![]() The spotlight can be harsh, and not everyone has celebrated her return. It would have been easy, understandable even, had Griner decided to sit out this season. It gives you that spark of life to keep holding on, to keep fighting, not to give in." "When you get a letter from people that you know or that you don’t even know, it just does something to you. To feel like no one’s thinking of you," Griner said. The Mercury has already unveiled a mural on the west side of its arena dedicated to the campaign, and the team will encourage fans to write notes of encouragement to prisoners. Expect to see Griner and her Mercury teammates wearing T-shirts with the names of more than a dozen others who are still wrongfully detained. Griner and the Mercury have partnered with Bring Our Families Home, and the group’s logo will be prominently displayed on Phoenix’s court where "BG42" was last season. "We’re not going to stop bringing awareness to everyone that’s left behind right now." Just as Griner’s absence was the prevailing theme of the WNBA last season, now it will be her presence and, by extension, her fight to free her fellow Americans. … It was no question to be back in the WNBA and back in Phoenix and playing."Īnd with every shot she takes, every rebound she grabs, every game the Mercury plays, every highlight of hers that’s played, Griner will keep a white-hot spotlight on the captivity of Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, David Lin, Shahab Dalili and other Americans who are wrongfully detained. "I’m not trying to sound big-headed, but I just really, I bet on me. I know that if I put my mind to it, I can achieve any goal," Griner said. Her mere presence tells Vladimir Putin and his henchmen that they couldn’t break her. For the next four months – likely longer, given the Mercury hasn't missed the playoffs in more than a decade – she will be a constant show of defiance. Her presence at high-profile events like the Met Gala and the White House Correspondents Dinner was a visible reminder that while she is free, so many others are not.īeginning with the Phoenix Mercury’s first preseason game Monday night, however, Griner’s resistance takes on greater prominence. She has made statements and used her social media channels to make public appeals for the release of Paul Whelan, who Russian officials refused to include in the prison swap that brought Griner home in December, and the many other Americans wrongfully detained across the world. "Every chance I get, wearing a shirt, saying their names, any interview I have – and you’ll see the theme throughout the season – that’s just bringing awareness to everybody that doesn’t have the platform and the followers and the exposure. "I’m really fortunate to have this platform that I have," the eight-time WNBA All-Star and two-time Olympic champion said last week. She is determined to reclaim the life she had before and, while doing so, help others who remain where she once was, reclaim theirs. ![]() It isn’t enough for her simply to live well now that she’s home. More vivid than those scars, however, is Griner’s strength. ![]() Or she makes a passing reference to the danger of having hope. You can see their faint outlines when Brittney Griner says, emphatically, that she will not play overseas again without the protection of a Team USA uniform. You cannot be imprisoned for 10 months, wrongly detained in desperate conditions millions of miles from home and not knowing when you’ll see your loved ones again, and not carry the scars.
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