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Hello all Bruin fans!

I hope you are all having a great summer! I am Paulina—the Swede on the team. I can with confidence say that we just finished up a whole summer with a lot of hard work, growth and commitments. It has been a great summer and I know we all have learned a lot. Our coaches are every day giving us the opportunity to get better both as a basketball player and as a person, and we have embraced it well.

Of course we spent a lot of our time sweating on the court, lifting in the weight room or running in the stadiums. But today I would actually like to share another perspective from our team. I love our team; we are a very diverse team with a bunch of different fun personalities. This summer, we have done some really cool stuff outside of practice too.

Right when summer school session C started, Madeline Brooks on the team started her new life as Madeline Poteet. We all got to be a part of her beautiful Bruin wedding that was at Janss Steps with a wonderful view right on campus. We, as well as the men’s baseball team, were there (Madeline's fiancé, now husband, is on the baseball team) and a lot of other Bruin guests, included Josephine and Joe Bruin. It was a night to remember. We all danced barefoot around and with the married couple, and we also clearly won the dance battle against the men’s baseball team. Even Coach Cori showed off her moves with us on the dance floor and we had a great night together.

A couple of weeks later we had the honor to do an amazing photo shoot that was two days with different themes this year. I would like to thank our donors so much for this opportunity; this is something very unique that most teams don’t get to do. We are all really thankful for this and it is one of my absolute favorite happenings of the year. We had two different days of shooting where the first day’s theme was retro. We all were wearing really cool Adidas outfits and the pictures were very athletic and fashion inspired. The second day was the focus on the team picture. The photographer knew exactly how he wanted us and we took really cool shots. I am excited to see the result of it. We also got to take funny pictures with UCLA props, personality pictures and pictures with a professional outfit. We get to work with such a professional people and it feels like we are real models. We get a chance to shine, even outside of the court.

We also went to a soccer game where some of us decided to dress up with random clothes. It is a tradition here at school with some students.  When you look at the outfits, the goal is to get people to wonder “what’s going on with that outfit?” and to be crazy cheering for our women’s soccer team. Some of us also got to be a part of the Olympian Rafer Johnson 80th birthday party. He is an amazing man and we got to meet all his friends and learn more about his life.

As you can see, it has been a great summer even outside of practice…something I believe is really important to a team too. Enjoy the pictures; you will see the result of the good pictures from the photo shoot soon! I hope we get to see you all when the season starts!

Until then, take care!

// Paulina Hersler #24