Toni Fuller -Interview

As a young girl, I grew up running summer track and playing basketball. As a teenager, I continued with track and field and added on cross country in the fall seasons. Coaches were the cornerstone of my prowess on and off the track. My story is a bit different from most. ?Every day that I walked into my high school, I was haunted with the idea that I would be sexually abused before the day was over. See, around the age of 14, mom and I made an escape to Atlanta, GA from Dallas, TX to flee my dad?s domestic abuse. My mom’s family resided in Atlanta so this would be where my ?new life? would emerge and when the world of sports and academia would save me!

Mom was not doing too well, losing weight by the pound, and falling into a bit of noticeable depression. Eventually guardianship over me was given to my aunt for varying reasons including my education. While in high school, I found myself in a rather tainted situation with, what seemed like, no way out. The Athletic Director/Head Football and Track and Field Coach began to sexually abuse me over the summer going into my 10^th grade year. I never spoke about this with anyone for fear of being castigated by those around me. I held this secret until I was 22 years old (8 total years), and for the most part, still hold this secret close to me unshared.

If it weren’t for sports and becoming an ultra nerd while in high school, I probably wouldn’t be living to share this story. High school was tough one big secret and one really long blink. Books, learning, and running became my saving graces. When I walked in the metal doors of the school, I put on my imaginary thinking cap and wore it until I left the school building and presumed my safety. Every book that I read, every topic I explored became the great escape I needed. Before long, I was considered a well-versed and scholarly athlete. I focused intensely on the words I read in books; became a master of staying in the present eliminating racing and fearful thoughts from my psyche. I learned the importance of healthy outlets and how having them could save your life. Running track kept me busy from others, as well as, myself during my high school years.

Coaches played a pivotal role in my existence. Rather bad or good, I learned something from all of them. With the AD in high school, although not back then, latter reflections taught me to end the silence on this topic  to speak up and speak out about sexual abuse. My aim now, working as a school counselor, is to help youth in similar situations experience freedom and autonomy; to break the shackles of domestic and sexual abuse against them.

Sometime after sophomore year at Vanderbilt University, I made a choice to walk away from running collegiate track to focus more on my academics. From there, I began playing flag football for a club team called the WNFL and we were really good! This is where I would learn the game of football and grow a strong passion for it. With the WNFL, I utilized my speed at the running back position and learned to use the concepts from football that I was learning and began applying them to my personal mental health. Juking on the field became juking off the field. I learned how to maneuver the world around me as if I was a running back and the world was the defense I was up against. My mental health became a game of sorts. In order to feel better about the plight dealt to me, I made light of it. Football became my self-help, figuratively and literally I tackled life.

Four years would become five and eventually I would complete Vanderbilt with both my Bachelor of Science and Master of Education degrees, respectively. Making my academics my primary focus behooved me greatly! Still bound to silence about the sexual abuse I?d lived through, something special occurred at 22 years old. I found out my father was having a baby out of wedlock and life, as I knew it, began to pour out at the seams. I would finally begin to tell pieces of my story (at least to my immediate family)  I was full and it flowed like the river.

I journeyed for 6 years, working odd end jobs; not utilizing my Master?s degree much with the jobs I opted to take during that period. From throwing luggage on airplanes to setting people up with cable service, I journeyed. During this time, I stumbled upon the Atlanta Xplosion women?s football team where I’d transition from the world of flag football to the world of full contact tackle football. This gave me life! From running back in flag football to weak side linebacker for the Xplosion, I’d learn the game in and out and it would change my life forever. I met a group of people who genuinely cared about my well-being; no manipulation just a good feeling of?family. Coach Phil Beniamino, the head coach of the Atlanta Xplosion, was the first coach to hold me accountable, push me to be better, and take care of me unconditionally (on and off the field). ?With the Xplosion, I’d go on to experience two championship seasons and successfully earn a championship title in 2006.

Still applying concepts, I learned on the field to the world around me (off the field) ? life and my past would still rear their heads. I remained silent, nonetheless, and fought my battles privately. Using football as a physical and emotional outlet from the torment I was experiencing inside of me. It wasn’t until 2008 that I packed up two suitcases and headed west to the Nevada horizons to take up a school counseling job. There I would get serious about life, learn myself, and the Universe. Nestled 2 hours South of Reno and 5 hours north of Las Vegas, lies Hawthorne, NV hidden away in the mountain valley of Nevada. ?Back then, there wasn’t a female football team nearby so for a year I went without the playing. The second year there, I would rejoin my Atlanta Xplosion family and meet them to compete in away games my outlet was back.

In 2010, I moved to Austin, Texas and began playing for the Austin Outlaws women?s football team. Football took off for me around this time. I had emerged from a one-dimensional football player to a multi-dimensional football player playing several positions every season. Head coach, Narlen Baker, saw something in me and believed that I had what it took to play running back and defensive back for him. More priceless lessons would emerge because of this and the idea that he would push me to higher heights. Just as my life on the field was becoming layered, so was my life off the field. From school counselor to mentoring and tutoring at the University of Texas my work life flourished and my football life paralleled. This has always been the case; they’ve worked hand in hand perfectly.

In 2013, I had the opportunity to tryout in the Team USA Women?s National Team trials where I’d meet a coach that would impact me forever  Coach Chenell Soho Tillman-Brooks. As she looked on in the distance, I?d notice her, but not formally meet her during that weekend of events. Eventually, I found myself with a video of my time at the Trials with helpful feedback included in a private facebook message. My love for Coach started at that very moment. ?I knew she didn?t know me, but she had a heart for the game and somehow a heart for me. ?This relationship would probably prove to be the most important of them all. I’m not sure if Coach Soho really understands her magic  in her own little way she has a knack for showing how special her leadership can be. I can still remember the day she told me life will change the minute you get out of your own way kiddo. She didn’t know my story then, she didn’t know that I had really been in my own way, she didn’t know those very words would propel me to a place of true freedom within myself. That’s something that good coaches do well, they save lives effortlessly. She did that – she told me no more ghosting  it’s time to live and I have swallowed those words athletically and personally. She started a fire in me that day; a fire that would end the silence.