Angel Reese wears St. Agni tank top and Bulgari ring.
“It’s crazy,” Reese says of the attitude shift. “I see celebrities courtside at the game, and everywhere I go people are screaming my name, screaming other players’ names. It’s not just in the States, either. There are fanbases everywhere. It’s the result of work women have put in over the years. It’s long overdue. I want to say thank you to all of the women before me for everything they’ve done for the game and all sports, from top to bottom. And shout out to y’all, for the love and support. We really, really appreciate it.”
Basketball runs in Reese’s blood—not in a ‘genetic lottery’ sense, although her Amazonian height of a tidy 191 centimetres and almost implausibly symmetrical features (she goes by Bayou Barbie on court) certainly help with both the sport and the fame that comes with it—but as a family craft. Her mother, Angel Webb, played for the University of Maryland before going professional in Luxembourg, and her younger brother, Julian, is signed to the Toronto Raptors. Her aunts and grandmother also passed down a love of the sport. For her, it was never just a game, but a legacy. Throughout her career, Reese has modelled herself on the women who love her, taking her mother’s name, doing her hair and make-up before a game as she did with her grandmother, and wearing the number 10 jersey at LSU, the same number her mother wore.
She inherited all of this, and something extra, too. The word Reese uses is “independence”, although her laugh when she says the word suggests that most filial of dynamics. “My mum was my first coach,” she says. “She was a single mother—she was so independent. I know how to cut grass, I know how to change a tyre, I know how to do everything because of my mum. My mum always told me, ‘You don’t need anybody, you can do it all yourself.’ She always told me to work, to work hard at everything I do, to put my head down and grind and let the chips fall where they may. I remember she would drive my brother and me from Maryland to Florida—17 hours in the car, just vibing. I saw then how close we are, a family willing to do whatever for you.”
And vice versa. In January, Reese paid off her mother’s mortgage for her birthday so she could retire. “I took my aunt to see Beyoncé, and I took my team to see Megan Thee Stallion,” she says. “And I love being able to share everything I get with my teammates: shoes, headphones, everything. I don’t have biological sisters, so every team I’ve been on has been my sisterhood. I want my family and friends to know they can count on me to be there for them. It matters how you treat people.”
She created The Angel C. Reese Foundation in July 2023 as an extension of this conviction, hosting basketball camps and financial literacy programs for young girls from underprivileged communities. The launch was held back home in Baltimore at Saint Frances Academy, Reese’s old high school. At time of print, the foundation has donated more than US$50,000 in scholarships to its students. Last November, Reese partnered with Reebok to provide the school’s current athletes with Angel Reese 1 signature sneakers, as well as custom jerseys and apparel. “I had 50 people in my graduating class. The school was probably 200 total,” she says. “And it’s not an easy journey for girls growing up there.” Reese gestures to the ground beneath her feet in the studio, then a window about 20 metres to her left. “I could literally walk from the school, here to there, and there was a jail opposite the road. So I just try to give the girls confidence. Whenever I see someone tall slouching, I go, ‘Shoulders back, and stand up,’ because I know how hard it is. It’s important for them to see somebody like them, because when you see it, you can believe it. You can be it.”
