Elena Delle Donne is one of the most decorated players in women's basketball history. Among her many accomplishments are a WNBA Championship and two league MVP awards. Perhaps just as important to Delle Donne's legacy is how she's inspired countless kids around the globe. Kenyon junior Greta Propp remembers watching Delle Donne play when she was in college at the University of Delaware and immediately became transfixed by her.

"I love the way that she plays," said Propp, a forward on the Ladies basketball team. "She's always really inspired me and given me confidence."

Propp is one of many Kenyon student-athletes who finds inspiration by looking at athletes in the professional ranks. Sophomore football player Mychael Leno take cues from NFL players, ranging from quarterbacks Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers–"not just because they play quarterback, but their mentality and how they approach the game"–to cornerbacks like Jalen Ramsey–"I just like the confidence he has."

Ian McInturf, a Kenyon senior who plays both soccer and lacrosse, idolizes the scrappy players who make the most out of their abilities. One soccer player he looks up to is Keylor Navas, who, like McInturf, is a goalie. "He's a little bit undersized and not seemingly the best athlete, but he can really fly as a goalkeeper."

It is, however, far more than on-field performance that stands out to Kenyon student-athletes. What these professionals do off the field and the quality of their character is just as important to them.

Leno, an Akron, Ohio native, points to his hometown's prodigal son LeBron James as an example. In 2018, James founded the I Promise School in Akron in an effort to provide quality education and access to resources for underprivileged youths. The sincerity that James displayed by backing up his words with actions struck Leno.

"Sometimes athletes do it just to get some notoriety," he said, "But [LeBron], what he does, coming back to the city a lot and giving back... like developing his own schools, is really big."

Leno feels the same way about Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who's been unable to rejoin the league after he knelt during the national anthem in 2016 as a protest against racial injustice.

"[Kaepernick] could have easily compromised what he was doing to get back into the league just to get a paycheck," Leno said. "But he stood for a bigger issue and that really inspired me because he didn't compromise [his] thoughts and didn't conform to the NFL and the ways they wanted him to approach the game."

Even college athletes have the ability to inspire others, something Propp realized this fall when Sarah Fuller, a kicker on the Vanderbilt University football team, became the first woman to play football in a Power Five conference.

"That's huge," Propp said. "It doesn't need to be someone who's older than me or in a professional league. Small things like that, I think, are super-influential and move women's sports further."

As a Kenyon student-athlete, Propp's platform is not quite as large as, say, Delle Donne's, but the impact of someone like her, or Fuller, is reinforcement to Propp that she herself has the ability to inspire others. Propp particularly focuses on how she represents women's sports as a whole when she is out on the court. "I'm not afraid to be aggressive," she said. "We're just as capable of being as [athletic as men]."

McInturf emphasizes that Kenyon student-athletes try to inspire others by how they carry themselves, striving to do the right thing at all times, wherever they are.

"As we see now with this pandemic and people being away from school, we're still part of that Kenyon community, so what you do in your hometown is the same thing you should be doing on campus," he said.

A big part of doing the right thing these days is making sure that all COVID-19 protocols are followed, including wearing masks and maintaining distance at all times.

"I think a lot of athletes are extremely motivated to follow [COVID-19] guidelines," McInturf said, adding that as student-athletes, they can set an example for the entire student body.

In being a member of the Kenyon community that McInturf references, student-athletes make sure they also set an example for others in the classroom. Leno made sure to emphasize this point.

"Being a student-athlete gives you the opportunity to play a sport that you love, while gaining an education," he said. "Being able to handle both of those is inspiring to children in my community," he said.

For Leno, however, the education does not stop when class is over. "Relating it to sports, you're never going to be good if you just practice at practice, you're never going to get to that high level you aspire to be if you only practice when the coaches tell you to practice. You've got to go out and do something on your own," he said.

When he has the opportunity to talk to other young kids who aspire to play collegiate football, Leno always makes sure to give the same advice. "Football is great and sports in general [are] great, but it's more important to educate yourself not only in class, but also outside of it with extracurricular activities."

Giving back to kids in their hometown is one of the most common ways that student-athletes work to inspire others. Propp remarked that when she is home for breaks, she often heads to her high school gymnasium to help out at practices, giving the kids she works with a glimpse of what their future could look like if they keep on working their hardest.

"[Those kind of experiences] were really cool when I was younger and it definitely inspired me to play in college," Propp said. "I think even small gestures like that are super-influential. They were a big reason why I played basketball in college."

It wasn't so long ago that Propp herself was the mentee. Now the mentor, she continues the cycle of inspiration. And who knows, maybe she'll be able to inspire the next Delle Donne.