WNBA star Brittney Griner, who infamously served a year in a Russian prison on drug charges, has decided that being a mother would be far more important than any of her achievements in sports.
Griner was jailed early in 2022 in Russia after she was caught at a Moscow airport with a cannabis-filled vape cartridge in her luggage. Since marijuana is 100 percent illegal in Russia, the basketball player — who was in Russia to play the game during the WNBA off-season — was arrested and charged criminally for importing illegal drugs into the country.
She was convicted of the crime and sentenced to nearly ten years in jail. Still, she nearly a year later was finally exchanged for a dangerous Russian weapons dealer in a deal arranged by the Biden administration.
US Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, leaves the courtroom after the court’s verdict in Khimki outside Moscow, on August 4, 2022. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
Now, 17 months after finally returning to the U.S.A., in an interview with former U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe for The Cut, Griner said that the pending birth of her son with wife Cherelle will be the best thing she has ever done.
“Screw the championships and all the trophies and all that; that’s going to be the highest peak of my life right there,” Griner told Rapinoe.
“I can’t wait to go fishing and off-roading and teach them everything my dad taught me, them coming to me for advice and watching them learn something or figure something out for the first time. That’s going to be the biggest joy,” Griner added.
Griner also said she was thankful that they only moved to have a baby after she returned from her harrowing experience being jailed in Russia and not before she left the U.S. at the time. The whole thing was a wake-up call for her, she added.
“We had talked about having kids before this happened,” Griner explained. “I’m glad we waited because it would’ve destroyed me even more — destroyed us even more — if we had a little one back here while she’s fighting to try to get me out. But when I got back, we were like, ‘Tomorrow’s not guaranteed. We need to stop playing around with time. We need to do this.”’
US basketball player Brittney Griner (R) of the Phoenix Mercury and her wife Cherelle Griner arrive at a news conference at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 27, 2023. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
“We wanted a new chapter of our life. I knew I was going to be done with playing overseas, so we pulled the gun on it,’ she continued. ‘We’ve got a little boy on the way, Bash Raymond Griner and I’m super excited for this next chapter of my life,” Griner continued.
“Anybody who knows me knows I love kids. I’ve always been right there with my nieces, my nephews. I just love family time. The country, down South side of me comes out,” she said.
Griner has a long list of top sports achievements. After winning an NCAA title with Baylor in 2012, she was drafted by the Phoenix Mercury in 2013. She was then very quickly on her way to a WNBA championship, which the team won in 2014.
She has led the WNBA in scoring twice and has made nine All-Star and six All-NBA teams.
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