Living the Dream Without Compromise: Sims and Taylor Among the Mothers Shining in AU Season 4

Although overjoyed by the prospect of this new chapter – and even with five seasons in the WNBA and overseas campaigns in eight different countries under her belt – Taylor still wasn’t really ready to step away from the game she loved. But compromise is something that often comes with the territory for female athletes.

“I always wanted to be a mother, but as an athlete, we know that when you have a kid, it’s basically like your career is over,” Taylor says, reflectively. “You feel like you have to be done, or there’s not going to be options, or people aren’t going to want you.”

Even with the weight of those preconceived notions, Taylor hadn’t quite closed the door on her basketball career. The Louisville grad had found her niche in overseas leagues and had helped Explosivos de Moca capture a league championship in Puerto Rico in 2022. The team asked her to return for the 2024 season. The invitation was just the push Taylor needed.

“A lot of people say when they retire, ‘I want to walk away from the game. I don’t want the game to tell me when I’m done,’” Taylor said. “I wanted to be able to make that decision, and not have pregnancy make it for me. … I took that three months off like the doctor told me. … And I said, ‘If my body will allow me to do this, I’m gonna start back up my team in Puerto Rico’.”

She attacked her training regimen with her new gym partner, 3-month-old Amaya, in tow, and surprised herself with her comeback season showing. The 6-foot-1 forward finished in the top four scorers in the league with 20.4 points per game and led the league in rebounding with 11.9 per game.

That was three months ago. Now, she is still finding new career opportunities. This month, she made her Athletes Unlimited Pro Basketball debut in Nashville, Tennessee. Along with Bria Hartley, Jude Schimmel, and Odyssey Sims, Taylor is one of four mothers competing this season.

Sims, who now sits second on the leaderboard in her fourth AU Pro hoops season, is mother to 4-year-old Jaiden.

Like Taylor, Sims is a seasoned player with 11 years of experience in the WNBA and an 11.2 career points per game average in 292 regular-season appearances.

Four years ago, she stared down year seven in the league while preparing to welcome her first child. It would make for a short turnaround from her son’s April birth to the start of the 2020 season, but Sims had no doubt of her return to play. She knew she still had unfinished business.

A cesarean delivery created an even tighter timeline. A doctor-ordered eight-week recovery period left Sims with less than seven weeks to physically prepare before the July 26 season opener.

“I just grinded,” Sims said. “All of July, I just stayed literally in the gym. … You lose muscle, your body is still trying to figure out how to put itself back together, and I had a C-section too.”

By mid-August, Sims returned to the court – just four months after the birth of her son. She averaged 9.4 points in that “bubble” season while she worked to adjust to the changes that motherhood brought.

“Being a woman, it’s so many different changes that your body is trying to do, and then having a kid, like a whole human, makes it harder for it to kind of catch up back to normal, and it takes some time,” Sims said. “I’d say that’s one of the toughest challenges.”

After spending the next two WNBA seasons with the Minnesota Lynx and Atlanta Dream, Sims signed on for the inaugural AU Pro Basketball season in 2022.

Sims has participated in every AU season since, earning sixth-, third-, and second-place finishes with her son Jaiden by her side. Meanwhile, Taylor is experiencing the unique league for the first time and takes pride in being among the mothers on the floor in Nashville.

“You can find strength in saying ‘she did it’,” Taylor said. “That’s really all you need sometimes, is just to see it. … We are the examples. When somebody’s saying ‘you can’t,’ they’ll say, ‘Well, she did it, and she did it, and she did it, and they’re successful.’ And I feel like I wear that with pride because I have a village that allows me to do that, and I don’t have to compromise.”

Part of Taylor’s village includes her mother and partner, who both have supported her in Nashville.

“I think it really starts with your circle, because who you’re around influences what you feel like you can achieve,” Taylor said. “I didn’t want to feel like I had to choose between being a good mother and being a basketball player. And so I feel like with my circle, with my village, I don’t have to choose. I’m still present, I’m still active, [Amaya’s] courtside every game, her dad is here, we love each other, it’s a healthy family, and I just feel like I get the best of both worlds.”

Adding to each mother’s support system is a primary goal of AU. The league offers a pregnancy and parental leave policy for its athletes and provides accommodations to players who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

“Everything they offered when it came to just being a mother… like, knowing that if he comes to practice, it’s not a problem,” Sims said of the support she receives during the season. “Everybody loves my child,” she added, “and somebody always makes sure, like, ‘Oh, he can come with me,’ always just looking out, and I think that’s a big thing because there aren’t that many moms in this league, but it’s still good to know that AU is parent first.”

For both Sims and Taylor, every moment of their careers that they can share with their children is invaluable. These years on the court also carry an added sense of responsibility, as the two veterans strive to set an example of what can be achieved through commitment and effort.

They also value the chance to create a positive emotional impact by making memories that young Jaiden and Amaya may be too young to consciously recollect.

“This is going to be priceless time that we reflect on,” Taylor said. “Maybe she’s playing basketball one day, and she could say, ‘Man, I was courtside watching my mother continue her dreams after she had me.’ And I think that testimony itself is just going to make her a better person, a better player, more relentless. Seeing her mother do it, me being the example of not giving up, beating the odds, not listening to the negatives, and just persevering, and also having her be a part of it, like, that’s such a blessing.”

Sims, and her son Jaiden have quite the collection of treasured memories already. 

“He’s been in the gym with me everywhere, just about, throughout my career these last four years,” Sims said. “We’ve just got so many memories, I got stuff to put in the photo album so when he gets older, he can see, we were here.”

Siera Jones is the digital media reporter at Athletes Unlimited. You can follow her on Instagram and X @sieraajones.