Full Great Women Great Danes Interview Transcript
UAlbany's Great Women Great Danes is a series that will be published during Women's History Month. The series will feature Great Danes, past and present, and celebrate the women of UAlbany.
Q: You both are in Your fifth season competing in collegiate basketball. What made the both of You decide to play another year?
Helene Haegerstrand: I think for me … first [I was] not supposed to play. [I] decided not to play, so [coming back] … it was very, very well-thought through and something that I decided kind of last minute in October, but it also came straight from my heart. [It was] what I really wanted to do and ultimately it came down to the opportunity the coaches gave me to take my fifth year, even though it was a little later. The fact that I had one more year of eligibility left that I will never be able to get back and playing and being a part of the college basketball team is just something so special that I didn't want to lose the chance to do it.
Sarah Karpell: For me, I decided to play because I never won a championship and that was something that I wanted to do before I graduated and was officially done. And similar to what Hele said, I could have chosen to be done last year but once you walk away, you can't come back and I didn't want to regret not playing and having a chance to win a championship and meet new people and have new experiences. So, for me those were two big reasons why I decided to play.
Q: Sarah, why don’t you come to UAlbany instead of staying at Fordham?
Karpell: I came to UAlbany because, like I said, I wanted to win a championship. There was a coaching change at Fordham, which also affected my decision in leaving. I chose UAlbany because of the track record that the program has - winning a championship two years ago made it a really easy decision for me. Then after meeting the coaches and some of the girls on the team, it really was like a no-brainer for me in choosing where to go.
Q: You both started around the same time as COVID hit. I believe it was just after your freshman season, how did that affect the beginning of your career?
Haegerstrand: It definitely affected a lot just because you kept being told this is what it’s like, this is not supposed to be your college experience and you really didn’t have much to compare to. So, I think that also plays into our motivation as Sarah said, too. You want to win so bad because you know what it feels like to lose something that important no matter if it's a championship or a practice or someone getting COVID or just everything that year came down to. You know what it feels like to get disappointed in this basketball world and it's … yeah, that year really taught everyone a lot, I think … to take advantage of every little practice and every moment you get with the team.
Karpell: Yeah, I think we both had normal freshman years pretty much up until the end of it, which was when everything got cancelled. My Fordham team was in the NIT … we had literally just lost in our conference tournament like a couple of days before and we were going to the NIT and then that's when everything got canceled. We got sent home and then that following year, our sophomore year, was a really tough year because of what COVID was doing. All classes were on Zoom and games were getting canceled, people were getting sick, we couldn’t go home and see our families. That was a really, really tough year, mentally, for a lot of student-athletes and I think coming out of that and then being a junior, senior, and now a fifth year, it really makes you appreciate the times that you have that are normal because we experienced what it was like for it to not be normal and that was really really hard. So, I think it just made all of us a lot more appreciative of a normal season.
Q: Helene, you’ve competed for UAlbany for five years now. What does that mean to you? What kind of experiences have you had that made it special?
Haegerstrand: I think, first of all, the people you meet. You've always been told, it's the people that make the place - no matter where you go if you don't like the people you work with, or play with or whatever you do, that's going to make or break your experience and I think that's really why I've had such a great experience here. I feel like I've built relationships; I've grown so much as a person outside and in basketball and I think that's due to the mutual respect between the coaches and I. They always want me to be better, no matter if it was in the classroom, if it was on the court, if it was as a leader, or if it was as a person and I think that's really just mirrored my whole … every year has been different here but it's been different in a better way and I think that's all due to the people around here. No matter who you work with you know you're going to have a good experience.
Q: Can You guys bring me through some of the memories that you’ve made both on and off the court?
Karpell: I think I’ve always heard this from so many of my coaches who also played in college. They always talk about things like you’re not going to remember how many points you scored or how many turnovers you had or what you did really well in a certain specific game. You’ll remember the bus rides and being in the locker room with your teammates … and those are all my favorite memories. Just hanging out with them, being with them, on all the teams that I’ve been on. And, like Hele said, it’s the people that make it. Those are always my favorite memories … just like us goofing around, joking around and those are my favorite times that I’m going to miss the most. I’ll miss playing, obviously, but being on a team with a group of 10 girls that all have the same goal is really special and all of those memories off the court are definitely the ones I think I’m going to remember the most looking back.
Q: Is there any like a specific memory that stands out that You want to share?
Haegerstrand: *laughing* I’m trying to think … obviously, when we won [the America East Championship].
Q: Yeah, I mean, that is something that for me, I’m never going to forget. When you guys won in 2022 … going home, and the fact that the bus ... was literally shaking from how much you guys were jumping up and down, the entire ride home …
Haegerstrand: *laughs*
Karpell: From Maine is crazy.
Haegerstrand: It was a long bus ride. *laughs* I think especially the year we won … obviously, right when it happened and you realize its actually true, and you're cutting down the net and all those like cliche traditional things that you hear about and then you get to do but I think for me, what I remember the most was waking up the morning after. After a long bus ride, I went to bed, I woke up, and I saw that like there was a little piece of the net and a t -shirt or a hat on my nightstand and it was just like “wait, it wasn't … it actually happened, yesterday was the day” and that's … that morning was definitely something I'll never forget.
Q: What will you bring with you when your final season is over?
Karpell: I think a lot of gratitude for the opportunity. Your first question, you asked why we decided to do it - we didn't have to do it - and I'm just grateful that I did. I'm going to bring with me so many memories. Remembering why I started playing when I was young was for a season like this where I'm truly enjoying it and having so much fun and making so many memories. So, that's what I'm going to bring with me.
Haegerstrand: Yeah, I think so, too. Just talking about [what] Sarah did too - you're never going to be in a situation with 10 close friends wanting the same thing, hanging out every day. There's no day when we don't see each other. Even if we have an off day, we still end up seeing like 80% of the team, which is so rare and so great. I will take with me the relationships and all the little things that you took for granted your first years but then as you got older, you kind of realized “this is so special” and I wish I realized sooner.
Q: Is there anything else that you guys would like to say?
Karpell: I thought of a memory; it’s from Fordham … and it’s actually not off the court. It was when we played Rhode Island in our last regular season game [in 2023], and my teammate Anna [DeWolfe] hit a game-winning [three-point] shot at the end of the game [in overtime]. It was like a half-court shot and it was number one on ESPN … like a buzzer beater. It was insane and we talked about winning like those are the memories that you remember … winning games and those kinds of memories, too, are awesome and you’ll never forget them.
For more content from the Women's History Month #GreatWomenGreatDanes series, click here.
