🏀0️⃣0️⃣7️⃣ Gabby Williams
Gabby Williams, 2021. Bellenger/IS/FFBB
Meet Gabby Williams, the Franco-American WNBA veteran whose polyvalent hoops abilities helped Les Bleues win EuroBasket 2021 silver and Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medals.
Born September 9, 1996 in Reno, Nevada to a French mother and American father, Williams grew up competing in track and field and basketball. She was a standout player at the University of Connecticut, where she contested four NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Fours, won two back-to-back national championship titles, and accrued multiple individual awards. Selected fourth in the 2018 WNBA Draft by the Chicago Sky, Williams has since balanced a professional playing career that’s crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean.
Gabby’s Story
Williams, a dual citizen, first came into contact with the French national basketball team during her time in Storrs, Connecticut. She attended the July 27, 2016 friendly between Les Bleues and the United States in Newark, New Jersey, (France lost, 62-84), to support her fellow UConn teammates and coach Geno Auriemma on Team USA. But the young forward was also impressed by the French team and two of its players.
“They really stuck in my head,” Williams recalled of Céline Dumerc and Sandrine Gruda, who later won the WNBA Championship that fall with the LA Sparks. “I was like, ‘damn, they’ve got some game.’ The little Frenchie in me was rooting for them.” She left the match a fan of the team, following them as her own journey evolved.
After graduation, Williams played professionally in Europe during her WNBA off-season. Her first experience, in Italy, was difficult; she felt out of place and her club folded halfway through the season. But signing with renowned French club Basket Lattes Montpellier Agglomération (BLMA) for the 2019-20 season was a tipping point.
“It was the most at ease that I had ever been up until that moment,” Williams recalled of feeling at home in multiple ways. Her French improved, there was plenty of family time, and despite being a well-known introvert who guarded her privacy, she began to come out of her shell. One visiting Chicago Sky teammate noted that French Gabby was different, more at ease, more comfortable.
Williams learned about herself, as well as about France. “I didn’t realize how multicultural it was,” she admitted of coming face-to-face with a cosmopolitan twenty-first century nation culturally more complex than the stereotypical baguettes and berets.
It’s basketball was also a revelation. “The physicality really took me by surprise. My body definitely went through a lot that year,” she said. But being pushed to the limits helped, as did the level of competition in the Ligue Féminine de Basketball (LFB). “I got on so much better,” Williams recalled, “I improved so much.”
She also communicated about U.S. culture, basketball and otherwise. Her BLMA teammates peppered Williams with questions about playing with UConn and Coach Auriemma, but they were also curious about her non-hoops life. “They’re mostly intrigued by the college experience because it’s a bit fantasized about in Europe,” she explained. “Everyone wants to know: is college really like [how it’s portrayed in popular culture], are parties really like that?”
These are examples of how Williams engaged in informal sports diplomacy through people-to-people cultural and technical exchanges with BLMA teammates. Once she became a member of the national basketball team, Williams also engaged in formal sports diplomacy as a representative of France at elite international competitions.
The Sports Diplomacy Connection
Gabby Williams, Tokyo Olympic Games (2021). Bellenger/IS/FFBB
In spring 2021, following a season with Sopron (Hungary), the French national team invited Williams to training camp in Toulouse. She boarded a flight to France, nervous and anxious about fitting in with other players at training camp. Would they understand her accent? Would she understand them? Would a group of players who had played together for most of their lives accept her? Would they be mad if she took someone’s place on the highly competitive roster?
When Williams earned a coveted spot with Les Bleues for the EuroBasket and Tokyo Olympic campaigns, her dream came true. It was the realization of her efforts since 2018 to play for France, expressed that year to the French Basketball Federation, as well as to all teams ahead of the WNBA Draft. “I made it clear that if I am ever called to the national team, I’m going to go,” she said.
Unfortunately, national team service in 2021 meant that Williams could not rejoin the Chicago Sky until after the Olympic break. The team suspended her for the season and the Los Angeles Sparks acquired Williams’ rights amidst the fall-out. “I had to make a choice between what I had to do,” she explained of her no-regrets decision to serve country over club. “I would make it a million times again because I really had the best summer ever.”
Over the next three months, she lived a frenzy of basketball with her new teammates, who quickly dispelled her fears about being understood and fitting in. “It made it feel like a dream,” she said of the overall experience as she soaked it in. Her family was proud, especially her French grandmother, who cried upon receiving Williams’ photos or watching her granddaughter enter the arena for games. Completing the dream was Williams’ roommate in the Olympic Athlete’s Village, Gruda, a player she long admired. “‘I’ve been a big fan of you since 2016,” Williams admitted to her teammate. “After you won the WNBA championship, playing with you was a dream come true for me.”
Williams with her Olympic bronze medal (2021). Bellenger/IS/FFBB
As a national team player, Williams engaged in formal sports diplomacy in its most traditional form: representing the country at international competitions, and through her actions, words, and images she communicated, represented, and negotiated foreign public perceptions about France. She later recalled,
“I never understood what it meant to represent your country. I’ve always known what it’s like to be a player that gets paid and does their job for the club. That’s business. But it was the first time I was playing for something bigger than basketball. I’m playing for my country, for its pride.”
It was also a revelation in other ways. “It was the first time I really enjoyed playing basketball,” Williams said of her Summer 2021 experience with Les Bleues.
“It was the first time I had a lot of fun playing and wanted to get up and do it every day. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that with basketball. Basketball is always something I did because I was good at it. It was something that pays the bills. But I wasn’t thinking about money. I was just focused on how there was so much to lose, there’s so much at stake for every single game. I love that. I could feel every single emotion, good and bad. I was really happy that I could feel those emotions, it reminded me of how special it really was.”
Mapping the Connection
From Sparks, Nevada to Paris, France
Sources
[E] Gabby Williams, interview with the author, October 14, 2021
[E] Alexa Philippou, “Former UConn women’s basketball star Gabby Williams wins bronze with France, says her WNBA suspension worth it” Hartford Courant, August 7, 2021
[F] Amaury Perdriau, “Gabby Williams: Les Bleues dans le peau,” L’Équipe, July 16, 2021
How to Cite This Entry
Krasnoff, Lindsay Sarah. “Voices: Gabby Williams,” FranceAndUS, https://www.franceussports.com/voices/007-gabby-williams (date of consultation).