Aging & Wisdom Quote by Sue Wicks

Aging in sports rarely arrives with a dramatic crash; it sneaks in through small, almost comic reversals of status. Sue Wicks frames that shift with a conversational shrug - "It's funny" - the kind athletes use to keep sentiment from getting too heavy. But the humor is doing real work: it softens the sting of realizing you are no longer the future. You are the reference point.

The line captures a specific moment in women’s basketball history, too. For Wicks and her peers, “playing overseas” wasn’t a quirky résumé detail; it was often a financial necessity and a parallel career track in an era when domestic leagues were unstable and salaries were thin. When younger players ask her about overseas contracts and agents, it signals progress and continuity at once: the pipeline is fuller now, but the hustle remains structurally built into the profession.

Subtextually, Wicks is describing a transfer of institutional knowledge. In a sports world that likes to pretend talent is self-sustaining, she’s pointing to the invisible labor of veterans - mentoring, warning, translating the business side, passing down survival tips that rarely make highlight reels. The quote also nudges against the myth that athletes age out into irrelevance. Wicks suggests another role opens up: not just player, but elder, archivist, and guide. That’s the real punchline behind “It’s funny” - time turns you into the person you used to look for.