Former UA standout Dominique McBryde recalls lowest, highest moments during WNIT

Mention Dominique McBryde to anyone in Tucson, and one lasting image pops to mind.

After Arizona won the 2019 WNIT title, McBryde stood on a ladder getting ready to cut her section of the net, leading the crowd in singing “We are the Champions” by Queen and doing her best Freddie Mercury impression.

That’s how everyone remembers McBryde.

She was always the one laughing, joking, smiling and having a good time off the court.

At least that’s what it looked like from the outside.

Just a few weeks before the Wildcats were celebrating a championship — after a postseason drought of eight years — McBryde wasn’t feeling anywhere close to that joyous.

“I sat out the first round game of the WNIT tournament because a couple of days prior I was at a really low moment of my life,” McBryde said. “When I see literally (a few weeks) later that’s who I was, it makes me so happy every time I think about that. I just was feeling so low, and then I’m on a freaking ladder and just feeling so happy. I pushed through everything that I was feeling at the time and then had this overwhelming sense of joy.”

McBryde would go on to play one more season as a Wildcat. Her senior season was cut short when COVID-19 shut the world down. Arizona was on the precipice of playing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in more than a decade. The Wildcats had to wait one more year before that happened — without McBryde, who graduated the prior May.

McBryde doesn’t hang onto the missed opportunity of not taking UA to the NCAA Tournament. Instead, she thinks about what she accomplished: Beating Stanford at home, earning her college diploma and the memories she made playing for UA coach Adia Barnes and with her Wildcat teammates.

Pushing through

During the WNIT championship run, McBryde leaned on Barnes, teammates Sam Thomas and Lucia Alonso and some psychologists. It didn’t take long for McBryde to want to rejoin her teammates on the court after missing the Wildcats’ 10-point win over Idaho State.

She knew UA “had a great chance to do something and bring something really special to the city and to this program. I knew it would make me feel so much better.”

It did. Well, that and some extra fun with Thomas and Alonso.

“That’s how I push through is find me any sort of fun,” McBryde said. “I’m going to do it and just roll with it.”

Four years after that three-week swing from one of the lowest points to one of the highest, McBryde decided to share her story during Mental Health Awareness Month. She hopes it helps others, not just student-athletes.

“I’ve always wanted to be an advocate for the mental health of others,” McBryde said. “You are taught to always just brush it off and keep going. That’s life in general, but being an athlete, it’s taken to a different level. There’s just a stigma behind mental health in general and feeling vulnerable and weak.

“For a long time, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not talking about this sort of thing.’ But now, it’s part of the norm because you see a lot of student-athletes taking their lives, unfortunately. Things have to change. I hope I feel more comfortable as time goes on. I want to be a part of that, helping that change.”

Pro career

After she graduated, McBryde was offered a training camp contract with the L.A. Sparks. When the WNBA season was held in a bubble in Florida, that went away as there wasn’t a typical preseason camp.

McBryde turned her sights on a professional career overseas. She has played in places like New Zealand, Luxembourg, Greece and Hungary twice — most recently this past season when she averaged 13.6 points, 1.9 steals, 7.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 34.1 minutes per game.

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Her game has evolved quite a bit from being more of a facilitator and setting her teammates up to being more selfish and taking more shots herself. That’s the typical role of an American on an overseas roster — to score.

McBryde has enjoyed seeing different parts of the world. Granted, her first go-round in Hungry was in the sweet spot of the pandemic; she had an 8 p.m. curfew and was secluded with her teammates in a “campground.” But once things eased up and she could explore more of Europe, she enjoyed meeting others and learning about other cultures.

Being able to adjust to her surroundings is a lesson McBryde learned early on from her mom, Dianna. Her mom helped her prepare for life by pushing her to try out for one of the top AAU teams in Indiana even though her daughter didn’t think she was good enough. She made that team, played for former Indiana men’s basketball standout Damon Bailey and moved from Indianapolis to the small town of Bedford, where she won back-to-back state championships.

Then, when things weren’t going well at Purdue, McBryde found her next home at Arizona — in the same transfer class as Aari McDonald (Washington) and Tee Tee Starks (Iowa State).

Now, McBryde is at a crossroads. She is thinking about hanging up her basketball shoes and moving onto the next chapter of her life. She wants to be closer to her family as someone — she wouldn’t mention who — is having some health issues. It also comes back to her own mental health.

“I think for the betterment of myself and my family, it is time for me to let it go,” McBryde, 26, said. “I say this all now, but two months from now I might be playing somewhere else. It’s just going to be hard for me to step away from the game, and I’m always going to want to do it. I’ve been able to stick with it for this long with everything going on. I told my family, like, this is what I want to do. At the same time, I think a part of me in my mind is saying, ‘I’m going to keep playing.’ ”

Over the past year, she’s been thinking about what comes after her playing days are over. She is leaning toward coaching but with a focus on mental health.

McBryde was back in Tucson a few weeks ago — a place that holds a special place in her heart. It felt like old times talking to her coach who helped her through tough times in the past and is now guiding her toward her future.

“Not a lot of people can say they have Adia Barnes as their coach,” McBryde said. “She’s a confident role model who you can look up to and aspire to be like. I always take with me that Adia values you as a human at the end of the day and working towards your individual goals and being yourself.

“The community feels like home. I can just be me and feel at home and feel so comfortable. Anytime I step in Tucson, anytime I am around the program, anytime I reminisce about Arizona, it just feels like home. It just feels like me. I take that with me.

“I always say that I’m the girl who climbed up on the ladder and sang, ‘We Are the Champions.’ I will always feel like I was on top of the world. I have Arizona and Adia to thank for that.”

Inspiring next generation

Another lesson McBryde learned from her mom is “spinning the negatives into positives.”

“I may have struggled with things along the way, but I made it through,” McBryde said. “I’ve helped put smiles on people’s faces, inspiring people. Helping serve people, helping serve my teammates, having success, helping build their success. I get joy out of things like that and really being there for people.

“That’s why I want to continue to help serve people and serve athletes, because it really brings a smile to my face. Wanting to help make people’s lives a whole lot better. That’s what really helps me keep going and keep going and keep going.”

One of those young people that she has inspired is Tucsonan Maddie Huffman, one of McBryde’s biggest fans. McBryde sent her an old practice jersey for Christmas two years ago. Huffman returned the favor, sending McBryde a signed T-shirt from her youth basketball team, the Tucson Dawgs, this past Christmas.

McBryde surprised Huffman a few weeks ago at her school, shot baskets with her and went to dinner with the entire family.

“Being able to see that smile on her face was so rewarding,” McBryde said.

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