Navy women’s basketball junior Sydne Watts recently talked with PressBox about why she chose Navy, a day in the life of a women’s hoops player at the Academy and more. The 6-foot guard averaged 9.6 points and 3.8 rebounds for the Mids last year. Watts is a native of Canton, Ga., and graduate of Cherokee High School.
PressBox: How did you become interested in basketball?
Sydne Watts: Basketball was a sport I tried out for when I was a little kid. I’ve been playing it since elementary school. Something about the aggressiveness and the culture of basketball is just different from the culture of any team I’ve played on. I’ve leaned toward basketball since I was a little kid. I knew I wanted to play in college since I was probably like 9 or 10.
PB: Who was the biggest influence on your game growing up?
SW: The biggest influence on my game growing up was probably Paul Belcher. He was one of the trainers I had growing up. He started training me in probably seventh grade. He was really just a role model to me, a father figure to me for sure. He also taught me to push harder than I thought I could, even when I [was struggling]. He was a trainer that always pushed me to my limits and made me a lot better, whether it was through injury or not. He just spent countless hours in the gym up until 1 a.m., 2 a.m., just in the gym shooting or doing whatever we needed to do before the game the next day or whatever it may be.
PB: Why did you choose to come to the Naval Academy?
SW: This place is obviously different than any other in the country. I think any athlete can always say they want to come play for this team or this coach because they love the environment or whatever. I understand every college is special, but I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the country where I can sit there and play with a team that would literally die for each other. Everyone’s here to serve after we graduate. The people I’m standing next to on the court I know are not just going to dive on the ball for the ball for me. These are the same people that would jump in front of me to catch a bullet. The culture here is absolutely insane. The people here on and off the court are my biggest family. Obviously, it’s like the No. 1 public school in the country, which is great and academics are awesome. But I think the culture and the people are here are easily the reasons why everyone stays and everyone wants to be around this place.
PB: What’s a day in the life of a women’s hoops player at the Naval Academy?
SW: Busy, busy, busy. Usually if we have a lift or a workout in the morning at 6 a.m., we’re getting up around 5:30, but that’s not even just women’s basketball. Every freshman in the Brigade is up at 5 or 5:30 doing workouts. That’s kind of something we’re used to. We’ll go do that. After a 6 a.m. lift, maybe shower and grab breakfast by 7:15, 7:20. First classes start at 7:55, and then you’re rolling through classes until 11:45 or 11:55. If you don’t have a lunch workout, you hit noon meal formation and eat lunch with your company. Or usually basketball will have individual workouts with coaches for a good 45 minutes, then jump right back into uniform and grab some food and get back to class for a couple hours. By then, we’re going back to class and practice after that again or getting shots up or doing whatever it may be. After that, I’m grabbing dinner and just studying. It’s a grind all day. If you’re not eating or in the gym, you’re in the books. The school does a really good job of designating times for just study period. From 8-10 every night, nobody can be doing anything else than just studying and making sure we’re getting academics done. But obviously it takes a lot more than two hours. It’s a grind. Staying on a schedule is really tough, but it’s extremely rewarding.
PB: Do you have anything in mind for service selection as a senior next year?
SW: Marine Ground. I’m a cybersecurity major. After graduation, if I can go Marine Cyber or Marine Ground, that’d be awesome.
PB: What’s your favorite memory so far at the Naval Academy?
SW: Beating Holy Cross last year was an absolute insane feeling. I think that’s probably one of my favorite memories as far as basketball goes. Going up against the No. 1 seed [in the Patriot League tournament], everyone had doubts [about] us. It was at Holy Cross and the entire game, they were chirping at us. We were down for a while. I just remember that feeling of looking up, three minutes left in the game, and we’re down a good bit. We just got in the huddle and we looked at each other like, “We’re not doing this. We’re not letting them sit there and trash talk our team.” They were just laughing at us. Jennifer Coleman hit that last-second three, ended up being on ESPN the next day. I remember our school buzzing about it for weeks. They played it on the TVs during lunch and everything. It was super cool to see the entire school rally around us.
PB: What’s your favorite thing about the Academy?
SW: I think easily it’s the people. People from all different walks of life and all different kinds of backgrounds all come here for the same purpose. I think the biggest thing that can be sometimes be overlooked is we all have a very common struggle we’ve been through — plebe summer. Everyone at the school can relate to it. I feel like nobody can relate to it if you haven’t been here and haven’t gone through how difficult it is — plebe summer, which is like the boot camp indoctrination period before your freshman year. But everyone who’s been through it can all relate on that level. It kind of makes the entire school that much closer, having gone through that kind of difficulty. Everyone’s super close and the people here are like no other anywhere.
PB: What’s your favorite thing about Annapolis?
SW: I love the water. I love the location. Even the weather’s great. Downtown Annapolis and the people are awesome. The locals love the Mids. I feel like we kind of laugh about it sometimes. We’re like a tourist stop. There are always tourists on The Yard and everything like that. I love the locals, love the town area and being on the water.
PB: Who’s your best friend on the team and what’s a story that underscores your friendship?
SW: I think my best friend on the team is actually our team manager, [Mariah Johnson]. She’s part of the family, we always say that. We’ve been in the same company. We both came from similar backgrounds. Obviously I’m super close with everyone on the team, but it’s crazy. From the first day she came in to be a manager, she’s rebounding every ball, running around, super excited to help out and just be there even though she wasn’t on the court. Even in the Holy Cross game, [I] went back and watched it on ESPN and she was jumping on the floor and diving on the floor, jumping in when we all dove on Jen. Her energy every day at practice just kind of lightens everyone up, too, so that’s awesome. She’s one of my best friends. She’s in my company, so she lives a couple doors down from me. It’s great to be able to vent to her, too, about stuff going on.
PB: Who did you look up to early in your college career?
SW: Jennifer Coleman and Sophie Gatzounas, [who] was the senior team captain in my plebe year. Jennifer’s obviously a big player on the team. I know Jen went through some difficult stuff at the Academy and Sophie also went through some stuff here. It showed no matter what they could perform on the court and get through and graduate. Sophie’s commissioned to be a Marine Ground Officer, which I really look up to. Jennifer just signed to go play in Greece. It’s the flip of both coins. I look up to both of them a lot.
PB: What advice would you give younger players?
SW: Don’t lose the love for the game. No matter what’s going, no matter what you’ve got going on in your life, keep grinding and obviously studying hard and focusing on school. But don’t lose your love for the game. Come in every day excited to play. If you don’t love the game with all your heart and aren’t excited to play every day, it’s not something you can keep up at a D-I level. You have to love every second of play and every time you come out on the court, be excited for practice and be excited to get better and just be in the gym. You’ve got to love it. Just never take it for granted because you never know when your last game’s going to be. We saw that a lot with COVID my freshman year. We didn’t have a lot of games and we never knew when the last practice was going to be. Take every year and take every game and every second of every play with every ounce of love in your heart.
PB: What are your goals for after basketball, whenever it ends?
SW: I want to have a family one day. I want to have a big family. I just want to be happy. I think being able to support my family. That’s the biggest thing for me, just being able to have a big happy family, as cheesy as that sounds.
Photo Credit: Phil Hoffmann/Navy Athletics
Issue 277: October/November 2022
Originally published Oct. 19, 2022