courtney williams has been waiting for you to pay attention

what the haters (aka editors) said when I tried to profile her back in 2019

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Below, I share my pitch (and the rejections that followed) for a profile of Williams from 2019. Feel free to click through a lot of the hyperlinks, as well; I’ve been writing about Williams and her impact on the queer culture of the WNBA for years and there’s a lot of great stuff to read.

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have seen Courtney Williams help the Minnesota Lynx come back from an 18-point deficit in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals to beat the New York Liberty at home in the Barclays Center.

via X

She had 23 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds. Williams had 11 clutch time points in Game 1 alone, as many as any other player has had in the entire playoffs. Per ESPN Analytics, the Liberty had a 99.2% win probability after taking an 81-66 lead with 5:20 remaining in the 4th quarter. New York had a 90.2% chance to win with 12.0 seconds remaining in the 4th quarter.

And yet. Sports, man.

via X

I’ve mentioned before that watching Courtney Williams play basketball for the first time in 2018 is the reason I switched from covering baseball to covering the WNBA and women’s sports more generally. Quite fittingly, my first WNBA game was at Mohegan Sun Arena, in which then-Sun players Williams, Jonquel Jones, and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton faced off against a pre-Sabrina Ionescu New York Liberty. There is something very full circle about watching these same players face off as opponents, both with new teams, knowing one of them will finally win their elusive first championship.

In that game, Williams had 16 points that felt like 30, her name continuously being shouted by the in-arena announcer. I didn’t know much about basketball yet, but I knew I couldn’t take my eyes off Williams on the court. I became convinced that I needed to profile Williams ahead of the 2019 season. I contacted the team for access and secured it. And then I began trying to sell it. It was eventually commissioned by SBNation, but they had been my last hope at getting it picked up. It was rejected by everyone I else I pitched it to.

In light of her absolutely stellar game last night, I’d like to share the responses I got to my pitches when I first tried to convince editors that Williams deserved a profile (shoutout to former SBNation editor Louis Bien, who not only commissioned my profile of Williams but will soon be coming on board as editorial support for this newsletter!). I think it shows just how fiercely Williams has proven herself to people who doubted her, but also what an uphill climb its been to get sports editors to take women’s sports coverage seriously.

If you haven’t read them already, I’d also like to point you to Sean Hurd’s recent profile of Williams at Andscape, and Noa Dalzell’s at SBNation. And as I mentioned above, I’ve been writing about Williams’s impact on the queer culture of the WNBA for years. Some stories for you to check out, if you’re interested:

• Androgyny Is Now Fashionable in the W.N.B.A., New York Times, 2019

• Athletes Are the Future of the Labor Movement, Mic.com, 2021

• Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue is a step back in time. And not in a good way, CNN, 2022

• Behind the visible queerness in women’s sports — and why it matters, The Washington Post, 2022

But first, some sports astrology! Courtney Williams was born May 11, 1994 and is from Folkston, Georgia. She is a Taurus sun (stubborn as hell), a Gemini Mercury (one hell of a trash talker), and an Aries Mars (fiery, competitive, and not one to back down from a fight or conflict).

She’s also one of my favorite college-to-WNBA queer glow ups.

this draft day photo KILLS ME EVERY TIME.

For transparency’s sake, here is the pitch I was sending out in 2019: