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In this podcast episode, the host, Brickstone Breaker, interviews his teammate and roommate, Courtney Drake. Courtney is from a small town in Iowa and grew up playing basketball from a young age. She played basketball in high school and then went on to play for Kirkwood Community College and NIU. Courtney also played other sports like volleyball, track, and softball. Her dream job as a kid was to work with dogs, and she is currently studying Applied Human Development and Family Sciences in the master's program. Courtney shares some of her favorite on-court memories, including winning a game and pouring water on the coach. Off the court, she enjoys spending time with her roommates, going on roommate dates, talking to her family, and reading the Bible. Courtney also enjoys going on walks, listening to podcasts, and finding coffee shops to be productive. Hello, and welcome back to the Complete Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, Brickstone Breaker, and I'm here with one of my best friends, who is also my teammate and my roommate, Courtney Drake. This is the first episode of this podcast, and Courtney has the pleasure of joining us in. So, welcome, Courtney. Thank you. I'm so excited. I would go straight in and tell you about how awesome Courtney is, but we will learn more about herself from herself, so let's get started. We're gonna get started with the basics of the basics, but tell us, where are you from? Family members? Siblings? Okay, I'm from Wilton, Iowa. Very small town. I have my mom and dad, Melanie and Reggie Drake, and then I have an older brother, Javin, and he is married to Kelsey. There is two Kelseys in the family, so we call her Kelsey Lee, and then I have a younger sister, Kelsey, Kelsey Annie, and then another sister, Kinsey, and then a dog named Derby. I also love Derby. I love Courtney's whole family. Shout out, Courtney's family. You're amazing. Love you guys. Okay, and you play basketball? Okay. How were you introduced to basketball at an early age? I would say I was introduced in first or second grade. We played a little league in our small town. My parents were my coaches, and I also grew up just going to a bunch of sporting events, mostly my brother's games and stuff, so yeah, introduced at a really young age. And then you played basketball at Wilton in high school, and then where'd you go from there? So, yeah, started at Wilton, and then I played for a team called Iowa Prep for AAU. I started that in eighth grade, and then after high school, I went to Kirkwood Community College. Shout out, Kirkwood. I was there for three years, and then I came to NIU for two years. Where she met me. Yep. That's my best friend. That's my best friend for years. What other sports did you play in high school? I played volleyball, I ran track, and I played softball. And why did you choose basketball? Chose basketball because I had the most fun with basketball. I truly began to love it more when I started AU, so I think that's when I kind of decided I wanted to do it in college. So, yeah, I loved all the sports, but basketball was just an all-time favorite. Okay, okay. Outside of basketball, who was Courtney as a little kid? Who was Courtney growing up? Courtney... What did you enjoy doing? Courtney was a quiet girl in the elementary classroom, but outside of school, I would say she was quite adventurous, loved hanging out with her friends and family, loved being outside, doing all sorts of activities, lots of bike riding, but, yeah, that's Courtney. Lots of adventures. Lots of adventures. Plus, you're from a small town, so you make your own fun. Oh, yeah. Also, from a small town, I understand that. Go Tigers! Go Tigers! Go Tigers! Go Tigers! Go Tigers! Go Tigers! Go Tigers! Go Tigers! What was your first dream job as a kid? What did you want to do? What did you want to... What were your interests? I would say my first dream job was probably a vet or anything to do with dogs. I really... My dream job just was to walk dogs for my future, but I knew that wasn't for real, so That's not really happening, but I love dogs, so I always have. Always will. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And what is your field of study now? What are you studying? What are you kind of looking forward at in your study? That's a great question. Right now, I'm currently in the master's program here. It's called Applied Human Development and Family Sciences. I'm not totally sure what I'm doing with that, but I was in general studies. So this is a step up. We are rolling. We're rolling with the punches. Okay. Off the court and on the court, what's your best memory? Let's start with on the court. Okay. On the court, I have two. Was beating ball state at home and celebrating with everyone afterwards. And then something that pops out to me, this isn't technically on the court, but when we got in the locker room, we got to pour water on Coach, and then she also did the little ski. That was my best moment. A core memory. Core memory. You know when you just have those memories that, like, split second, that you can just see it again? That was a core memory. Yeah. And it could just replay in your head. Yeah. And you're, like, kind of just in disbelief that it just happened kind of thing? Yeah. Yeah, that was fun. That was definitely the highlight of the season this year. That was so fun. And then my second one, I'm not only saying this because Brooke is your guys' host, but you might have to help me who we were even playing, but we were talking about how you were going to shoot a three in that game. You had the green light and everything, which she's a shooter. But we talked about how you were going to shoot the three, and then that's how we started the game was on top of the key, swish, suck. I just knew it was going to be good, and I will forever remember it. I think it was. I was going to say that, but I didn't know. I was like, let it fly. Let it fly. I was smiling the whole time. Jaden's reaction. Jaden's reaction. I think it was from blue, too. It passed out from the post from blue. Yeah. And it was in the first, like, 12 seconds of the game. It was beautiful. Yeah, beautiful. Love it. Love it. I would say all my favorite memories. I love when I'm underneath the basket and I see you chug up the three and I can see the ball already coming in the basket. I'm like, I might as well just run down the court. Because this ball is going in. Thank you for having that much fun. That needed to happen more often. Oh, my goodness. Okay, off the court. No basketball. Okay. In your hands. What is your favorite memory? Okay, so there's a ton, and I love my roommates. Shout out Brooke, Syd, and Mariah. But the first one that came to my mind was when Mariah texted in our group chat and said, does anyone want Chick-fil-A? And then two seconds later, she walks in the door, and we're all standing at the top of our stairs just looking at her. And, like, we were ready to go. We had our money. We were out the door in seconds. And then we rode trip to Chick-fil-A, and it was like a, what, 40-minute drive? Yeah, granted, this is like a 40-minute drive from where we're at. We don't have a Chick-fil-A around us, so we just hopped in the car. It was the spur of the moment, and it was the best night ever. And I would say our roomie dates are probably the top year on, like, roomie dates. Absolutely. I look forward to those. Yeah. I look forward to them so much. Literally, I told my sister because she was writing a paper on, like, what helps in college athletics or whatever. They're like, what do you do outside your sport to make it a better experience? Yeah. And I go, you have to go on roomie dates. Oh, yeah. You have to. And if you're best friends with your roommates, it really can't get a whole lot better. Yeah. Because you just, every single night, want to go get something to eat? Sure. Want to go get ice cream? Awesome. I'm in. Jump in the car. Let's go. Yep. Yep. Awesome. Anything and everything. Down. Okay. How do you stay grounded off the court? And I guess you could kind of take this question on what are your values, what's important to you in your life when you're not playing basketball? That's a great question. I would say the first thing that comes to my mind is talking to my family and hanging out with them, or if I can't see them, lots of FaceTimes with my parents, my siblings. That's one of my favorite things I like to do if things are going well, things are going bad, just talking to them. And I'd also say what keeps me grounded is being in the Word. That's been one of my favorite things is sitting upstairs in our living room and seeing Brooke open her Bible, and then I get to, too, and it's just a great start to the morning when I do that. And so, yeah, that would be a big thing. I will say this is so small, but I love whenever we do our devotions together. And we're not even doing the same devotion either, but we're just sitting on separate sides of the couch, and we both have our Bibles open, and we're both listening to our own podcast, and we're both listening. And then after we get to share on, like, what we learned for that day, and it's just a great start to the morning. And then normally we'll have our coffee. Yeah, second coffee. Second coffee. My favorite thing. And just the being there in the living room and, like, the presence of just, like, someone else doing the same exact thing. And it's, like, early in the morning. I love it, and it's, like, a great start. Retreat. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, any other hobbies? I've been recently loving going on walks whenever I can, I think. I don't know if you can consider that a hobby, but I'm going. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So that, and I love just being outside, and I typically on a walk listen to a podcast, so I'd say that's also one of my favorite things to do outside of basketball. I was into reading a little bit. I haven't got there quite this semester, but hopefully we get back into that. And then just finding coffee shops to stay at in DeKalb or Sycamore and being productive. I've been doing that recently, and that's been good. But other than that, my hobbies relate to food and ice cream and coffee, so I need to work on expanding my horizon. One thing I did, so I think this was, like, a Monday night, and we each had a Tuesday open, or the next day was open, and so we decided to plan this whole day that we were going to go work out, we're going to wake up, do our devotions, then go work out by ourselves, or together, but by ourselves, meaning the two of us. Yeah. We had the whole day planned. We had the whole day planned, and we sectioned out, like, three hours from, like, 10 o'clock to 1 o'clock to go to a coffee shop and do homework and lock in. Did we lock in? No. It was because we got to the coffee shop, and two of our teammates showed up, and so we started talking to them, and then another teammate showed up, and so we're all just sitting at this big table chit-chatting away for, like, an hour or two, and then Courtney and I are sitting there after they leave, and we're like, well, looks like it's time for us to go, too. Yeah, not a lot goes on that day, but. Feels good. We got a chance to talk to her. It was worth it. So it was a great day. We ended up going to on campus, on our campus in, like, this green grass area, open area by the lagoon, and it was also beautiful, and that's the other thing, too, like, with the weather now. Oh, my gosh. Game changer. Game changer. Game changer. Like, I'll just go outside and be in such a better mood because I can walk outside in shorts and a T-shirt. Literally. And just laying out and getting burnt. Yes. And after, like, Illinois weathers, you start to appreciate that. It's so much more. So much more. They're not lying when they say the wind is bad here. It's so bad. It's so much worse than Ohio. So much worse than Ohio. But I also would say a hobby is working out. Yeah, because that's outside of basketball. Yeah, it's just for that. Especially when it's working out. Working out. When we're outside of Susan, working out is actually a hobby because we get to decide when we work out and how we work out. Yeah, what we do. And it's actually so fun. Yeah. It's so fun. It is. Especially when you can do it outside. Yeah. If you're not lifting. Like, going to the Jordan and the Jordan is our weight room. But going to the Jordan and just being able to choose to go on the elliptical. Like, what? You stayed on there for half an hour? Yes. I was just going away. Or tricycling. Oh, my gosh. I love that. That's the other thing. That's a detailed thing at the rec. Shout out NIU Rec Center. Shout out NIU Rec Center. And Marianne. Marianne is our instructor. And we've been doing or Courtney mostly has been doing the cycling. Well, shout out Ella on our volleyball team because she got us into it. Uh-huh. And so we've been going to some cycling classes. And we actually got, like, a good amount of the team there one time. Like, during post-season when we were in our, like, two-week break, we got eight out of our 13 teammates to come cycle with us. That's a record. It was pretty awesome. I'm not going to lie. It was so awesome. So, yes, cycling, too, has become a good hobby. Uh-huh. Switch it up. Switch it up. Switch it up. Okay. Last question. Best advice you would give to younger athletes? Pretty short. But I would say to any young athlete out there to just always work hard, even when no one is watching, and to just have fun with it. Enjoy each moment as it comes because, believe it or not, it does go by quick. I know you don't want to believe that now, but I'm graduated. So just enjoy where you are and have some fun with your teammates. I'm still trying to convince her to stay. But seriously, it does go by so fast. And, yeah. So fast. Yeah. Wow. All right. It was so good, Courtney, to have you on my first podcast, on my first episode, as my guest. I'm honored. Thank you for listening. You can learn more about Courtney and The Complete Athlete on Instagram at thecomplete.athlete. Stay tuned and come back next week for another episode of The Complete Athlete. And remember, there is always more beyond the game. Woo!
