Playing Through Pain, with RGIII and Elena Delle Donne

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ANNOUNCER: Stunned silence here. One of the brightest stars to come into this league in a long time, he now can’t get up.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: It’s becoming all too familiar in professional sports. From Jayson Tatum going down in last year’s NBA playoffs to losing Joe Burrow in Week 2 of the NFL season, devastating injuries take our favorite athletes off the field and rob players of millions of dollars, testing their resilience and permanently changing the trajectory of their careers.
ROBERT GRIFFIN III: It was almost as if like my leg was being ripped off, and I crumbled immediately in that moment.
ELENA DELLE DONNE: In no way could I play the way I’d played all season. I just was dealing with too much pain, but I knew I could be out there. I could be a leader.
DG: Today on Sports in America, we’re talking injuries with former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin the III and two-time WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne.

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DG: We’re gonna find out how these two stars in their respective sports grappled with key questions like: Where’s the line between a heroic, gutsy performance and risking your entire livelihood? And whose responsibility is it to protect the player in the heat of the moment?

We start with our conversation with RGIII, who, before getting badly hurt, was building one of the most promising rookie campaigns in NFL history. We pick up the action during a thrilling Thanksgiving Day game in 2012, when RGIII and his Washington teammates were playing the Dallas Cowboys.
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RGIII: This is incredible. It wasn’t like a surprise. We had that potential. We just had to go out and do it.
ANNOUNCER: PLAYING ootball on Thanksgiving. A Dallas tradition and RGIII will start at the 20.
RGIII: We shot out the gate really, really fast.
ANNOUNCER: This guy had a perfect quarterback rating, Robert Griffin III.
RGIII: Tony Romo and the Cowboys didn’t know what to do. Defense was bewildered. Did the play action pass and I dropped back, and threw a bomb to Aldrick Robinson.
ANNOUNCER: Griffin keeps it. He’s got him. Downfield.
RGIII: And when it left my hand, it wasn’t like, “Oh, yeah, that’s a dime.” It left my hand I’m like, man, I overthrew this man by like 30 yards. Cuz I just unleashed it and just let my eyes trust what my eyes saw and made the throw.
ANNOUNCER: As strong of an arm as RGIII has, I don’t think you can outthrow Aldrick Robinson.
RGIII: And it hit him right in stride.
ANNOUNCER: Downfield, Robinson for the touchdown!
RGIII: And at that moment, early in the game, I knew we got something today.
ANNOUNCER: I don’t know how you can watch the first half of this game on Thanksgiving and not be thoroughly impressed with what Robert Griffin III can do.
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RGIII: When you can make plays that seem odd, or that seem off to you, but they’re perfect, that’s when you know that something special is cooking on that day.
ANNOUNCER: He has elevated the play of those around him.
RGIII: For me, it was that moment. And then the next was the touchdown pass to Pierre Garçon. He runs his drifter out into the middle of the field. And at this point in the game, we were on fire.
ANNOUNCER: They really have outplayed the Dallas Cowboys.
RGIII: Everything was clicking. We could call a play backwards, and it was gonna work. So the defense knew the play was coming. They ran perfectly to the right spots. But I was feeling good on that day. I was feelin’ really confident. And I threw the ball to the only place that Pierre could catch it.
ANNOUNCER: Griffin over the metal, he got Garçon. And Pierre Garçon’s got room to go.
RGIII: And that was behind him. (Laughs)
ANNOUNCER: He threw it behind him.
RGIII: I threw it at his ear hole and he’s running full speed across the field left to right. And because of that, the only way he was going to catch this pass is if he made a miraculous catch. And he did.
ANNOUNCER: And that’s just a great catch by Pierre Garçon.
RGIII: He spun on a dime, running full speed. I don’t know if anybody’s ever tried to spin while you’re running full-speed in any direction. He spun around, caught it, kept his feet, and ran for a touchdown with the whole convoy of receivers running with him.
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RGIII: I can still to this day see Santana Moss running down the field, blocking the corners from the Dallas Cowboys, making sure that Pierre could go score that touchdown.
ANNOUNCER: But it’s a 59-yard touchdown to Pierre Garçon.
RGIII: I felt the emotion from that play. It was astonishing because in that moment, I truly felt like our team had finally bonded together. You go on Thanksgiving and you obliterate the Cowboys, which is America’s team, and you go out and you do it in a way that no one’s ever seen it done before. And that game helped us do it every week after that on our way to the postseason.
DG: When he started his NFL career with Washington in 2012, he seemed unstoppable. RGIII had been the second overall draft pick, known for his rocket arm, his agility, and his speed. No one could have foreseen the devastating injuries to come.

Your fanbase was growing like wildfire after the game. I mean, a couple weeks later, you said an all-time sales record for NFL jerseys in a single season. I mean, this is the record at the time. You’re a rookie. I mean, that’s just unheard of. Like how how did that attention and people just coming to you and rooting for you, like, how did that affect how you played in the weeks ahead?

RGIII: I think any time you have a performance like that on the national stage, when it’s the only game that’s going on, it gives you a certain type of confidence. Now, as we talked about cliches, every player is going to tell you they’re the most confident player in the world because you have to, right? You have to have that generalized belief. But when good things happen, there’s a trickle effect. And that first throw we talked about the bomb to Aldrick Robinson down the field. Where I thought I overthrew him, and he went and made the catch. Hit him in stride. Well, that had a trickle-down effect to the next touchdown. Throw to the next touchdown. Throw to the next touchdown throw. And I think that’s what happened for us in that game. We had a trickle-down effect for the rest of the year.

DG: What is trickle-down?. Is it just confidence? Is it a belief in self? Is it chemistry? I’m like, what does that mean?

RGIII: A lot of people talk about like slippery slopes in a bad way, but when you have good things happen for you, they start to balloon up for you, right? Stuff starts to flow or roll downhill. So now if you’re making this throw and this receiver’s making this catch, oh well the other receiver’s going to be like, “Well I can make that play” right. If a running back like Alfred Morris great running back. If he makes a play, Roy Junior is like “Oh, I can make that play.” And now everyone’s like raising their level each and every play, each and every game, until you find yourself in a position where, oh, end of the year we got one game against the Cowboys once again, and whoever wins goes to the playoffs. Whoever loses goes home. And because of what happened in that Thanksgiving game and the rest of the season and how we continue to grow and bond as a team, we were ultra confident that we can make that game our game and win it.

DG: RGIII was a breakout star in that 2012 season. He led Washington to the playoffs. His name was being thrown around in MVP discussions. All of that changed though, on January 6th, 2013.
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DG: RGIII was a breakout star in that 2012 season. He led Washington to the postseason. His name was being thrown around in MVP discussions. All of that changed on January 6th.
ANNOUNCER: Who’s not ready for this wild card game
RGIII: I hurt myself in the second drive.
ANNOUNCER: Griffin is really slow back to the huddle. You see the limp, and he’s clearly in some discomfort.
RGIII: Played the rest of the game until we got to the fourth quarter.
ANNOUNCER: That 2nd and 22.
RGIII: The communication back and forth was that, look, I can’t run. So we got to call drop-back passes. We have to run the ball with Alfred Morris and the rest of our backs. Like, we’re more than a good enough offense to get that done. They called a bootleg. And I did the fake, came out of the boot. Everyone in the stands, everyone watching on TV is like, “Take this guy out the game.” Bruce Irvin, you know, sacked me, whiplashed me, spun me around.
ANNOUNCER: That’s going to get him 22. That’s it! And snap! It belongs to Seattle.
RGIII: I had no ability to get away from that hit or to get out of that situation. At that point, I, you know, peel myself off the ground, linemen come and help pick me up, and we go to the huddle for the next play. And, you know, Will Montgomery’s my center at that time, and he was a dog, right? He was a fighter. And they’d been fighting all game to protect me from that second series on because they knew I wasn’t as mobile as I had been. Definitely early in the year, but even earlier in the game. And he snapped the ball to the left when I reached down to try to catch it, my ACL tore.
ANNOUNCER: And Robert Griffin III is down on the ground and can’t get up.
DG: I remember this, I mean I feel like the whole football world was like feeling for you.
ANNOUNCER: Stunned silence here. One of the brightest stars to come into this league in a long time, he now can’t get up.
RGIII: I knew it was my ACL because I had torn my ACL before. The pain that you feel when you tear your ACL the first time is like a pinch. It hurts, but it’s like a pinch and boom, it’s gone. When you tear your ACL the second time, it’s almost like if you’ve ever watched an ACL surgery, they do a lot to your knee to get it back righteous. That’s why it looks like a balloon when you come out of surgery. But the second time it tore, it was almost as if like my leg was being ripped off. And I crumbled. Immediately in that moment, crumbled to the ground because I, there’s very few things that can happen in your life that take you completely out of the moment. And when you feel the pain of tearing your ACL on a reconstruction, it takes you out of the moment, I fell to the ground, the ball was literally laying next to my head. And I was not there.
DG: You were physically unable to reach for the ball??
RGIII: I was physically unable to be in that moment because I was in so much pain.
ANNOUNCER: Let’s take another look. You’re going to see the snap of the ball. It’s low. And then as he goes down, but as he’s trying to get it here, you see that knee go.
RGIII: And that injury and the way it happened just exemplified for me just how compromised I was because who is really out there tearing their ACL just bending down to the left trying to catch a snap that’s a little too left.
DG: During the game, as he was lying on the ground, fans started chanting his name, RGIII, RGIII. You can hear it in the background as the announcers talk about a USA Today story on whether RGIII would have been playing or not
ANNOUNCER: But it would be ignoring a story that broke today if we didn’t talk about an article that came out in USA Today regarding RGIII and his injury on December 9th, when he was hit. That leg was exposed, and he sprained the knee in a game here against the Baltimore Ravens.
DG: How are you feeling going into that big game?

RGIII: Well, it was a little earlier in the year where I actually hurt my LCL against the Baltimore Ravens. That was like someone took a metal bat and just hit me in the side of the leg as hard as they possibly could. Like Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire, just swinging at your knee because I got hit by Haloti Ngata.
DG: Large, powerful man.
RGIII: Large, large, powerful, man. Over 350 pounds, right? So for me, at that point, I missed the next game against the Cleveland Browns, and it was just a focus on, can I get healthy enough to play? I had been told it was a sprain. I’d been told, “Hey, it could be a couple of weeks, could be one week, you could play this week.”
DG: But heading into that Seahawks game, were there people saying to you, like, “You shouldn’t play man.”
RGIII: Not going into the game, and the reason they weren’t saying it going into the game was because I had played the previous three weeks. Now everyone that had watched me run in those previous three weeks would have said, “Why is he playing?” Because I didn’t look good running
ANNOUNCER: I think the real key for Washington is how healthy is that knee for RGIII?
RGIII: I was fine throwing, I was leading the offense, making all the checks, but when I had to break the pocket or do a designed run, it didn’t look pretty.
ANNOUNCER: We know last week, he was not all that effective running the football.
RGIII: You get into a situation where, when it’s really, really bad and it starts to get better, people feel more comfortable doing certain things. I was never comfortable after I came back from that injury, that season, running the ball. And I let that be known; it wasn’t a secret. But they felt like I needed to run at least once or twice a game to keep the defense honest.
DG: Sure.
RGIII: Right, and I understood that thinking, but was it the best thing for my long-term career? No.
DG: So what were you thinking going into that Seahawks game?
RGIII: So that’s what I’m saying, going into the Seahawks game, I had already played against, I believe, Philly. We had beat Philly, we obviously beat the Cowboys, I think we had beat the Giants at the end of the year, I’m not sure.
DG: So this new approach, like, “I’m going to run a couple times, I’m gonna protect the leg,” like you felt you had gotten into a comfort zone?
RGIII: Yes, and as uncomfortable as that comfort zone could be.
DG: Because you like to run?
RGIII: No, it’s not that I like to run. It was just that you can’t use a certain skill set that you have. But I knew that. So we had gotten to a point where it was like, all right, you’re going to run a couple of times a game and we’re going to leave it at that. But people, when they saw me run, were still alarmed. But by the time we got to the Seattle game, I was feeling much better. So when I ran in the first drive or two series in that Seattle game. I actually didn’t look bad. I looked more like myself until I re-injured myself.
DG: I mean you completed 10 of 19 passes, two touchdowns, one interception. I mean, you were injured or not, I mean you were playing a solid game, and are you feeling like I wish I could be my true self? Maybe we’d be up right now in the fourth quarter or what is…
RGIII: No, because I think the real question here that needs to be answered or navigated is, it’s not how was it going into the game, it was once we got in the game, and I re-injured myself.
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RGIII: Then at that point as a player, you’re in the playoffs, right? You have no idea if there’s gonna be a game the next week if you’re not playing. So as a player, you’re willing to put your body on the line, you’re willin’ to put everything out there for you guys. And I think that’s something that has gotten lost over the years. It’s like, no, I wanted to play because I wanted to be there for Santana Moss. I wanted it to be that for Trent Williams, Alfred Morris, Pierre Garçon, Josh, I want it to be there for those guys. And in that moment, it is not the player’s responsibility to say “Enough,” right? We think of football players as gladiators, right? Years ago, Kellen Winslow got in trouble for saying, “It’s like war out there. It’s a battlefield.” It’s not a battlefield, right, but we think of ourselves as gladiators. So when it comes to, “Hey, this guy might have a concussion.” Guys don’t want to come out. You have a decision in that moment. It’s fight or flight, right? The real ones are built to fight. So for me, in that movement, I just wanted to keep fighting for my guys. And that’s where the onus falls on the doctors and the coaches to protect guys from themselves. I heard an interview recently about Ryan Clark, he has a sickle cell trait. And everyone knew about that when he was in the league. And Mike Tomlin, they were playing a game against the Broncos, very important game. And Tomlin held him out of the game. And the reason he held him out of game was because it wasn’t gonna be good for Ryan Clark’s future.
DG: With his team depending on him, in the heat of the moment, RGIII made the dangerous decision to keep playing in the game against the Seahawks. But should it even be up to him? Coming up, we’ll ask him why his coach kept him in the game at all.

Welcome back to Sports in America. With Washington’s season on the line in 2013, Robert Griffin III was on the field playing through debilitating pain. It was certainly heroic on his part, but is it even his responsibility to make that call?

Why didn’t Shanahan hold you out of this game against the Seahawks?
RGIII: I don’t think that’s the question. I think the question is, why didn’t he take me out of that game once I was re-injured? And I think that the question that a lot of people are asking, why throw this young guy out there? He’s a rookie. He’s 22 years old. Why throw him out there and do all of these different things when it’s clear, it’s very evident that he’s not himself? It’s very evident in that playoff game that he is now injured. I told them that I was injured. They knew because the doctors and everybody had to come get me off the field. And then the conversation there was about, I just can’t run anymore.
DG: Do you feel like Shanahan let you down and didn’t protect you by putting you back in there and exposing you in the fourth quarter?
RGIII: I think everybody feels that way. And it took a while, right? I came back the following year and played eight months after the surgery on my knee for ACL and LCL. And it wasn’t until 2017 when I went back and I re-watched all that tape. All that tape from 2013. And I felt like, man, I shouldn’t have played that year. Or at least not that early, because I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t able to go out there and move and groove. And guess what? When you put that on tape, teams don’t care.
DG: But we’ve watched all this like, the doctor had come out and said that he hadn’t cleared you to play in the game. Like it’s hard to, it’s hard to imagine you not feeling a sense of someone had to have my back there. I shouldn’t have been out there.
RGIII: Yeah, and like I said, in the moment, you don’t feel that way. In the moment, you’re just trying to do everything you possibly can to be out there for your teammates. I immediately after the game defended my coach. I defended Mike Shanahan and said, “I wanted to play.” “There’s nothing he was going to be able to do to get me off that field.”
DG: Do you still defend him now, years later?
RGIII: No, I don’t. And the reason I don’t now is because I’m able to reflect back on everything, right? What happened for the rest of my career? What happened the very next year with Mike still as my coach? I don’t hold any grudges. Everything that I went through has taught me so much. But yes, it’s very simple, and anyone will tell you. It is the coach’s responsibility to protect a player from himself.
DG: Part of why RGIII wanted to get back into the game as soon as possible can be traced to his intensive training as a young athlete, almost as if he was preparing his body and his mind for a moment just like this.
I wanna talk about someone who had that kind of effect on your life, driving you, and it was your dad who we’re talking about. There’s this story about when you wanted to be the fastest kid on the military base where you were growing up. This was in an ESPN profile. He had you tie an old tire around your waist while you were training to make you better and to push harder. Like, how did that mentality stick with you over the years?
RGIII: Yeah, I mean, my dad, you know, the tire. Yeah, that’s old school, right? That’s Rocky. You know what I mean? But I did those all the way through college. I did that in the NFL.
DG: The tire trick?
RGIII: Yes, because my teammates, you know, my…
DG: Was it an old tire? Was it more updated equipment?
RGIII: No, no, no. It was old tires. You know, just old tires, rubber tires, you know. And a couple of my teammates and I’ll name them. Lanear Sampson was one of my wide receivers, and Jarred Salobi was one of our running backs. And they would see me pulling the tires around, doing forward lunges, doing back pedals, doing sprints in the driveway of our dorm, which was called The Arbor’s, back in Waco. And after a couple nights, they were like, because I would do this two or three times a week. After a couple of nights, it’s like, “Yeah, but what are you doing?” And I would just tell them, I said, well, “You can never forget what got you there. You can never forget the work that got you there,” and doing that type of work a couple times a week was what had gotten me to do all the things that I accomplished in high school, all the thing that made the college coaches want me to go to the university. And that type of work ethic was taught to me by my father, and his sacrifice over the years is really, was what motivated me to go out and not give up in 2015 when I didn’t play. And not give up in 2017 when I wasn’t in the league at all. So in ‘15 I was in the League, just wasn’t getting any play. In ‘17, I wasn’t even in the Leagues. And I just kept working, just kept working, because eventually you’re going to find that breakthrough.
DG: What is he telling you about your career right now? Like broadcasts, playing, what’s his advice?
RGIII: He knows I want to play. I think everybody knows I still want to play. I love the game. But what I’m able to do right now and still get back to the game and be around the game. Hey, you know, I have a love for this now as well.
DG: This, broadcast? Behind a microphone?
RGIII: Yeah, so he’s telling me just keep having fun, because I think that’s what he wants to see and the people that know me, they know at one point in my career, I wasn’t having fun anymore. And I had to find that back again, and I did. And that’s why I was able to get back in the league and extend my career, because I found the fun in football.
DG: So you’re having fun in the broadcast booth. and you’re great. It’s great watching games you’re calling. What is the drive to play again?
RGIII: Yeah, I mean, we did a little charity run at Run Rick Run earlier this offseason.
DG: Yeah, I think you ran a 4.48.
RGIII: Yeah
DG: 40-yard dash, and which was I just want to put that in perspective at the NFL combine this year the fastest was 4.53 by a quarterback, and that was Desmond Ritter of Cincinnati. So you ran faster than any quarterback.
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RGIII: You know, this is a blessing. You know just, you know, it’s really not even about me. It’s about the people that I’ve worked with over the last, you know, 10 years to help me stay ready to roll, right? You would think that I had been hurt 75 times in my career, but I hadn’t. And I only missed a certain amount of games due to injury. It’s just the injuries that I did have were big ones, right? I tore my ACL, broke my ankle. So that makes people think, “Oh, well, he’s hurt all the time”. But I wasn’t. And in Baltimore, I wasn’t hurt at all, so. Till I tore my hamstring off the bone in that Steelers game, so that hurt. But I think my desire to play really just comes from every player’s desire to play. You wanna end your career on your own terms. If I never play another down of football, will I regret it? Nope, not at all. And why won’t I regret? Because football’s given so much to me. It’s given so much to my family, so many relationships, but from that side of it, I’m not afraid to admit. Yeah, I still want to play. I’m not afraid to admit that. And a lot of players are, because it comes down to pride and ego. And I learned a long time ago that you have to push that aside to go pursue your dreams. Just keep swinging. Keep swinging because that has literally catapulted me into what I’m doing now. And what I am doing now, I’m having a blast with it, my family’s having a blast with it. And you just don’t know where God has you to be. For my entire life, I always thought that I was going to be on a basketball court, on a football field, or running around a circle on a track. But God blessed me with great moments in those areas, and now it seems like this is my calling. So if this is calling, then all of that was worth it. And that’s how I approach it. That’s the attitude that I have about it. Put yourself out there. If you don’t risk it, you definitely can’t get the biscuit, right?
DG: Yeah and there’s actually another star athlete we spoke to who feels the exact same way.
EDD: I was given all the warnings. I was told, like, this isn’t the greatest way to go about this, but I wasn’t going to listen.
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NATASHA CLOUD: Elena not only has one herniated disk, she has three. Yeah. Three of them thangs. Three of them!
DG: We’re taking you now to the 2019 WNBA season. Two-time MVP Elena Delle Donne and the Washington Mystics are chasing their first-ever WNBA title. This is a historic season for the Mystics and Delle Donne, but her body is testing her. Before this final best-of-five series, Delle Donne suffered those three herniated disks, plus a knee injury.
ANNOUNCER: Delle Donne, with the head of steam, went down, and she is holding on to her knee. Elena Delle Donne is hurt.
DG: And then came a broken nose. So now, when she’s playing, Delle Donne wears one of those protective plastic masks.
EDD: It became a part of me that season. And I don’t know, I just felt like, you know, a superhero putting the mask on through that season, there was something about it. It was like putting on my piece of armor.
DG: So with a face mask, three herniated disks, and a knee brace, Delle Donne decides to play in Game 5 against the Connecticut Sun, ignoring warnings from the team doctors.
EDD: You know, you dream of going to a Game 5 and winning a championship, but in my dreams, I didn’t realize I was gonna be dealing with excruciating back pain and pain down my left leg.
ANNOUNCER: Game 5 is underway as Connecticut wins the two.
EDD: It’s weird, I almost can’t like remember that game very well and I’m wondering like is that because it was a trauma and I was in that much pain and a lot of times when your body is in pain or experiencing a trauma you don’t remember much.
ANNOUNCER: Delle Donne, Thomas has to be careful already with one foul as Delle Donne squeezes it in.
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EDD: In like the opening minute, even in the warm-ups, I was like, okay, I’m feeling a little bit better than the last game. So like that’s pretty much all I was thinking, like staying positive with it, like you’re moving better. I might be able to attack a little more than I had before.
ANNOUNCER: It’s completely different, Elena Delle Donne that we saw in game three, game four. She got closer to what she can do, but she’s looking pretty spry out here, Ryan.
EDD: I was just learning how to move and also how to play differently. Like I knew, in no way could I play the way I’d played all season. I was just dealing with too much pain, but I knew I could be out there. I could be a leader. I could hit open shots and space the floor.
ANNOUNCER: Alyssa Thomas jockeying with Delle Donne. Delle Donne bodying in and finishing!
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DG: She is so physical in this game that it’s hard to tell how much she’s actually hurting. Despite how well she’s playing in the third quarter, Connecticut starts to pull away with a big lead.
EDD: It was late in the game and it wasn’t looking good on the outside, I feel like.
ANNOUNCER: A 10-2 run for Connecticut to 9-point lead.
EDD: But when I would go to our huddles and to see the focus and the drive from each player out there, and just like how locked in everyone was, and how we’re so much in problem-solving mode, it wasn’t like a uh-oh feel.
ANNOUNCER: Rebound Delle Donne, some momentum brewing for Washington.
DG: At this point, Elena Delle Donne, she taps into her reserves, playing through all that pain to help the Mystics regain the lead.
ANNOUNCER 1: Delle Donne, cutting through two, gets it to go in the foul. And who is the foul on?
ANNOUNCER 2: You get Elena Delle Donne a touch because she’s been in attack mode. She comes through.
ANNOUNCER 3: 11-point Washington lead!
EDD: Once we got the lead, it was impossible for them to take it back. And the way that the building was like shaking, the crowd was going nuts, it was ours.
ANNOUNCER: The wait is over! For the very first time, the Washington Mystics are WNBA Champions!
EDD: Immediately, you know, going over celebrating with my wife, and we’re both in tears because we knew, you know, everything leading up to the moment, what it takes. And then in that series playing through the pain I was experiencing, but thinking like, ”Okay, it was worth it. Like we won.”
ANNOUNCER: Title number one for two of this league’s great luminaries, Elena Delle Donne and Mike Thibault.
EDD: Thank God. (Laughs) Thank God we won.
DG: Elena Delle Donne strikes an imposing figure. She stands at 6’5 “ and she is considered one of the best to ever play in the WNBA. She’s a two-time league MVP, seven time All-Star for the league. She’s also an Olympic gold medalist. But those accomplishments don’t really capture what it’s like to see her on the court. In 2019, she made history when she became the only WNBA player to join the elite 50 40 90 club, shooting better than 50% from the field, 40% from beyond the three-point line, and 90% from the foul line. What’s even crazier than her stats, though, is the fact that Elena accomplished all this while playing through devastating injuries.
What hurt the most? I mean, you had a broken nose, you had herniated disks, you have a bruised knee, right?
EDD: Yeah, the knee, the nose, none of that mattered. It was all my back, the pain that I was experiencing down my leg. Just having nerve pain was the part that was really tough. And then just the muscles in my back being so tight, trying to protect me from moving, made it all that much harder.
DG: Were people telling you not to play? Like, just looking at you and seeing how much pain you were in?
EDD: Uh, you know, not not to play, but just saying like, “Are you sure about this?” And also telling me, you know, what I’m playing through and what damage that can do, and also explaining that, like the medications I was taking to help with the pain, could numb some of the damage I was doing. My body certainly had to deal with some things afterwards.
DG: Do you remember a conversation? Like when someone was telling you something, like their thoughts on whether or not you should be playing?
EDD: Uh, the doctors kind of gave me the whole run through of telling me my options and kind of saying like, “Yes, you’ve done the herniation, but they can get bigger.” Like “You can injure yourself more.” Then also my wife, kind of just being like, “You know, you also have like a life to live after this. Like, say we have kids or say you want to go run around with the dogs. Like you got to keep that in mind.” And she knew. Like she had to say it, but she knew what my answer was gonna be. It was like, “I’ll be fine. I’ll figure it out. I’ll have time after the season. I’ll be all right. “
DG: She knew you weren’t going to listen to her, even though she was going to say anything.
EDD: No, but she had to, I think she just had to like say it. (Laughs)
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EDD: With the pain, I knew that my back was worse than, you know, what I was kind of letting on. So I knew I probably risked and did a little bit to it. And really, I was only fully honest with her about how much pain I was experiencing with everyone else. I was trying to play it off, didn’t want people to worry.
DG: You didn’t want them to worry about you. I didn’t wanna.
EDD: I didn’t want my teammates to worry that I wasn’t ready. Didn’t want the coaching staff to, you know, coach me any differently. I wanted things to stay the same because I knew to win, things had to kind of stay the same. So I was really only honest and open with my wife about it. So I guess I put all my worries on her. (Laughs) But that’s what your partners are for.
DG: Tell me how you saw each other after the game was over.
EDD: She was actually celebrating with people next to her, and I like poked her on the back and was like, “Hello?”
DG: “Can I get a little?”
EDD: Yeah, like, “Let’s celebrate.” And right when she like turned around, we embraced in a huge hug, and we’re both just crying. It’s like, “It happened. We did it.”
DG: Here, at the pinnacle of her sport, it might seem like becoming a champion in basketball was Elena Delle Donne’s destiny, but it wasn’t always that straightforward. We’ll hear how Elena grappled with one of the pivotal decisions of her life, coming up on Sports in America
Welcome back to Sports in America. For Elena Delle Donne, winning a WNBA championship fulfilled a lifelong dream. But there was actually a point early on in her career where she completely quit the game of basketball.
So your relationship with basketball, I mean, was it a matter of I’m tall, I can be really good at this sport, it’s natural, it’s obvious, and you did it? Or were there moments when it was like, I don’t wanna do the obvious thing, just because I’m tall, like there are other sports that I really would rather be playing.
EDD: Actually, I think the basketball court was the only place I felt comfortable because my height was such a great tool to have. So it was finally the one place where being tall was a good thing. It was positive and it helped me to be really successful in the sport. So I think that’s why I fell in love with basketball so much. It was finally the one place I could take a deep breath and be proud of who I was.
DG: That’s really powerful. So you didn’t feel that ability to, you couldn’t feel powerful and be comfortable in your own skin, in lots of other places?
EDD: No, in lots of other places, I just felt way too big for things. Like, even in school, my desks weren’t big enough. Like I always felt like I was crouching in my desk or my knees were hitting the top of the table. So really any space I was in, I just felt too big for those spaces and uncomfortable. It felt like, you know, those worlds weren’t made for me. And then I got onto a basketball court, and I was like, “Oh, this is the space that was made for me. Like, this can be great!”
DG: The basketball court was the only place Elena felt like she belonged. And at a young age, she started to gain national attention from colleges.
You got a scholarship offer to play at a powerhouse school, the University of Connecticut, right?
EDD: Yeah. My first offer, though, was from the University of North Carolina, and it was after I was in seventh grade. So I was headed into eighth grade and received that offer, which was like mind-blowing.
DG: Four years before graduating from high school, they’re offering you, I didn’t even know, you can sign up for a scholarship that early?
EDD: I guess at that point in time. Yes.
DG: My god!
EDD: I think they got me before all the rules of high school so they were able to offer me before I got to high school.
DG: And then, when did Connecticut come along?
EDD: Connecticut, I can’t even remember, but pretty soon, like a lot of my offers came probably freshman year of high school, like really early. So I kind of knew right away that I’d be able to kind of just choose where I wanted to go. But that’s kind of when the path of feeling like the decision was gonna be made for me, and I no longer was like steering the ship. I felt like I was the best player in the country at that time, ranked number one in my class and the best players go to either UConn or Tennessee at that time. So I kind of felt like I only had two choices. And in the back of, you know, my head and even in my heart, I knew that those two choices didn’t feel right to me because what was most important at that time was still being close to home, being near my sister. And I just wasn’t able to kind of figure that out.
DG: But you almost went to UConn, right? I mean, it was.
EDD: Oh, I went for a little, yeah.
DG: You were there on campus?
EDD: I was there for a day of summer school, and then I went home and quit basketball because I was like blaming basketball for everything, pulling me away from home. I was burning out from it because the attention from seventh grade on was just so much that I no longer enjoyed playing the game anymore. So once I left Connecticut, I was, like, “This just isn’t for me anymore. It ran its course. I don’t think I want to play this game ever again.”
DG: Wow, how old are you at this point?
EDD: I was going into college, so I was gonna be a freshman in college, and I quit and went home, and then decided to go play volleyball at the University of Delaware because I knew I loved sports. Like, sports have always been a part of my life and to go to college and not have a team or a sport to play would have been really weird for me. So I was like, “Tall girl thing, I guess I’ll go play the other tall girl sport.” (Laughs) So I started playing volleyball.
DG: And when did basketball start to creep back in? Because it’s amazing to sit here listening to you say that you were ready to.
EDD: Give it all up, right? I would say once the volleyball season ended, which is over end of fall, and then I had like nothing to do for a little bit, and then basketball season started and I’m seeing some games on TV. I’m even seeing the University of Delaware players around, and I think because I wasn’t like, so just tangled up in volleyball and was able to have a little bit of time just kind of to myself, not playing basketball. That’s when it gave me the space to miss it and realize, like, I don’t know if I needed to be so final with it, like maybe I do want to play again.
DG: Were you feeling like you were a prisoner to basketball? Like, I mean, it sounds like it was like taking you away from your family, you said, taking you away from home. It almost sounds like you didn’t feel like you were in control.
EDD: Yes.
DG: Basketball was running your life, and you needed to show yourself that you could take a break from it.
EDD: Yeah, at some point, I think I felt that way, like basketball was running everything. And the crazy thing is, as a kid, it was the only space that I felt really confident in my body. And then soon it became something where it was like, who the heck am I outside of basketball? Like, what am I? What are my likes in this world? What are other hobbies? Like, I felt like I became just Elena the basketball player, which helped shield me from the bullying of being tall, but then shaped me into something where it was like, hold on, I’m more than this. And college was the time where I was able to like really see who I am and discover other things that I love to do. So I think it was just a big growing moment for me.
DG: And Delaware also meant you were really close to home.
EDD: Yes, so I was able to like spread my wings, but still be 20 to 30 minutes from home.
DG: And that proximity to home was critical for Elena. She wanted to be close to one of the most important people in her life,
You talked about your sister, Lizzie. She has cerebral palsy and was born blind and deaf?
EDD: Yes.
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DG: And she sounds like she is so, so important to you and your life.
EDD: Exactly. She’s always the pull to be close to home because you know she’s deaf, she’s blind, she has intellectual disabilities so in order to interact with her you truly have to be in a room with her because that’s how we communicate through hand-over-hand sign language or hugging or giggling or tickling each other so I don’t think I realized the weight of that and the weight of, like, needing to be near here because that’s the only way you can truly interact and that’s the only way she knows you’re there. Until I left and went to Connecticut and realized like, uh-uh, this isn’t right. Right now, I gotta figure some things out.
DG: What is most important in that relationship for you?
EDD: I’m not sure if I could say there’s one thing that’s most important in that relationship. I do feel like I’ve learned by far the most lessons in life and the most about life through her. And it’s crazy to think, like, I’ve learnt by far most lessons from her and she’s never spoken a word to me. So I think those are things to keep like in perspective about humans and interactions. Like it doesn’t always have to be words. A lot of times it can be gestures or just being there. So, I can’t say like what the most important part of our relationship, but I just try to be the best little sister I can to her.
DG: I can’t get my mind off you saying that you learned life lessons from her, and it’s not spoken, it’s now communicated. It’s like I’m so curious about that. What lessons has she taught you?
EDD:I think she’s she’s shown a lot about like when expectations and things are put on you like I think sometimes you perform to those or you kind of put a ceiling on yourself because that’s all you think you can attain. So for example when she was first born, doctors said she would never be able to lift her head up, she would never be out of a wheelchair, definitely never walk, and she’s done all those things and more, or even after a surgery, like she recovers so much faster than the average human because she doesn’t feel bad for herself. She doesn’t pity herself or think, “Oh, I just had surgery, I should lie here for a few more days.” Like none of that, she doesn’ have those thoughts and to see what she can attain because she don’t have like pity or doesn’t have a doctor, doesn’t hear the doctor saying, “You’ll never walk.” Like her ceiling is endless, she doesn’t have one. So I think that’s something I’ve always learned from her. Like don’t allow others to put you in a box. Like, you can really be anything.
DG: Was her inspiration with you when you were going through the injuries and thinking about whether to play in Game 5?
EDD: Yeah, for sure, because there’s so many things she has to overcome in just a day, you know, to be able to get out of bed and to still put a big smile on or to be able to giggle. Like, the things she has to overcome is way more than any of the pain that I had to deal with in Game 5. And she doesn’t have a crowd cheering for her to do it, like, she doesn t have articles written about her. She just does it because that’s her life and that’s how she pushes through.
DG: After all those accolades, Delle Donne wants to be known for more than what she’s accomplished on the court.
I want to get to the now. I mean, you’ve just gone through a couple of years of very little basketball mainly because of COVID and your history of Lyme disease and being super careful and then back surgery. I mean how hard was that to not be on the court for a really long time after winning a title?
EDD: Yeah, it was it was definitely really tough, especially after winning a title. You want to come back,, you want to, you know, go for it again. But for me, I think the lessons I had learned prior in life, of not just being a Elena of the basketball player and continuing to do other things and other passions, helped me get through, you know, these past a little bit over two years. And I was able to dive a little bit more into my different businesses and my woodworking, and my foundation. So, there were other things to kind of keep busy with. Gratefully, too, Amanda and I like became even more of a team, like diving into these businesses and doing different things. So I was okay. And then I was still coming here working, trying to get myself back, still around my teammates, even when I wasn’t playing. So that kind of helped me and kept me going, too.
DG: You talk so much about this, needing to show that you don’t need the sport all the time. I mean…
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DG: Is there something we should all take from that, or that we should try and understand as fans, like that you all need to not be a prisoner to this sport that you’re so great at?

EDD: I think everybody can like take that in life, like, you know, you do your job and your job is a huge part of your life. Like Monday through Friday, generally, you’re going to wake up and have to do your job, but like, what else is there in life? I don’t think we’re just put on this world to wake up, go to work. Well, first go to school, go through the schooling process, then go to work, and then retire, and it’s over. Like, I think. We have to continue to be multifaceted people, continuing to challenge ourselves and continuing to grow in different areas. And for me, the burnout happened at a young age that gave me that perspective, which I’m grateful for at this time, as hard as it was going through that. It’s shaped my career and who I am, and even will shape me post-basketball career.
DG: Early burnouts are good.
EDD: Early burnouts are great learning lessons. (Laughs) Burnout early. That’s the quote.
DG: So we talked about the moment and you said it was the, I mean, I don’t have to come here saying that was a big moment. It sounds like winning the championship was huge and a dream, as you said. I mean like, if you look a year from now, do you still want that moment to define your career and be the thing you hold onto or are there other moments either on the court or off that you want to create to start defining your life in different ways?
EDD: Yeah, I mean, that moment will always be huge, especially because of the challenge and test it put on my body and mind to get back. Like, to be able to show that I have that strength and ability to persevere when, like, it almost looked like this career is not it anymore. Like, your body just can’t do it. That’s truly the moment. It’s not even the winning of the championship. It’s like what I’ve gone through now to even be back and playing. But you know,I think there will certainly be more moments and you got to continue to grow and learn from the new moments, but I can kind of always look back at this one and be like, whatever I’m facing, I’ll be able to get through it. I’ve got the people in my corner I need and I have the will to do it.
DG: Elena, thank you.
EDD: Thank you so much.
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DG: Next time on Sports in America.
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This is Sports in America. I’m your host, David Greene.

Our executive producers are Joan Isabella and Tom Grahsler.

Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Winberg, and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa. Our engineer is Mike Villers. Our tile artwork was created by Bea Walling.

Sports in America is a production of WHYY in Philadelphia, and is distributed by PRX. Some of our interviews were originally created by Religion of Sports with special thanks to Adam Schlossman. You can find Sports in America on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeart Radio app — you know, wherever you get your podcasts.

Executive Producers: Joan Isabella, Tom Grahsler
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Talent Booker: Britt Kahn
Engineer: Mike Villers
Tile Art: Bea Walling

Sports in America is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.