The secret life of a New York Liberty practice player
Santa has his elves. Snow White has her dwarves. Who’s behind the scenes helping the Liberty be the best they can be?
(This interview has been lightly edited for clarity)
Gigi Speer: It’s not every day that you get to talk to a practice player on one of the WNBA’s best teams. I’m here with Fox Fay, practice player for the New York Liberty. Fox, thank you so much for being here. I’d love to hear how you got this opportunity, and how your time being a practice player for Fordham University women’s basketball, after playing football there, helped you transition to now going to Barclays for practice.
Fox Fay: So I did it at Fordham my senior year after I was done with football. I had a wonderful time with the team. Obviously, playing football and growing up playing basketball, I am very competitive. [I] love basketball. I try to play it every opportunity I get. One of my friends sent me a LinkedIn post that the Liberty . . . were looking for practice players. So I sent in an application, and they invited me to go to a tryout. They had about 80 applications, and invited I want to say 40 or 50 to the tryout . . . they ended up keeping about 15 of us so they could have practices run smoothly. They usually need about five or six per practice, and when they do practice with practice players – because sometimes they do shootarounds that we don’t have to go to – they figured with 15 possible players they could get about five of us a practice.
GS: You’re in elite company, obviously; that’s a rigorous process. Walk us through a typical practice.
FF: A typical practice usually runs from around 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Usually we try to get there around 9:30 to help out with shootaround. Generally, I’ll go get changed in one of the dressing rooms at Barclays. There’s a lot of them. Then I’ll stretch a little bit on my own and then help rebound for anyone that happens to be in there early. I think a lot of times they watch film or have meetings and stuff before practice. They come in staggered, and don’t all show up at once, usually. So someone will come in, start shooting around, then grab one of us and say, “Hey, can you rebound for me?” Then, from there, usually they’ll do their own personal warm-up, starting drills, etc. Then we’ll get into plays, usually, where we’ll either defend them while they run their plays or we’ll run opposing plays against them, try to give them a look. They’ll give us different positions, show us the play, and we usually run through it once or twice before we actually have to do it against the defense. From there we’ll go and run it back and forth, and then sometimes we’ll do halfcourt drills. Then, some variation of just running plays against them and kind-of scrimmaging, but not quite a full scrimmage.
GS: Has there been any practice where you’ve seen something surprising or noteworthy?
FF: My very first practice was a little bit of a shell-shock. Just not knowing what to expect, the nerves were definitely high. I think we were all nervous when we first started, even if other people won’t say so. Just not knowing what the speed was going to be like, what exactly their plays were gonna be like. Obviously they’re all professionals, so they’re not trying to just destroy us for the sake of destroying us. But, they’re so fast, so strong, so much more than you could even expect. Like, I mean, going against a couple of MVPs . . . Sabrina [Ionescu], I mean, Jonquel Jones, all of them, they’re just all so talented; [Breanna Stewart], obviously. So I don’t know that there’s necessarily one thing that stands out in my mind, but just that shell shock of that very first practice and very first drill. Just being, like, ‘Wow, this is . . . this is next level, this is something I haven’t really seen before.’”
GS: Yeah, and you’re tall, too. Is there a player they always match you up with? Or does it change every practice?
FF: Yeah, it’s not always the same. Usually I’ll go against the bigs, so I’m kind of rotating between going against Jones and Han Xu, for the most part. But it kind of cycles through, it’s not always the same.
GS: I remember you posting the picture of you and Xu and I was like, “What is happening?” because you and I knew each other in college. Have you gotten over any initial starstruck moments that you might have with some players?
FF: Yeah, it definitely was there. The first time I saw Sab go to practice she just approaches it like such a pro, just her mentality – you can really tell she’s so locked in, she’s so focused. I mean she’s very nice, she’s helpful, she’ll explain things if you need, if you’re confused on a drill you’re helping with . . . but she’s just clearly so locked in. And you kind of have to get over that, that starstruck aspect. Because if you don’t, they’re gonna run all over you. You have to just play it like you’re playing basketball or else you’re gonna be a liability out there. You’re not gonna be helping them towards their ultimate goal of winning a championship.
GS: Has there been a player that you’ve had to be in a practice that kind of felt like, “Ooh, oh god, what am I doing right now?”
FF: Yes, I remember one time during camp the coaches were talking through the drill and were like, “So, say for example they come off the screen” and grabs me and pulls me off the screen, and goes, “And say this is Brittney Griner.” I was like “No, don’t compare me to that. (laughs) I’m not that good, I’m not that big. I can’t do what BG can do. Yeah, no, I don’t know if I feel comfortable with this comparison.”
GS: What do you see while you’re watching them that has progressed from the practices that you’re a part of?
FF: I think a lot of it is seeing stuff that I saw practiced, especially during camp, watching them walk through stuff and all hypotheticals at that point, and seeing it’s not a hypothetical; this is stuff that’s going to happen, stuff that is happening now, and watching them react exactly as they did when they were walking through, going 50%, 75%, then eventually full scrimmages, now watching them do it against real opponents in real games – it’s just amazing to see how well it translates. How amazing that coaching is, that they’re all taking that coaching and really applying it.
GS: Let’s talk about Sandy Brondello. What kind of energy does she bring to practice?
FF: She’s amazing, she’s always bringing the energy. Just the pure knowledge that she has of the game of basketball is amazing. I mean, everything. I was always locked in. Even if we weren’t helping with a drill, and we were just kind of off to the side, I was always locked in, paying attention, making sure I was always trying to gather as much knowledge as I could, thinking, “How could I maybe use this when I go play pick-up?’ (laughs) She’s very personable, cracking jokes on the sidelines and stuff, but then also delivering that next-level knowledge that, I mean – I would not know as much about basketball as I do if I wasn’t paying attention to her.
One thing that really stuck out to me, something that I have tried to take into my own game when I play [involves] knowing how to react based on if the screen is being set on this angle or this angle, versus this type of player being the one setting [the] screen, this person receiving the screen, knowing what to do and paying attention – that’s something I’ve never thought of it like that. Like, obviously you know you have to communicate, you have to get over it . . . but the degree to which she explained it and . . . put a different perspective on it . . . that’s definitely something I want to try to hold onto.
GS: That’s amazing to think how much there is to every game the higher and higher you get. That was for me, in college softball, learning from coaches who played at a high level it was like, “What? I’ve never thought about the one specific way this kind of ball moves.” And you would expect screens to be a cookie-cutter thing, the same every time, but they’re definitely not. And I think that shows how much I definitely don’t know about basketball, and how much coach Brondello does. Is there a player you like rebounding for best?
FF: Han Xu. Her post moves, she has amazing touch around the rim and her midrange game . . . I would definitely say Xu. A lot of that is just because, you know, the first couple of days in a row I [rebounded for her], so I definitely would say there’s a soft spot for that.
GS: [The Liberty are] a team that is not “rebuilding” because there’s so much talent there. How have you seen this team come together and be a team in the practices that you’ve been a part of, since it’s the first time a lot of them are all playing together?
FF: Yeah, I think that was actually one of the things that I’ve been thinking about, those first practices, because I was at the first few. And obviously they’re all super-talented, but a lot of them hadn’t played together. And seeing how seamlessly their basketball knowledge was able to help them know what everyone else was gonna do, and kind of watching that develop; even right away, watching Stew and Jonquel Jones run pick and rolls – they hadn’t really played together, they’re out there doing their thing, but it’s just the talk after the play, like, “Oh, if this happens I’m gonna do this, and next time I’m gonna do that” is wild.
GS: If you could describe the Liberty in one word, what would it be?
FF: It might be kind of simple and basic, but I would say exciting. They can do it all, you know: shoot the 3-ball, they can go into the paint, they can work the pick-and-roll, they can do it all. They’re just exciting to watch.
GS: Do you feel like you are a fan of the Liberty now? Or are you like, “Now I’m gonna bleed Liberty,” like you are a part of the team?
FF: There’s definitely a next-level like feeling, like I was part of it. I’m not gonna say I’m “part of the team”; that feels like a little bit of a stretch. But I definitely feel more invested when I’m watching. Definitely feel like I was part of helping them at least. You know, I definitely want that ring this year.
GS: Do you think you would come back and practice another season?
FF: Absolutely. I’m definitely gonna hopefully be able to stick around next year and do the same thing. We’ll see what happens, but I’m hoping to.
