Anna Wilson has emerged from Russell’s NFL shadow
Anna Wilson, the Stanford point guard, said she used to feel the pressure of being the sister of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson.
No more. In an intimate essay published Tuesday by ESPN, Wilson talked about becoming her own person, how concussions undermined her Stanford career and indicated her basketball days are over.
Wilson had applied for a fifth-year of eligibility because she played only 48 minutes in her freshman season while recovering from symptoms of brain trauma. A school official said Tuesday that Stanford has received notice about Wilson’s petition but has yet to announce the result publicly.
In her essay, Wilson wrote: “Even though my senior season ended the way that it did, there is always something good that can come out of the bad. I got to sit in our team’s circle for the last time, and I
got to tell those people how they made me feel. I got to express that regardless of how my journey started, I saw the struggle all the way through. I made it.”
Fellow Stanford senior DiJonai Carrington, who was lost for the season in November when aggravating a previous knee injury, also had applied for another year. The program had only one scholarship available for the two petitioners, coach Tara VanDerveer has said.
Like hundreds of college seniors across the country, Wilson’s athletic career came to an abrupt end March 12 when NCAA officials canceled the men’s and women’s basketball tournament because of the threat of the coronavirus outbreak.
“I thought I’d have a few more games, another chance to make a run at a championship,” Wilson said in the essay. “One last dance, as they say. Under normal circumstances, that might have felt devastating, but I’ve been thinking about life after sports for quite some time.”
Wilson, who came off the bench to appear in all of Stanford’s 33 games this past season, said in the essay she is looking forward to her next chapter.
Wilson also talked about living in the shadow of Russell Wilson, one of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks who attended many of Stanford’s games after his season ended.
“Over the years, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten much closer with Russell,” she wrote. “And I feel like his shadow, for me, has dissipated. I don’t feel like I’m living in it as much as I was in the past. I feel like I’m very much my own person now, following my own path.”
Wilson said she has turned a hobby of photography into an academic endeavor while majoring in art practice. She said she started taking photos to help her remember when struggling with memory issues because of her concussions.
Wilson said she doesn’t know what she will do after graduating but “still, I’ve found my own passions. I know what excites me, and I know that whatever
I end up doing I’ll be able to give it everything I’ve got because of what I’ve been through.”
Wilson recounted how she left Virginia to live with Russel Wilson for her senior high school year in Bellevue, Washington. Wilson, who had orally committed to Stanford as a sophomore, said she wanted to live on the West Coast to help with the transition to the Bay Area.
Her basketball career took a detour when Anna Wilson suffered a concussion — her third, she said — during a practice before a McDonald’s All American Games.
“In that moment, I wasn’t in my right state of mind,” Wilson said. “Everything was a blur. I struggled in class for the last two or three months of high school. My vision was poor, and I couldn’t focus.”
She recalled being out of basketball for eight months, which led her to rethink goals. Wilson had a minor role with the Cardinal until this past season when she was one of the experienced players VanDerveer counted on off the bench.
“My vision of who I am began to align with who I was becoming because of all the obstacles I overcame,” Wilson said. “I started searching for what success is outside of basketball. If I didn’t play sports again, what could I possibly do that still brings value to the world and to my family?”