Sugar Rodgers Overcoming the Uncontrollable

For the majority of Sugar Rodger’s life, her job was to stay healthy and out of jail. She grew up in a neighborhood in Suffolk, Va, where the sound of gunshots kept her constantly inside her home. This forced her to keep away from the basketball hoop she loved. Not only did Rodgers have to deal with her unsafe neighborhood, but her mom was also dying of lupus and she needed to take care of her along with many other household tasks. Her mother told her “what goes on in this house stays in this house”, so Rodgers was never allowed to ask for help from others, which sometimes she really needed. However, she always just kept her head down and did what she was told.

With everything Rodgers had going on in her life, she still managed to stay on track academically throughout high school. She was later recruited to play basketball at Georgetown and graduated as the career scoring leader.

After college, Rodgers was the Minnesota Lynx second-round pick of the 2013 WNBA draft. She then helped lead them to a championship win that year. For the next five seasons she played with the Liberty. There she became an All-Star and won the Sixth Woman of the Year Award in 2017. After her years of playing, Rodgers went into being the assistant coach for the Las Vegas Aces. Rodgers said, “I’m just going to bring whatever it is that they need me to do. Just like as a player — whatever they needed me to do, I did. Whatever sacrifices they needed me to make, I did those, for the betterment of the team. And I’m willing to do that as a coach as well” (Tamryn Spruill).

While coaching, Rodgers became a recent graduate of Georgetown’s master’s program in the sports industry management, along with writing the book “They Better Call Me Sugar”. The book was a young adult memoir about her childhood, the sanctity of her writing, and the perspective she brings to the sideline.

Sugar Rodgers endured a very tough childhood. She used basketball and her writing skills to create a brighter path for herself after her past. Regardless of all she had going on, she was still able to be extremely successful on and off the court. This took determination and not letting the uncontrollable affect her.