Bree Fowler

About Me:

I'm 27 years old from Kansas City, Missouri. Fell in love with the game at 4 years old and have been playing, coaching, training, or officiating ever since.

Throughout my 4-year varsity basketball career at Staley High School, I was named All-Conference, All-District, and All-State. During my junior year, I accepted a full-ride scholarship from the University of Missouri- Columbia. During my senior year, I accomplished 1K points.

I enjoyed my 4-year career at Mizzou and was named an All-American in Strength and Conditioning, from 2013 to 2015. I embraced my role as a power forward in the Big 12 and small forward in the SEC.

After college, I took some time off to dive into my future career as a nurse. As I waited to get accepted into accelerated nursing school, I decided to join some former and future WNBA players and competed in the WBCA Semi-Pro league.

Soon after, I was offered the opportunity to be the freshman girl's head coach at my alma mater high school. I coached and mentored for two years. I enjoyed giving back to the community I grew up in.

Currently, as I complete course work and clinicals for nursing school, I still find time for the sport I love. Currently, I work with young athletes on developing fundamentals/skills and am the coach of a competitive girls' team. I also am focusing more on officiating.

When I'm not coaching, training, studying, or officiating, I'm spending time with my family and dogs. I love to meet new people and share perspectives!

When I played in high school, the game of basketball came with ease, and I was undeniably having the most fun I'd ever had while playing. I was competing or playing with girls who loved the game just as much as me. I was one of the top players in my state, and I had the confidence and stats to match that label. When I transition to college, my game came to sort of a plateau. I was doing all the workouts, skill development sessions, and shooting as I could and still felt my game/skills were not improving as fast as I wanted.

On top of that, I wasn't playing nearly as many minutes as I thought I should be, and my confidence plummeted. As a freshman in college, one of the scariest things to do is meet with your head coach about playing time. I knew it was something I had to do to stop the mind games. During the meeting with my coach, I asked, "how can I get more minutes?" I was ready to hear "...more reps outside of practice." My coach looked at me and said, "Let's rephrase that to, what can you do to make the team better?"

At that moment, the gears started to turn. The change in my mindset of "I" to "we" made the difference. Some athletes, like myself, get caught up in the head games they inflict on themselves, which is selfish. To be selfless and immerse myself in the concept of "I need to play for my teammates" flipped my game and believe it or not, my confidence as well.

 The pressure of trying to be what I was in high school was clouding the bigger picture. I embraced being a "role player" because that label does exist, and it's okay to dive straight into that role. I'm glad I talked to my coach that day, it changed my entire view of the game.