Courtesy of Emma Williams

Williams shows off her Bryn Mawr sweater proudly.

Riding on the bus ride back from a AP Environmental Science field trip to Ana Nuevo in late February, junior Emma Williams opened her phone to find the call she had been waiting for: It was an official recruitment offer to play Division III basketball at Bryn Mawr College, a private women’s liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. 

After a quick discussion with her parents, Williams accepted the offer and committed to Bryn Mawr as a forward and shooting guard. 

Though she had been surprised, she said, “I really thought about it, and I knew that I wanted to be at Bryn Mawr. It was my top choice. I was really happy that they reached out.”

The offer came after Williams had started emailing coaches at colleges she was interested in and sending footage in late September. During the school season, Williams sent film of her games and highlights she recorded over the last year, sending them updates from the junior year season and exchanging messages. 

She felt her greatest strengths in getting recruited were her shooting skills as well as her athleticism at her 5-9 height. During the most recent school season, she was a key varsity player, averaging 27 minutes per game and eight rebounds per game. 

Williams’ commitment journey was not without its challenges, however. Due to a lasting foot injury from the fall field hockey season, Williams was unable to play for the first two weeks of the season, which she had worried would affect her chances. 

“I feel like I got really lucky, because a couple of coaches just wanted to call and then have me visit the school. But during the season I was getting really stressed, and I felt like that was affecting the way I was playing, too,” Williams said.

Though it felt disheartening when she couldn’t play as well as she wanted because of the injury, Williams said that remembering how much she enjoys basketball helped her through it. 

After back and forths with coaches on the East Coast, she decided to go play there with her Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team over Thanksgiving break while visiting schools. At Bryn Mawr’s Prospect Day, she was able to watch their games, tour their campus and meet with the team and coaches. 

“The team just felt really good,” she said. “There’s a really strong connection between the team members off the court, too, so that seems really nice. Everyone there just seems really passionate about what they’re doing.” 

As a small liberal arts college, Bryn Mawr gives students access to a lot of resources and one-on-one instruction, along with opportunities to study at nearby schools like the University of Pennsylvania and Haverford College, which Williams appreciates. In addition, she was attracted to the beautiful campus and dining hall, as well as the fact that the sports funding wouldn’t have to be split with a men’s team due to it being a women’s college. 

Though not set in stone, Williams hopes to major in psychology at Bryn Mawr and pursue a career in child counseling. 

For Williams, basketball has been a central interest since she started playing basketball after the COVID-19 pandemic in seventh grade. 

“My mom and one of my friends convinced me to play, and for the first year, I didn’t really like it; I wanted to quit, but my mom wouldn’t let me. After that, I just kept playing and made a lot of friends,” she said. 

Soon enough, she joined outside AAU teams and the school basketball team, eventually playing on the varsity team in high school as a middle. Now, she coaches younger students and volunteers at sports events. 

Since she committed to college in her junior year, she’s excited to spend the rest of her high school career without having to worry about a sprawl of college applications.

“It feels like a lot of pressure off. I just feel like now I can focus on getting prepared for college instead of getting recruited,” Williams said.

Though Bryn Mawr is far away, she hopes the adjustment to college won’t be too difficult since she already knows some alumni attending college nearby and has family on the East Coast. Still, she knows it will be jarring to be apart from her twin sister Evelyn, who she is close to. 

At Bryn Mawr, she hopes to be involved with school programs and manage both schoolwork and practices to her fullest potential. Until then, she will also be continuing to play with her current AAU team. 

While she has no ambitions of playing basketball at the professional level the way some D1 players do, she hopes to stick with the sport throughout college and beyond as a hobby and passion. 

“My favorite part of basketball is  all the friends that I’ve made, and it’s a really fun sport. And I love watching basketball —  that’s something that my friends and I bond over, which makes it really fun,” Williams said.