How a simple question changed Louisville's Hailey Van Lith's approach to basketball, brand

“What do you want to do?”

Louisville women's basketball guard Hailey Van Lith pondered on the question her mentor, Michelle Obeso-Theus, had just asked her during a conversation they had in the spring of 2020. Obeso-Theus, the founder and CEO of TWO11 Consulting, worked with athletes like the late Kobe Bryant, Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie and Kawhi Leonard. During their talk, she spoke to Van Lith just like she was an NBA star. Knowing the question would one day come up, she wanted her young mentee to be prepared.

Obeso-Theus used Van Lith’s “I don’t know” response as a teaching tool.

“I will tell you one thing that I don't say: I don't know, because Kobe told me that that was a lazy answer,” Obeso-Theus told Van Lith. “And I said, 'I want you to go back and think about it. What I do is I break things down in threes and I say what are three things that you're passionate about? … What are things that spark your heart, your soul, et cetera.?”

Obeso-Theus explained that any business venture Van Lith, who has become one of the most marketable women's college basketball players in the country and has WNBA aspirations, was interested in should have one or all of those elements in it “so your brand stays consistent nicely.”

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Through some soul searching, Van Lith found what she wanted any of her future business ventures to be centered around: basketball, women’s sports and philanthropy. At the time, it was just knowledge to keep tucked away for the future; Van Lith hadn't even arrived on the University of Louisville campus.

Then on July 1, 2021, after a promising freshman season in which she averaged 11.2 points and 5.2 rebounds for a Cardinals team that made the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament, athletes were given the greenlight to profit from their name, image and likeness. Armed with the pearls of wisdom from Obeso-Theus, Van Lith already had a plan on how she'd take advantage of NIL and cash in on her star power.

As the Cardinals' junior guard's popularity continues to rise on and off the court, so does her platform and NIL opportunities, and she knows how to use it.

“I think one thing I've learned from all this, NIL included, Michelle, of that is at the end of the day, you determine what you want out of it,” said Van Lith, who is represented by Octagon, a global PR agency that also represents the likes of Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry and Olympic great Simone Biles. "I've been very specific in what I'm looking to partner with, what I'm willing to put my image on.”

Social media issues

A big part of branding and getting NIL deals is having a social media presence. Louisville junior Hailey Van Lith can handle that now, but the younger ‘HVL’ struggled with it.

Van Lith is a self-described private person and said she only had a handful of Instagram posts prior to college. She viewed social media as a distraction and didn’t want anything to take away from her focus on basketball and training.

“That's part of becoming a professional is beginning to learn how to do the balance so that your sport, mental health and brand are all bouncing between a certain level and you're not completely off kilter,” Obeso-Theus told Van Lith.

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Van Lith’s rising popularity as the espnW HoopGurlz’s No. 7 recruit in the Class of 2020 and relationship with Bryant, who introduced Obeso-Theus and Van Lith in 2019, brought about an increased internet presence. While the attention was sometimes positive, she couldn’t escape the grasp of social media trolls and disparaging tweets.

And Van Lith saw them. All of them.

The competitor in her would read the comments on Twitter and use that to motivate her performance to prove people wrong. But there was only so much of her competitive side that bore the weight of the negative remarks before the personal side took over.

“As much as I want to say I don't care, it doesn't put pressure on me, it is a lot of pressure,” she said. “Everything I do is criticized. Like, the outfits I wear are criticized, the way that I warm up in a basketball game is criticized. My attitude is criticized.”

It took some time, but Van Lith finally found a way to free herself from the criticism.

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Tuning out the noise

Playing to prove people wrong caused Van Lith, then a freshman, to question her motives for playing a sport she’s loved most of her life. She had an epiphany. "Who am I playing for?" she thought. Finding the answer to that question — her teammates and passion for the game — renewed her love for basketball.

“Competitively, at the end of the day, I am a little bit like that where if an announcer says this about me, I'm going to go show them,” she said. “I'm going to prove to them, but you have to let that stuff go. I think when I did let it go is when I really maximized my full potential in that season. I feel like I played free.”

Van Lith went from averaging 11.2 points as a freshman to 14.4 points, from 63 assists to 75. She was named the Wichita Region’s MVP in the NCAA tournament, helping the Cardinals reach their fourth-ever Final Four.

The Washington native found a way to make social media work for her. She still doesn’t use it much but now has a healthier relationship with it. She has a team that helps her post with purpose across all platforms where she’s compiled around 629,000 followers on Instagram, about 25,300 Twitter followers and 64,300 followers on TikTok.

“Now that I have people helping me, there's certain things that I have to do,” she said. “I've found ways that I feel like are authentic for me that I enjoy. Like putting out there certain curated Instagram posts, I actually enjoy doing that. So, I found my niche a little bit there.”

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Doing it her way

On July 16, Hailey Van Lith subbed out her Louisville uniform for a black top and blue jeans. Her usual basketball stage was instead a platform in the parking lot of the St. Matthews Mall and her audience was a small — and adorable — crowd of 20 children.

Van Lith partnered with JCPenny, which was celebrating its 120^th birthday, and the Family Scholar House to surprise 20 kids with $150 gift cards to go shopping. Her teammates Chrislyn Carr and Mykasa Robinson were also present for the event.

“The (Louisville) women's basketball team is particularly dear to our heart, because they've done some really cool things with our kids,” said Cathe Dykstra, Family Scholar House’s president and CEO, that day. “It's wonderful for our kids to get to meet positive role models in the community, people that they can aspire to be.”

Heeding Obeso-Theus's advice, Van Lith’s partnership ties in with her passion for philanthropy. She also has deals with Adidas, Twitch, Dick’s Sporting Goods and the Billionaire Girls Club among others. Van Lith and her team are very careful about which companies she does deals with, making sure her pillars are at the forefront of everything she does.

“A lot of deals haven't worked out because people don't want to put the money where the mouth is and they don't want to support women's basketball how I expect,” she said. “I just think that it's up to us as players to stand our ground and not give in for money, because we're gonna make that anyways.”

In March, Axios estimated Van Lith's social media posts are worth an estimated value of $44,200, behind only UConn star Paige Bueckers ($62.9 thousand), which gives Van Lith leverage to negotiate and make sure her demands are met. The same fierceness and killer instinct she plays basketball with drives her brand development.

“The sky's the limit for her because she's already been able to unlock those things that hold most people back,” Obeso-Theus said. “Because she has that, I think that she can go wherever that she wants to go. … I just think she's such an amazing young woman and she has amazing people around her and amazing family. I love watching and supporting her.”

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: How Louisville women's basketball's Hailey Van Lith is building brand