Emily Engstler‘s mom made her wait until third grade before she could pick up a basketball. That’s something that probably seems pretty reasonable to any parent who has seen their young child begin a sport or hobby only to move on a month later — just after they’ve paid for classes, bought all the gear, and planned the family’s fall around it.
But for Engstler, who grew up surrounded by an abundance of streetball courts in Queens, it wasn’t really fair. When she did begin playing CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) basketball, she went up against boys. Engstler wasn’t intimidated in the least; in fact, she could stay out on those courts for hours.
“I think a lot of my underdog grit vibes came from that,” she told The IX Sports this week, “and eventually I got old enough to be able to go up on the courts outside, like [at age] 14, 15, and to be able to handle myself straight.
“We did it a lot over in Queens, like our school, and then when I went to high school, I started going outside to the park across the street from my house called Blackwell. We went out on a lot of days, but Sundays was the day. You knew at 11 all the old heads were out there, and then the young’uns kind of came in after, and we would just play for six hours until it was 6 pm.”
That athletic upbringing is still evident in how Engstler moves now for the Portland Fire. She isn’t intimidated by anyone, something that was on full display in Portland’s May 30 win when she and the Indiana Fever’s Sophie Cunningham engaged in a verbal back-and-forth for the entire length of the court. Both players received a technical foul.
“Listen, it’s basketball,” Engstler told reporters after the game. “But at the end of the day — I’ma put it in words I’m allowed to say — no one scares me. And [Cunningham] sure doesn’t. So I’m not going to stand there and let people talk to me a certain way. Or hit me.”
If there’s one person who isn’t surprised Engstler will stand up for herself at any and every opportunity, it’s Arizona State’s director of basketball strategy and associate head coach Stephanie Norman. She took over the job at her alma mater at the behest of head coach Molly Miller, but previously spent 18 years on the coaching staff at Louisville, where she encountered Engstler for the first time.
Northern toughness meets southern fight
When it was time to head to college, Engstler wanted to stay close to home. She joined the basketball team at Syracuse, where she played for three seasons. Things were good there, but she wanted the opportunity to see what it might be like to play for a team that had a little more meat on its bones.
Louisville is one of those teams that is perennially an NCAA contender, and that was certainly true ahead of the 2021-22 season. Engstler wanted to know what it would be like to play at such a program and transferred there through the portal.
Engstler and head coach Jeff Walz didn’t speak a lot during her recruitment process, but she was still intrigued by the program.
“He just kind of fit all the categories for me,” she said. “I wanted a coach that I could have a relationship with. I wanted to be close with their family. I wanted to compete at a higher level. I wanted to go to a championship.”
From the beginning, Walz supported her, and in the end, they both got what they wanted: Engstler found a family of coaches and players who were just as loyal to her as she was to them, and the team made it to the Final Four.
She also met Norman there. Though Engstler was only there for a season, the two quickly bonded and became very close. Norman emphasized Engstler’s love for arguing as a trait that stood out.
“I think I was a truth teller and a realist and a calming force,” Norman told The IX Sports when asked what made their relationship special. “I’m not going to lie, Emily is probably the most challenging, but most rewarding player that I’ve ever coached, because she has a brilliant mind.”
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Engstler is loyal, Norman added, especially to those she cares about, and something that means a lot to her to receive.
“I have never met a kid that is more dedicated to her teammates, and more … if you’re on her side, you’re on her side for life, and she will take a bullet for you,” Norman explained. “But if you cross her and get on the other side of right, you ain’t ever coming back.
“She’s fiercely loyal, and I just think everyone that comes into contact with her sees who she is, and you’re just in awe of who she is as a human being.”
Earning Engstler’s trust happened organically. The Cardinals were playing in Miami one night when Engstler and Walz got into an argument. Walz wanted to pull Engstler from the game for a bit because she’d picked up a pair of fouls, but she disagreed. Norman explained this was part of their love-hate dynamic, but that this instance was “unique.”
“They were going back and forth with each other, two very strong-willed people, and there was some language … they’re jawing at each other,” Norman continued. “And then she just continues to go down the bench, she exited stage left, and kept going back to the locker room. Everyone looked at me, like, ‘Go get your girl.'”
So she did. It took some talking and some feeling, but Norman got Engstler back on the floor. She checked into the game, and the Cardinals ended up with the win.
That wasn’t the only memory Norman had of Engstler’s strong personality taking center stage. Norman also recounted a moment from a game against Michigan after the Wolverines taunted Louisville’s Mykasa Robinson.
“Michigan came at Mykasa, one of their players did a little symbol, like, ‘You’re too small.’ Mykasa was the heart and soul of our team, and Emily was like the enforcer, so when she saw this girl on Michigan come at Mykasa, as soon as that happened, I said, ‘Game over, we’ve won.’
“… I was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got this game won,’ because as soon as you go after one of our kids on our team, and it wasn’t her, but it was someone else that she cared about, it was over. … You come after one of hers, and you’ll never hear the end of it. There isn’t one person I would rather have in front of me than Emily Engstler.”
A unique veteran role in the WNBA
From just speaking with Englstler, it’s apparent how much loyalty means to her. She admitted she wasn’t exactly thrilled when the Portland Fire poached her from the Washington Mystics, where she spent the two prior seasons — but that’s changed.
“I think there was a part in the beginning of the season where I kind of wasn’t being grateful, actually,” she said. “And it got to the point where I realized we are a great group of people here, and what they’re trying to build is special.”
Portland is different from New York and from Kentucky, and has its own vibe. The same can be said for each team Engstler has been a part of, including this year’s Fire. What Engstler soon realized is that a team made up of expansion draft picks has a lot more in common than she initially thought.
“I really love the girls here, and I think that as the days go by, we honestly just get closer, we get better, and I’ve been having a really decent time,” she said. “I want to keep winning. I’m a competitor, and I think we have so much potential to do so.”
Engstler even expressed a desire to see this team stay together for future seasons. It comes as somewhat of a surprise that Engstler is focused on both the season at hand and the future. Much of her WNBA career has been marked by attempts at finding a place to land and stick around for a while.
The Fire’s coaching staff is open about their intent to rebrand how WNBA expansion teams operate, and success is measured by how good it feels to be on the team day in and day out as much as anything else.
“I’m hoping that we can keep the group together and just keep building and being great,” Engstler said. “Because it’s only been, what, 16 games, and I already feel like we’ve been through like three different versions of each other.”
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Playing for the Fire has given Engstler and some of her teammates the opportunity to step in as veteran leaders a little earlier than they might have otherwise. Though she’s only in her fifth season in the league, Engstler is on her fourth team — she was drafted by the Indiana Fever in 2022, spent one season with the Minnesota Lynx, and two with the Washington Mystics.
“I think that kind of leadership has allowed us to be closer with our rookies, and be more graceful with our rookies, and grow a better relationship with them,” Engstler said. “I feel like I have a good relationship with everyone, but a different relationship with everyone. I think the main thing with the players who are young is I know how I wanted to be spoken to and how I didn’t, so I try my best to do the same for them.”
In turn, Engstler can learn from the others around her who are younger and older, creating a “more powerful leadership” dynamic in a sense. She pointed to Carla Leite as someone who’s taught her a lot despite this being just Leite’s second WNBA season.
“[She’s] such a great leader to me,” Engstler said of Leite. “She’s been on two teams now, and I think because of the things she’s been through, it put a lot of things in perspective for her. I’ve learned a lot from her.”
The fact that Engstler is a de facto leader and thriving in Portland doesn’t surprise Norman.
“I’m just grateful that she’s done the work for herself to put her in these spaces to be elevated, and I have just been waiting and trying to tell everybody that this kid is special,” she said. “And that’s on her. She matured, she changed, and she made a way for herself and found a home in Portland.
“I’ve said all along that she’s one of the most talented, gifted kids physically that I’ve ever coached. I love that Portland has seen it, and has really bought in with her … I can’t imagine a better place. … [With] her sort of flair and her toughness … it’s a perfect spot for her.”
