Athletes Unlimited’s Marjorie Butler Shares Journey of Balancing School, Basketball

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For Marjorie Butler, competing in Athletes Unlimited Basketball was about more than reigniting her professional career.

Butler told HighlightHER’s Ari Chambers how she graduated from Georgia in 2016 and was set to attend Vanderbilt for medical school. As she completed her coursework, she was unable to continue playing basketball with much frequency.

However, the death of her fiance led her to reconsider whether she should get back on the court.

“He loved the game; basketball was his everything,” Butler said at the 1:06 mark of the interview. “He actually passed away playing basketball, right after a professional tryout. So that experience brought me back to the game because I needed somewhere to fight. … Just a place to my pain, my grief, my love, all the complicated feelings.”

Since one of his dreams was to play in a professional league, playing in Athletes Unlimited—which is self-described as “a network of next generation professional sports leagues,” which uses player-centric models for leagues throughout the world of sports—is her way of making that a reality.

During the interview, Butler also discussed her time at Georgia and referenced the common struggle of balancing her athletic and academic endeavors. During her junior year, she missed multiple practices because of her classwork.

That continued once she graduated as she told Chambers she “never had a space or opportunity to play basketball at the professional level without sacrificing what I wanted to do in health care.”

“That’s a problem in women’s sports,” Butler said at the 6:55 mark. “You should be able to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a mother. You should be able to do whatever you want to in the community without having to sacrifice that for basketball.”

She praised Athletes Unlimited for providing that chance in the United States.