The beauty in the chaos: Inside women’s basketball’s new era of photo day

A preseason second-team All-Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) selection, Geddes is a steady presence on the floor who played a vital role in helping William & Mary win the conference tournament and earn a trip to the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history. In today’s women’s basketball, players like her have also become as essential to photo day as photographers and lighting.

What used to be a quick snapshot has evolved into a Hollywood-style celebration of confidence and vision. Players step in front of the camera not just to wear school colors, but to reveal who they are and what they stand for.

It’s a packed agenda of photos, intro videos and playful trivia or music segments for arena screens.

“I’m definitely on the low maintenance side,” Geddes said to reporters during the CAA’s preseason Zoom media availability recently. “I did some makeup probably for like an hour before my photo. I did my hair exactly the way it’s done today, put on my jersey, and that was it. But for the whole team in general, it is a production. Our coaches let us know months in advance, so people can have all their appointments ready and booked. There’s obviously no practice, no lifts, nothing for me getting ready. I didn’t take me that long.”

Texas Southern senior guard Aaliyah Henderson laughed when asked about her own photo day routine.

“It takes me forever to get ready,” a grinning Henderson told The IX Basketball during the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s media day. “Some of my teammates need like 20 or 30 minutes, but me? I got to look on point.”

Meanwhile, for players like University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff junior guard Indiya Bowen, it’s a full-blown process.

“My teammates know it takes me three to four hours to get ready,” Bowen said to The IX Basketball.

While it’s a busy and focused day, there’s joy in every pose, smile and burst of personality because they’re not just capturing a moment — they’re sending a message.

Bigger than basketball

William & Mary head coach Erin Dickerson-Davis and Towson head coach Laura Harper, who was a member of Maryland’s 2005 national championship team, have each witnessed the evolution firsthand. When Dickerson-Davis played at Northwestern, photo day was an assembly line of headshots, matching smiles and identical poses done in under an hour.

“There’s just so much more content that can be created while they’re doing media day,” Dickerson-Davis said to reporters during the CAA media day Zoom call. “So that makes it a lot more fun. When I played, it was take a team picture. Everything was very team-oriented. No individual pictures were being taken. It was just that this is the team — everybody sit up straight, smile, and that was pretty much it.

“Now, to be able to see them and their personalities, like how they wear their hair and how they do their makeup, is great. It’s all helpful for us in recruiting. This is our team. This is who they are, their personalities. These are the kind of people that we love here at William & Mary. For them to be able to use those pictures and personality to brand themselves in a new environment of NIL, I think it’s a cool opportunity for them to have.”

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That evolution extends far beyond William & Mary’s beautiful campus.

Across the CAA and women’s basketball programs nationwide, locker rooms transform into temporary salons on one of the most anticipated days of the season.

Morgan State’s photo day stretched nearly four hours as players cycled through uniforms and casual looks. Teammates hyped each other up between takes and reposted content across social media channels, transforming individual moments into a celebration of sisterhood.

At Elon, teammates leaned on each other’s talents to get photoshoot-fresh. In the words of Jay-Z in his hit song “Otis” a decade ago, these confident athletes enjoy how they look so much that one wonders if they “have to call the paparazzi on themselves.”

“We have a couple of people on the team who can do hair, so we spent a lot of time the past couple of days at each other’s houses,” Elon senior guard Kamryn Doty said to reporters during the CAA media day Zoom conference call. “We’re braiding each other’s hair, straightening each other’s hair, but a lot is going on in the locker room … This is also a chance to showcase our personalities and the relationships we have with each other.”

Then she laughed and added one more detail about the locker room on photo day: “It smells like burnt hair.”

‘Everyone can express themselves’

At Florida A&M, photo day fell in the middle of the week, a scheduling challenge many programs know all too well.

“We were coming from classes, but we all got ready together,” FAMU sophomore forward Breazia Robinson told The IX Basketball. “It was a real bonding moment … Even after media day’s over, we still take our own pictures, hang out and make videos and memories we can always look back on. In recent years, women’s basketball has evolved from just being basketball to becoming a platform where everyone can express themselves and be like fashionistas. Some are designers.”

That blend of laughter, teamwork and creativity turns a routine photo day into something lasting, an act of community and confidence.

The fragrance of hairspray, mixed with scented lotion and sweet perfume, transforms the locker room into something closer to backstage at Paris Fashion Week. Yet for all the beautiful chaos like the retakes, burnt hair, scattered brushes and laughter, there’s an unmistakable sense of purpose.

As fresh curls and braids bounce with every step while filming TikToks, these moments simultaneously become memories, marketing and messages. Every detail, every shared smile, becomes part of a ritual. These young women are shaping not just how they look, but how they’re perceived and the story they tell.

This is a merging of sport and style in a new era of name, image and likeness (NIL) in college athletics. As they elevate their personal brands, they’re reshaping the culture, radiating authenticity, celebrating who they are and using storytelling to inspire the next generation.

“This allows them to show their beauty and personality,” Harper said to reporters on the CAA Zoom. “I have to remind myself that they work hard every single day for this moment. Perhaps one picture could capture their inner beauty, their outer beauty and their camaraderie and cohesiveness with their teammates. Ultimately, those are one of those days I’m like — whatever it takes. I usually try to give someone else that to take off of my hands, but I try to be patient … It’s definitely fun to allow them those moments.”

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Ripples beyond the locker room

The moments matter. Players look forward to them all year, even as they require coordination among athletics communications, coaching staffs, marketing, facilities, and, of course, the photographer’s availability. The planning can be exhaustive, but the excitement always outweighs the effort.

“All of us, we got our outfits ready and laid out like it’s Christmas morning,” Jackson State guard Jaileyah Cotton told The IX Basketball during SWAC media day. “We are more than athletes. We’re humans. We’re women. We’re all of that. Being able to show who we are outside of our basketball uniform is bigger than basketball.”

These photo days demonstrate that women’s sports deserve the same level of stagecraft, marketing and cultural attention as men’s. The flood of likes, shares and comments makes photo day almost as big as game day.

Conferences like the SWAC, MEAC and ACC intentionally schedule photo and video sessions as part of the in-person media day experience for the student-athletes. The Big Ten schedules photos during the social media rotations they have for the student-athletes.

During the SWAC media day, players carried lip gloss, eyeliner and compact mirrors with them as they shuffled from interview to interview. There were fit changes as they had put on their uniforms, team polos, sweater vests and gowns to do media interviews.

“It’s powerful to be able to use our voice to show what we represent,” Florida A&M redshirt sophomore guard April Hooks shared. “People ask when they can come to the games. It enables us to create a brand beyond basketball and expand our platform. I think that’s what women’s basketball needs right now.”

In the NIL era, players are no longer just subjects of marketing. They’re creators, curators and CEOs of their own image. The enhanced branding could possibly lead to business opportunities. Photo days symbolize that shift as athletes decide how they want to be seen and what story they want to tell, while their personalities shine through.

“It goes to honor the game of women’s basketball and women in sports,” Alabama A&M head coach Dawn Thornton said to The IX Basketball. “Our women want to feel celebrated because they work just as hard. They want to feel important because they put in just as much work as all of our student-athletes. … Everybody looks so beautiful. But guess what? We love to play dress up, and we love to put it on right? … I’m loving the growth of what we’re doing for our women sports.”

For Geddes, that means waiting in salons, running last-minute errands, and helping her teammates look and feel their best. Her patience and passion are the greatest gifts because she appreciates that every smile from her teammates tells a story far bigger than basketball.

It’s about capturing identity. This is an era where athletes take ownership of how they’re perceived, where teams showcase the joy and culture of women’s basketball, and where younger girls scrolling through TikTok or sitting in the stands see a reflection of themselves and their dreams.

That’s why photo day matters. Because photo day isn’t about the perfect pose, it’s about women shaping their own image, creating a legacy and stepping into their own light with purpose and presence.

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