Streeter: Baltimore is proud of Angel Reese, no matter what she said that one time

A couple of weeks ago, I was mad at Angel Reese.

This was a one-sided disagreement, of course, as she’s a Baltimore County-raised top baller and one-time Victoria’s Secret Angel with a shoe deal and a Barbie doll, and I’m a 55-year-old slow run-walker with supports in my old-lady sneakers. We are not the same.

That didn’t stop me from getting salty on social media when I recently saw a clip in which she appeared to call Baltimore “ghetto” and didn’t defend the city when her friend and rapper Latto derisively called it “Bodymore, Murderland.” I took great umbrage until I was informed it was an old interview comparing the strip clubs in Atlanta to the ones here on The Block, located right across from a former police station. (OK, yeah, that’s always been weird.)

Despite my temporary ire, I still kvelled like a beaming auntie last week when Reese was named to the 2026 USA women’s national basketball team. She’s loud about being proud of this place — “I’m from Baltimore where you hoop outside and talk trash,” she wrote on X in 2023 — and we’re going to keep pulling for her, even if she doesn’t like everything about the area.

Reese, who did not respond to a request for comment, has thrived and survived as a member of the WNBA, from actual basketball playing to being a Barbie, despite being a target, too. She’s cast by a sometimes toxic fanbase as a classless, neck-snapping villain and has risen above it, which is a very Baltimore thing. We conquer even when people underestimate us or root against us. Yes, her “Here’s my ring, where’s yours?” gesture to fellow player Caitlin Clark during the 2023 NCAA championship game wasn’t kind. Who’s trying to be kind? This isn’t a cotillion.

“Is she going to stumble? Yes. Will there be, ‘Uh, that didn’t come out exactly how I meant it?’ That’s growth,” said Nichole Person, assistant professor in the College of Business at Coppin State University.

Person has served as Coppin’s associate athletic director, a logistics director for NBA All-Star Weekend and a program coordinator for Baltimore City Public Schools’ Basketball Academy. So she knows what she’s talking about when she says that as the WNBA celebrates its 30th anniversary, “This generation has elevated the game. They’re still learning the league, which has changed. There’s no template for them.”

The renewed spotlight has brought new fans — some sincere, and others, I think, who were never interested in a league built by Black and queer women until the arrival of players like Clark, who also made the national team, and Sophie Cunningham, who is outspoken about opposing trans women in sports. There has been a lot of drama and divisiveness this season, with some Republican members of Congress even writing a letter to the league demanding that it protect the incredibly popular Clark, who’s spent the season being disrespectful to officials, flopping and suspiciously escaping a one-game suspension.

Person thinks the drama is not internal, though.

“Sports is a unifier. It’s one of those weird places where, one moment, you are opponents of someone, and then, with a draft of a trade, you’re on the same team,” Person said. “They all have the same goal. The divisiveness is being generated externally.”

It’s easier to guard against divisiveness if you know who you are. And we, the home of both shirts that say “Baltimore doesn’t like you either” and Muggsy Bogues, the shortest player ever in the NBA, know that better than anybody. I love that Reese eschews respectability politics, does not code-switch and shies away from the self-deprecation that my generation and others were taught. That’s part of her success.

Person, who was a graduate intern at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, observed professional players up close and noted that “if they did not have strong personalities, they would not have made it that far.”

And that personality gets things done. Person points to Reese’s influence in getting her then team, the Louisiana State University Tigers, to come play in her hometown at Coppin, when it’s uncommon for the larger school to travel to a smaller one. “She has a strong sense of pride for her community. They didn’t have to bring LSU to Baltimore. … She understood what that meant,” Person said.

Reese, once the girl from Saint Frances Academy, is now a national powerhouse. I admit that I have a reflexive defense of this city, and I’m going to speak up even when the critiques are coming from inside the house. But I’m also always going to support us, including Angel Reese.

She reminds me of those cousins everyone has who are gonna talk smack sometimes, but they’re our family, and we’d throw down for them anyway. (Doesn’t everyone have those cousins?)

Plus, she’s made more recent comments that affirm her feelings for the city. “I love Baltimore,” Reese told former coach and mentor Teresa Weatherspoon at a press conference a few weeks ago. “It’s where I’m from and you’ve got to represent where you’re from.” Reese added that a lot of young people all over the state “that look like me” can look at her and know that they belong in places they wouldn’t imagine.

And that’s a Baltimore sentiment we can all agree on.