Paige Bueckers On Staying True To Herself And Using Her Platform To Elevate Others

Paige Bueckers was a fixture during last month’s WNBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix. She popped out at activations at WNBA Live, Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe’s A Touch More podcast recording, courtside at the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game, you name it. The UConn star guard and presumptive No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft was met by palpable cheers everywhere she went, but that was not the point. Bueckers had been on what fans affectionately deemed her Paige World Tour, supporting her friends and former teammates at WNBA arenas nationwide.

Days before WNBA All-Star Weekend, Bueckers also presented at the 2024 ESPY Awards, where she had accepted Best College Athlete, Women’s Sports in 2021. Bueckers used her now-viral speech to challenge the media to pay the same respect — give the same visibility — to her Black peers.

After battling back from a tibial plateau fracture in 2021 and an ACL tear that cost her the entire 2022-23 season, Bueckers’ task at hand is to spend her fifth and final year at UConn leading the program its first national championship since 2016, but her purpose has always been to use her platform to impact others.

And Bueckers has never been more popular. Her platform is expanding, almost as prolifically as her performance on the floor. On August 1, Bueckers’ well-established NIL profile took a historic turn. Shams Charania reported that Bueckers would sign an NIL deal with Unrivaled, a forthcoming three-on-three league co-founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, making Bueckers “the first NCAA athlete to receive ownership equity in a league.”

While Bueckers’ world tour didn’t make it to Paris for the ongoing 2024 Olympics, she teamed with Meta, utilizing Meta AI to get as close as she could. Below, the reigning Big East Player Of The Year spoke with DIME about Meta, her bond with Suni Lee, and using “my white privilege to call out my white privilege.”

You’ve gone viral for supporting your friends and former teammates in person during this offseason — the Paige World Tour. How has using Meta AI allowed you to experience the 2024 Paris Olympics as if you were physically there?

It’s helped me a lot. You saw the video with my little brother, Drew, learning more about archery and badminton and all the sports that I didn’t necessarily have a prior knowledge about. So, it’s helped me learn the rules, the history of it. There are fun little games that me and my little brother can play as we’re learning. Plus, just keeping up with all the athletes and all the sports. For me, traveling a lot, being in different time zones, trying to get my schedule right of what’s all going on that day. But yeah, it makes it feel like you’re a super-fan in the sport just based on how quick you can learn it and how quick you can learn to play it. Obviously, not at the same talent level as the athletes competing in Paris, but just as a super fan, it’s really fun to explore and tap into my creative side.

Which athlete or Olympic moment has fired you up the most?

I would say probably Suni Lee. She’s from Minnesota. I’m from Minnesota, so just being Minnesota made, being friends, and seeing all the adversity that she’s come back from. Her resilience. The fact that doctors told her she might not ever do gymnastics again [due to a kidney disease diagnosis in 2022], and here she is, winning medals at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. It’s been inspiring to watch, and I’m just super proud of her.

It’s the prequel to when you come back from your past injuries to win a national championship at UConn next season, right?

That would be amazing. I love that.

Have you already incorporated Meta AI into your daily training routine?

I think it’s really cool to think about all the ways that it can help you. For me, I think it’s really cool for nutrition, like a nutrition plan, saying, “I have certain ingredients; what meal can I make with it?” Or, “Can you make me a healthy meal with protein, with this and that?” Even just getting in routines. Maybe I need to stretch my hamstrings a certain day or stretch my full body a certain day, [I can] ask it, how can I do that? If you don’t have a trainer, you can just go to Meta. It’s very accessible. A lot of kids these days have Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, so you just go straight there and ask it, “Can you make me a basketball workout for today?” Maybe I want to focus on ball-handling. Maybe I want to focus on shooting. Maybe I want to focus on passing. You can get so creative with it and use it in almost every activity you do in every single day. It’s exciting to see how much it can do for people and how accessible it is.

You’ve been asked a billion times about your 2021 ESPYs speech, and that’s valid. It took incredible awareness to use your moment to redirect the spotlight toward your Black peers and predecessors. But that came naturally to you because Black influence has always been your reality. Does it surprise you to receive so much praise for being an ally and sharing visibility — something that, in your eyes, should so obviously just be the standard?

I mean, everybody grows up in a different background. So, I grew up with a Black stepmom for a large majority of my life. I grew up with a Black female coach, who was a mentor to me for a large portion of my life. I had a lot of very influential Black women. A lot of my teammates are Black, so I had a lot of influential people of color surrounding me and making a huge impact in my life. I see the effects of white privilege — the imbalance of attention, respect, and just visibility. And so, it was very important for me to call it out. To use my white privilege to call out my white privilege, essentially.

I feel like everybody has a different way of going about things. I feel like I want to use my platform to promote change and try to help this world become a better place as much as I can. So, I don’t know. I get people who come up to me and say, “We love the way you go about your business. We love how you stand up for what you believe in.” It just makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing. People acknowledge that, but it’s just natural. It’s kind of who I am, and I want to continue to be that way and not let anything change me. So it definitely it makes you feel appreciated, for sure.

You recently told Highsnobiety, “I know I’m not going to change the world by myself, but I will do my part.” What do you want your part to be?

Definitely giving back. I feel like I’ve been blessed with so much, and so I want to give with what I’ve been given and help this world to become a better place as much as I can in terms of giving back to communities, inspiring the next generation, and using my white privilege to call it out. I know equality is something that is forever going to be fought for, but trying to acknowledge it.

I have a huge faith, so I glorify God in everything that I do. I tell people that, with God, everything is possible. He changes lives, and He’s done so much for me in terms of being able to battle through a lot of tough times. Relying and leaning on His strength has done wonders for me. So, I would say just continuing to be genuine, have a caring heart, give with what I’ve been given, and share my faith.

I guess the whole nature of this is putting you on the spot, and I hate to put you on the spot about this, but you mention white privilege. Can you think back to a time, whether in basketball or otherwise, where you first felt, Oh, it’s different for me?

I would say my first year of college. I took the media by storm. It was just crazy the amount of attention I had gotten right away. I hadn’t done anything yet. It was my first year at UConn. I was just establishing, getting my feet on the ground, and the amount of attention that I would get — like, say I had a great night, but somebody else had a great night. I got all the attention that night. Like I spoke about in my ESPYs [speech], women’s basketball is such a Black female dominated sport. You see so many great Black female athletes just dominating the game at the peak of performance. And so, I just wanted the same amount of attention that I got to be spread around a little bit more. I think that was the first really eye-opening experience.

But, I mean, little stuff happened in high school where I was like, Oh. You notice it. And I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My senior year of high school was the murder of George Floyd. So, that really impacted me in a way to where I saw police brutality and just how our community came together after that. I went to protests and marches and just, again, [it’s about] wanting equality. The Black Lives Matter movement was huge at that time, so being a supporter and ally of that was something that I noticed as well.

You’re so beloved — for good reason. Does the attention empower you to continue to be your authentic self, or does it become overwhelming and add pressure to live up to what everyone wants from you?

Nah. Like you said, I’m just trying to stay true to myself [and] not let anything change me. Continue to speak on what I believe in. Just use my platform for good. It makes you feel good when people come up to you — [to] acknowledge what you’re doing and tell you to keep going and motivate you to keep standing up for what you believe in and not being afraid to speak out and just continue to be authentically yourself. So, it’s definitely empowering.

Your NIL deal with Unrivaled was announced last week, making you the first NCAA athlete to receive ownership equity in a league. So, everybody can see this is a big deal. But why is it significant to you?

Just to continue to build for my future. I think that’s what NIL is all about: Building your brand, building your wealth, and building your future and what you want your portfolio to look like. But to be a part of something so much bigger than myself — women’s basketball, women’s sports in general, is on the rise, and you can see it. It’s happening, and the momentum is immense right now.

The Unrivaled league is just amazing. It’s in the offseason for the WNBA players. It’s another way for them to make money doing the sport that they love and get attention, play. It’s like, just to be a part of something that has legends and future Hall of Famers. Phee and Stewie started it, and obviously, there’s the UConn alumni little connection there — but to be a part of something that’s continuing to grow the game of women’s sports and doing so much for these women and doing so much for me, I’m blessed and honored to be a part of it at such a young age. It’s very humbling, too. It’s inspiring me to keep working, to continue to keep doing great things.