There are moments when we all have to check ourselves from judging. This was my moment. I had decided to do a SportsCenter feature on major league baseball agent Rachel Luba, so I went to her Instagram feed and saw her wearing a swimsuit in the snow. I hesitated.
As a woman in baseball myself, I want so badly for all women in the sport to be respected. For our brains, for the value we bring, but not because we look good in a swimsuit. Rachel Luba is so many things: a lawyer, a woman with her own agency at 28 years old, a Division I athlete, a competitive boxer. All these things I love. They exude strength, smarts, determination and all the things I want every girl and woman to aspire to be. Before embarking on the feature, though, I needed to know more about her Instagram.
So I called her. I had never spoken to her before, but I knew one of my first questions beyond introducing myself had to be why? Why the photos? And when she gave me her answer, it wasn't what I had assumed -- to get more followers or to appeal to men. Her answer came from a place of struggle, of hurt, of perseverance and ultimately strength. She went from a place of hating her body and trying to change it, to finally coming to the realization that her body is what gives her strength.
She helped me understand that every path to confidence and success is different. And she is so proud of the courage she has found within the body she was given ... and she is not afraid to show her pride.
Her story below is in her own words, as she told to me. Told to someone who had rushed to judgment, who had my own insecurities about what confidence looked like for women in this business. I hope that many can learn from the challenges Rachel worked through to get where she is now: A strong, badass lawyer and agent who is not afraid to show the world who she is.
-- Jessica Mendoza
BEFORE I WAS an agent, I was a gymnast. And I was ripped. I spent 6-8 hours in the gym every day and I ate whatever I wanted. I had tons of muscle and almost no body fat. I was so jacked that long-sleeved shirts barely even fit me.
Girls in my school would always tell me how lucky I was to have such an amazing body. But, honestly, I never gave it much thought. My body was amazing because I was a gymnast who could do incredible things thanks to my body.
When I was 16, I tore a tendon in my foot and I ended up having surgery. I was back at my gym in, like, three days with a big boot on, but I was limited in what I could do. That's when I went through puberty.
Puberty in gymnastics is known as "the end." Once you go through puberty -- and gymnasts typically go through it much later than most girls -- you're on the downhill, you're on the decline. Your "blessed" body is gone. That's a tough thing for a teenage girl to wrap her head around. ... My thighs got a little bigger. I got more of a butt. I was never by any means overweight ... just curvier.
I started to get comments from my coaches. Sometimes my wrists would hurt a little bit and my coach would be like, "Maybe if you were five pounds lighter." I remember one day on the balance beam, my coach came by and hit my belly and told me I needed to suck it in. He was like, "You need to pay attention more to your body and how you're standing and really suck everything in." Then he pointed to one of my teammates and told me not everyone is blessed with a body like -- I'm not going to say her name -- but he pointed to a 7-year-old girl! I'm 16 or 17 and he's telling me I should look like a 7-year-old girl.
At the time, I rolled my eyes. But I started thinking, "You know what? I could start eating a little bit healthier." Maybe I could thin out a little bit and not be so bulky. I'll make my coaches happier, I'll be able to fit into more stylish clothes, and gymnastics will be easier. Everyone will be happier.
I had a pretty obsessive personality to begin with, and pretty soon I started spending all day every day looking up calories. I knew the calories in everything. I was trying to keep it under 400 a day. I'd freak out about eating anything and everything. I would go train and then I would go home. My social life disappeared. I had no energy. I could barely get through the day. I started to look like a little kid again.
My coaches, of course, were happy.
But to get through six hours of training was pretty impossible. I would sit down between routines, and then I would get in trouble for sitting. But I could barely stand. I had to find everything in me just to get through a routine. My teammates were concerned. Teachers were concerned. My body was breaking down.
I honestly don't remember when I crossed the line, but in the fall of my senior year I remember going to my dad, who is a doctor, and telling him I thought I had an eating disorder. I was very open about it. I knew it was a problem that I couldn't fix. I knew that my dad, no matter what, would try to help me. He got me an appointment with a nutritionist and a therapist, and I had regular appointments throughout my senior year.
My senior year sucked. Prom sucked because all I could think about was, "What am I going to do at prom dinner? How am I going to find something I can eat?" Everything revolved around food in my head. It was the most miserable period of my life. That's not to say that the therapist and nutritionist weren't helpful. They were. Without them, I don't think I would have been healthy enough to even go to prom, or graduation.
Before all of this, I was 5-feet tall and weighed 120 or 125 pounds of all muscle. The bottom of what I got to was 89 pounds. I stopped getting my period. I was shopping in the kids section at Macy's.
At one point I remember hurting my shoulder. My coach said, "Maybe if you gained weight your body wouldn't hurt." Seriously? I couldn't win.
I remember getting into a huge fight with my dad, and he told me I was going to have to drop out of high school and quit gymnastics because I needed full-time help. He was terrified. He told me to go pack up my stuff. I never in a million years saw myself that way. ... I always had my s--- together. Dropping out would be the ultimate failure.
So the summer before I went to college I took time off from gymnastics. I wasn't sure if it was permanent or not -- my body was so messed up. I had committed to Cal, but then they cut their program. I already had been accepted to UCLA, so I decided to go there. I didn't even contact the coaches until right before school started.
When I got to UCLA, I saw all these super thin girls, and they'd wear really cute clothes. The gymnasts? They were different. They were jacked.
One evening after class, I went to the main gym on campus to run on the treadmill. I was wearing a UCLA Gymnastics top. Some random person asked me if I was on the team. When I said I was, they said, "You don't really look like a gymnast." That really got to me. Gymnastics was my identity. For my entire life, people -- strangers -- would come up to me and say, "You must be a gymnast." I always, always looked like a gymnast. For this random person to tell me I didn't look like a gymnast, it really got to me.
Shortly after that, I met with [UCLA gymnastics coach Valorie Kondos Field] Miss Val. She's incredible. She told me I had to decide if I still wanted to be a gymnast. She told me it was fine if I wanted to walk away from the thing I had trained my whole life to be. But if I wanted to be a gymnast, I needed to be strong. I needed to be healthy.
It was during that conversation that something clicked. It changed everything. I realized I was not ready to let go of being a gymnast. It was my identity.
Still, the thought of eating -- the thought of putting on a single pound -- was terrifying. It's not like I was getting to put on a free 30 pounds. It was terrifying. But I still had my dad as part of my support system. I started working with a new nutritionist at UCLA. Miss Val and several of my new teammates were there for me, too, and were a big part of my healing process. I also had a friend outside the gymnastics world who was my accountability buddy. She was awesome and always there for me when I needed to vent.
I started to think of food as fuel and not something that needed to dominate my every thought. And I started to eat. I had energy again. I had strength again. I had a social life again. I started to love my body again. I looked like a gymnast again. I got healthy enough to compete in some of the exhibitions for UCLA, but I medically retired after my freshman year -- my body had really broken down. I remained a part of the team as a manager. I would go to practice, but I wasn't training.
I still struggled with losing my identity as a competitive gymnast, but being able to come back and get healthy again, to be on the UCLA gymnastics team and finish that way was a little bit easier. I didn't feel as bitter. I felt like I could start creating a new identity without feeling like gymnastics was completely taken away from me.
YET STILL TO this day, disordered eating is always in the back of my mind. It will always be a part of me. There are a lot of triggers for me. I try to stay away from people who are obsessed with diets and counting calories. I have learned to eat everything I want in moderation. I don't restrict myself. I eat candy. I eat dessert. I love dessert; I always have. I learned from my nutritionist that my body is good at telling me what it wants. I eat when my body is telling me it's hungry. If I'm craving a big steak, it's because my body is telling me I need protein.
I do a lot of self-reflection. I periodically check in with myself. Am I healthy? Am I eating? Do I have any of those bad thoughts? Do I need to remove myself from certain situations? I'm also very honest with the people closest with me -- my family and friends. I make sure they know about my past. I make sure they know it's OK to talk to me if they notice anything that's making them uncomfortable.
The key, for me, was changing my idea of beauty. I found different people to follow on social media. I had to trade in the tall, thin runway models for really fit people. I used to think strong and athletic was ugly. I hated it.
When I think back, it was just a really weird place. I would go to gymnastics every day. I'm essentially naked, wearing a leotard all the time, surrounded by mirrors and people scrutinizing my every move. There's something very beautiful about your body, and how your body moves and what it looks like. But there's nothing sexual about it. But then on social media, when I wear anything similar to what I wear in gymnastics, it's sexualized. It's a tough thing for a young girl to navigate: Is my body beautiful? Is it not? Is it sexual? Is it not?
Now I see the beauty in that body, in my body. If I could talk to my 16-year-old self, I'd tell her that my body is so strong because of all the sacrifice and hard work that I have endured over the years. It's something I should be so proud of. You get one life to live, you don't want to miss out on that life being obsessed with food, with some number on a scale, or with how tiny your body is.
But just as being a gymnast will always be a part of my identity and something I will never lose, so is having battled disordered eating. I have a love-hate relationship with gymnastics, just as I do with my body at times. Both might be in the past, but they have forever shaped my mindset, who I am today, and who I'll be tomorrow.
The important thing now is that how my body looks is my choice. For 20 something years I had a body that other people wanted -- my coaches dictated how I looked, gymnastics dictated the type of body I had to have. Now I get to choose what my body is like. I see pictures I've taken of myself, and I'm proud. I'm happy. And posting them on Instagram is more of a reminder for myself.
I post them because there were so many times growing up when I didn't like my body. People can say whatever they want. I block it all out. Every time I post a picture where you can see my athletic body, it's therapeutic.
If I ever feel insecure or unhappy about my body, I look back and remember that I posted all these pictures when I was happy about my body. I never thought I'd get to a place where I was proud of my body. But I'm there now. And that's reason to celebrate.
Contact the National Eating Disorders Association Helpline at 1-800-931-2237 for support, resources and treatment options for yourself or a loved one.