Women’s Basketball: Emily Esposito and her journey to find purpose

By: Chad Jones

Emily Esposito was riding an exercise bike before a Boston University women’s basketball practice. It was right around halfway through the Terriers 2019-2020 campaign. Still recovering from a left knee injury, Esposito could not fully participate with her new teammates in team activities. In her first year at BU after transferring from Villanova, Esposito was still searching for her self-worth.

Esposito was experiencing hardships with her family, the transfer process, rehabbing her injury, and role with the team, or lack thereof. With basketball being an integral part of her life since middle school, it became how Esposito defined herself. Without being able to be on the court, that special something was missing from her schedule. Guilt coursed through her veins, filling her heart with the dreadful thought that she was currently unable to give her full commitment to the team.

Esposito expressed her feelings to the head coach of the BU women’s basketball team, Marisa Moseley, who she affectionately calls Coach Mo. What Moseley said to her left Esposito in tears.

Growing up in Gorham, Maine, Esposito became infatuated with the sport of basketball. Suiting up for the Maine Firecrackers in 6th grade for her first AAU team, she became hooked on the sport due to the terrific coaching she received. However, she picked up her signature shooting style outside of organized basketball.

Having two older brothers, one being eight years older and the other being two years her senior, Esposito had to get creative if she wanted her driveway jumpers to find the bottom of the net.

“I was always trying to keep up with them. It was a common thing to be playing basketball in the driveway,” Esposito said. “It’s funny, cause people will always ask me, ‘Oh why do you always shoot a fade-away or a step-back?’ And it’s always because I got blocked by my brothers all the time in the driveway.”

To this day, she feels right at home taking a step-back jumper while fading away. While her brothers left a mark on her basketball psyche, they were not the only ones to help propel Esposito into college athletics.

She has always valued what her basketball coaches instilled in her, describing how to act both on and off the hardwood. Coach Clement, who was in charge of the Firecrackers, consistently captured Esposito’s attention with a quote before a game or practice. One of his sayings is even the background of her phone.

“He would always say, ‘Too much is given, much is required,’” Esposito said. “It always stood out to me, because it really is true. If you’re given certain gifts, use them for good and use them to the best of your abilities to pay them forward.”

One of the critical aspects the sport of basketball demands is to mentally turn around quickly. A player does not have time to mull over a missed shot or a blown assignment. Usually, the next play has to be made immediately, or errors can pileup in a hurry.

Esposito, admittedly, is still working on dealing with in-game mistakes. To make sure her play does not become an avalanche of miscues, she allows herself an internal pity shot clock. After 7 seconds, forget about whatever just happened and get ready for the next possession.

As far as her basketball consumption as a fan went, she “religiously” followed the juggernaut of juggernauts: UConn. Maya Moore was her favorite player, and in a tradition many athletes can relate to, Esposito also chose to wear number 23 for a significant time. She became enthralled with the concept of playing on such a close-knit team after dedicating all of those hours watching the Huskies dominate their opponents.

In high school, Esposito got a sip of what UConn’s success tasted like. Her team went on an impressive 42-game winning streak of their own, and captured two State Championships. Personally, Esposito grabbed plenty of individual accolades. In 2017, she was chosen as the Maine Gatorade Player of the Year, Miss Maine Basketball, and the Portland Press Player of the Year. She ended her career with 1,446 points, the most in Gorham High School’s history.

With her resume dripping with success, Esposito could pick from a plethora of colleges. During high school, one of her goals was to become a Division 1 athlete. That dream was about to turn into a reality.

When looking over universities, the quality of the basketball program was a high priority, naturally. Esposito also wanted the experience of living away from Maine. But, thinking over her choice years later, deciding on a college is a difficult decision for a teenager to get right.

“I needed to pick a place that was further from home to just grow more and push myself a little bit,” Esposito said. “I was, I think, 17 when I made that decision. I could barely pick out what I wanted for an outfit for school that day, let alone what college I wanted to attend for the next 4 years of my life.”

She had many options, including Northwestern, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, DePaul, and Villanova. Villanova became a strong option after she built a good rapport with the head coach.

“I’m a big relationship person, and I felt like I had a good relationship with the head coach at Villanova,” Esposito said. “He was very open and honest with me too, kind of brutally honest. And I have to say, I appreciated that at the time. Because I was like, ‘Okay he’s not trying to sell me something, and he’s not trying to persuade me to come to the school.’ He wants me to come because I actually want to come.”

After a couple of visits to the university, and her family talking up the beautiful campus just outside of Philadelphia, Esposito committed to the Villanova Wildcats while she was a high school student. Unfortunately for Esposito, her time at Villanova would become mired with stress and challenges.

“I had started to realize that my morals and values and goals and aspirations for myself did not necessarily align with the program’s,” Esposito said. “And that was tough. My whole goal in playing at the highest level I can is I want to become a better person, a better leader, and a better player, and particularly, I want to do it in that order. I didn’t necessarily feel like that was happening at Villanova.”

Her frustration was exacerbated as a redshirt freshman. Although she was unable to play, and disappointed in the situation, Esposito was determined to not transfer after one difficult year. While thoughts of leaving would weave in and out of her mind, especially during her second season, Esposito still wanted to give everything she had to the program. But in the middle of that second year, she knew a change was necessary.

After going over her thought process with her mother and a couple of senior teammates, Esposito met with her coach to tell him that she would be leaving Villanova. Many emotions were pulsating through her.

“It was a very surreal feeling, because I over think a lot of my decisions,” Esposito said. “And I always had stated, from day one when I was being recruited, my biggest thing is that I never wanted to transfer. As relieved as I felt, I also felt disappointed in myself. ‘Was I letting myself down? Was I giving up or taking the easy way out?’”

Esposito now believes she made the correct decision. But, as every transfer student knows, choosing to leave your college is only half the battle. You then have to decide where you will be attending your next semester.

When it came to the caliber of schools, and their basketball programs, Esposito was only considering top notch institutions. Duke, George Washington, Fordham, and of course, Boston University were on her radar. Esposito toured these schools while still enrolled at Villanova. She instantly felt a connection speaking to Marisa Moseley, who had been hired as BU’s head coach in April of 2018.

“When I had the privilege of speaking with Coach Mo,” Esposito said. “I feel like we just really hit it off.”

Esposito was even more convinced BU was the right school for her after her mother gave the stamp of approval. Knowing her mother felt Moseley and BU’s basketball program was a good fit eased the tension for Esposito. She chose to become a Boston University Terrier in large part because Moseley sees the students on her team as people first and players second.

During BU’s summer practices in 2019, Esposito was still trying to process the radical changes that follow transferring schools. Many alterations filter through in a short time frame for a transfer student, especially for an athlete. Getting used to the new campus, city, and environment can be daunting.

On top of that, Esposito was meeting over a dozen new teammates, coaches, and staff that she would constantly be around the rest of her time in college. Luckily, her new teammates could not have been more supportive and helpful. But even with assistance inside the program, Esposito was meeting challenges she could not so easily have game planned for.

“I don’t handle change very well,” Esposito said. “For me to adjust, it was a lot harder than I anticipated.”

There are certain obstacles for transfers that college students who arrive at their universities as freshmen would never consider. For example, to them, a professor’s syllabus elicits the feelings of a chill first class. Syllabus Day is a de-stressor for a college student if there ever was one. To transfer students, the term “syllabus” evokes a range of emotions, from mild annoyance to pure panic.

Part of the process of transferring is corralling all of the class syllabuses the student took at their previous college. In order for the student to get credit for those courses, their new institution has to sign off on those classes. To get that approval, and to avoid having to take a class they already passed at their old institution, the transfer student supplies the syllabuses for the college to review.

Compiling syllabi is just one of the many nerve-wracking aspects of changing universities. Oftentimes, transfer students walk a fine line between asking for help and feeling as if they are being a nuisance. The last thing Esposito wanted to convey to the program was that she is an encumbrance.

“Villanova wasn’t really helping me out with any of that,” Esposito said. “And I was too scared to ask the coaches and the academic staff for help. Because I’m this new transfer, and I feel like working with a transfer is hard enough as is. So I don’t want to be more of a burden to them than I already feel like I am.”

Syllabi were just one of a long line of difficulties Esposito had to combat. Yet another transfer hurdle she had to sort out was getting her waiver approved to play in the 2019-2020 season. An athlete has to prove that they transferred for a legitimate reason to avoid having to sit out a year. Unfortunately, her request was denied. Meaning she would have to redshirt and sit out the season for the 2nd time in her first 3 years at college.

On top of these transfer logistics, Esposito was learning an entirely new system during basketball practice. It is almost like picking up a new language; it takes time to feel comfortable using it.

To add even more frustration to her situation, Esposito was rehabbing from a left knee injury, so she could not completely immerse herself in the practices. For the first few months of the season, she was unable to fully participate in these vital team activities. That would be the case until approximately the halfway point of BU’s season. Once she was cleared, Esposito could only take part in the practices as a member of the scout team, since she would not get any in game action that year.

It is hard enough to get into a groove as a transfer athlete when you are healthy, cleared to play, and all set with class credits. She was experiencing a tough stretch she could not simply shoot her way out of.  Esposito searched for any positives that could come from soaking in the program’s ethos from the sidelines. Fortunately, her teammates were there for her.

Esposito believes the obstacles she went through last season actually helped improve her relationships with the players on the team. She really got to know who they are as people, not just basketball players. After having it be the opposite for so long in her life, in a way, it was refreshing to light a fire with a different match.

“I was really struggling my first year,” Esposito said. “I think because I was so vulnerable and I needed a lot of help and guidance to just get through that year. I had to rely on my teammates, and I think that’s why I have such great relationships where I genuinely care so much about them. And I feel I owe them the world, because they put up with me through so much stuff.”

But even with support inside the program, her first year at BU was a rollercoaster of emotions.

Esposito felt guilty about constantly asking her teammates questions and for bombarding the coaches with transfer issues, mostly regarding the waiver. The transition became so overwhelming that she seriously contemplated if this entire ordeal was worth the aggravation.

“I even got the point where I had said, ‘I just hate basketball,’” Esposito said. “And I genuinely thought I was gonna quit. I can 100% say now that if it wasn’t for my coaches, and my teammates, and really specifically Coach Mo, that I probably would have quit college basketball.”

What breathed new life into her appreciation for the sport was a heart to heart with Moseley before a practice. Esposito was still not quite ready to rejoin the team activities, so she did what countless athletes have done when they were unfit to participate; hop on the exercise bike. Before the practice started, Esposito needed to tell her coach what was on her mind.

“‘I’m so sorry that I’m not bringing more to the table and I am not doing enough or more for the program,’” Esposito said to Moseley. “And I said I really owe it to my teammates to be able to give them 100%, but I feel like I only have 60% right now.”

Moseley looked at her and gave her opinions on what Esposito should be focusing on.

“‘Emily, the only thing you owe to the program is to get better and to feel like yourself again,’” Esposito recalled Moseley saying. “‘And if you want to take time off, or feel like you need to take time off, you just let me know.’ And I remember she walked away and I broke down crying. Nowadays, you don’t get coaches who care like that, about you as a person. Coach Mo cares about us so much more as people then she does as players.”

That was the spark Esposito was searching for. This interaction drove home the point she had been wrestling with since she first fell in love with basketball; her play on the court does not define who she is.

“There is so much more to me as a person than just being an athlete,” Esposito said. “And I have so much worth beyond being a basketball player. And I think that is another really big adjustment that I struggled with for a long time. I thought my worth was dependent on my achievements and failures as an athlete.”

Moseley’s attitude about her players is that they are so much more than a jersey number or statistics in a box score. Esposito believes it is critical that people who participate in athletics understand that they are a person first and a player second.

Esposito now partakes in a program titled Athletes to Visionaries, which emphasizes the idea that people who are successful in sports should not see themselves as just athletes. Fully embracing this lesson could not have come in a more crucial year for her.

Coming into this season, Esposito was determined to change how she felt about her time as a collegiate athlete.

“The biggest thing I want to accomplish, in terms of a mindset, is that my college experience hasn’t been a failure,” Esposito said. “That I’ve always told myself that it is. If I can truly get to a point where I believe that everything has worked out the way it was supposed to, and there’s so much to come from my experience and what I’ve learned, I will be very happy.”

Esposito has thrived in a sixth-player role for the Terriers this season. She’s averaging 7.1 points and 3.8 rebounds per game as a mid-range maestro and scored a season-high 13 points on Feb. 17 against Holy Cross.

With her injury, redshirting, and who can forget, the COVID pandemic, she has done plenty of soul searching over the last year plus. Esposito is elated she can stop keeping track of the days it has been since her last contest and start keeping track of BU’s record.

During this campaign, Esposito has opened a new chapter. Now in March, BU is slated as the second seed in the Patriot League Tournament and penciled in to face Lafayette in the opening contest Sunday, March 7th.

Through the many obstacles she has experienced over her time in college, Esposito has learned a lot about herself as a player, and more importantly, a person. With a competitive fire constantly ruminating inside her, she is still determined to prove an important aspect to herself; her college career has been a success.

Featured image courtesy of Ethan Fuller/WTBU Sports.