now, Naziyah lives in California with her grandparents, and Brent brings her to Las Vegas every two weeks. Between visits, Summers FaceTimes with her daughter multiple times a day. She’s less than two months old, but Naziyah recognizes her mom when she calls.
“She reminds me of a little puppy when she sees her mom’s face,” Cynthia says. “She’s wiggling around and has her tongue out.”
Naziyah is also a dedicated Lady Rebels fan. She attends every home game dressed in Rebels gear and red tutus. She sits just a few rows behind the bench and sleeps on Brent’s chest under a pink blanket.
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Knowing she’s there fuels Summers, but she never looks up during games. When she’s in basketball mode, Summers is locked in. But as soon as the final buzzer sounds, she works through the handshake line and peels off toward the stands. Now, it’s time to be a mom.
After UNLV’s win over Northern Iowa on Nov. 28, Summers holds Naziyah like a football, with her grapefruit-sized head resting in the crook of Summers’ arm. Across the court, a little girl watches and repositions her baby doll to mimic the football hold.
Summers wears a gray UNLV-issued sweatsuit with a spit-up stain on the arm. Her pockets bulge, full of pacifiers and bottles. Naziyah drops her pacifier on the ground, and without stopping her conversation, Summers bends sideways, while still supporting Naziyah, to pick it up and add it to the collection in her pocket. Moments later, when Naziyah cries, Brent offers a blue pacifier.
“She doesn’t like that one,” Summers says. Then, she yanks the first pacifier out of her pocket and pulls a veteran mom move, popping it in her own mouth, before giving it back to Naziyah. She immediately stops crying, and Summers turns to Brent. “See? Told you,” she says as he smiles.
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Six months ago, Summers never thought this would be possible. She didn’t think she’d play again, and she certainly didn’t think she’d have 14 teammates calling themselves “auntie.”
“Having a baby doesn’t have to ruin your life,” she said. “It will be different and it will be hard, but it can also be a blessing.”
Some things are different, and others are exactly the same. Now, when Cynthia goes to the gym she sees Brent coaching with Naziyah in a harness strapped to his chest. Soon, she will be chasing a ball around just like Sydni used to do.
“Oh Lord,” Cynthia says. “We’ve got another one.”
But when Naziyah runs through the gym refusing to go home, it will be Summers’ turn to do the chasing.
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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