Chantal Kazay arrived on campus as a New York University freshman less than a month before the World Trade Centers fell. At a pivotal moment for all New Yorkers, it was the basketball team — Kazay's "sisterhood" — that helped her and the rest of her teammates through the aftermath. 

The sisterhood stuck. Kazay is still part of an active group chat with a number of her former teammates.

"That's just kind of part of my ethos," Kazay said. "I was raised that looking out for others can only help you, and better society. That's just something that I've always been taught and thought was true."

Kazay, a 2005 NYU graduate, was a center/forward on the women's basketball team for four years. She holds a number of program records, including career blocked shots (182), single-game blocked shots (8) and career field goal percentage (.539). During Kazay's tenure, she was named All-University Athletic Association (UAA) Honorable Mention twice, and co-captained the team as a senior. 



NYU Senior Associate Director of Athletics Janice Quinn, who was Kazay's coach, said that Kazay was talented enough to have potentially averaged a points-rebounds double-double, but her group-first mindset meant that winning was always more important than offensive stats.

"For someone with her amount of talent to not be driven by ego and be driven more by the team's success, and her teammates' success, I think really that's the biggest sense I have of Chantal as a player," Quinn said.

Kazay reiterated that idea, noting that she's been driven by a team-first mindset ever since she was young.

"It was more 'So, what ways can I help us win?'" Kazay said. "That's just always been my mentality when looking at things, and approaching things from a 'What skills do I have to kind of help the overall group?' perspective."

That mindset clearly paid off, as the basketball team experienced significant success during Kazay's four years. The Violets compiled a 89-22 (.802) record during that span, which included an NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen appearance in 2004.

Being driven by success — and following through on it — is something that Kazay takes with her beyond the basketball court. After graduating from NYU, she attended Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and now works as a Senior Counsel of Litigation in North America for Aon (although she will begin working as Director of Litigation & Senior Counsel at another corporation in Chicago in April).

Kazay's journey to corporate law began when she was a kid. Her father worked as a corporate lawyer as well, and in eighth grade she indicated on a form that she wanted to work in that field when she grew up. Although basketball was a stepping stone to career success, it was decidedly not the only one.

"From a very early age, specifically being an African-American woman, you had to be better than most in order to get at least half of what most people get," Kazay surmised. "And one of the ways that you do that could be sports. But, I knew quickly that your smarts were going to be more important than any sport."

In high school, Kazay transferred from an all-girls Catholic school to the prestigious prep school Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, keeping in mind that it would help her gain acceptance into an elite university — and subsequently an elite law school. 

Those early decisions, remarkably focused and forward-thinking for such a young age, have paid off.

"Chantal is one of those great examples of just achieving enormous, enormous success, and becoming just a tremendous role model and successful woman in the professional world," Quinn offered.

But at NYU, it was the combination of Kazay's individual drive and her basketball sisterhood that propelled her. 

Meg Barber is the current NYU Women's Basketball Head Coach, but she was a four-year athlete at the university as well. As a senior and captain during the 2001-02 season — Kazay's freshman year — Barber recalls how the team came together during the emotional fallout post-9/11.

"In the darkest moment, having a team to hold onto and to have as a support network was just unbelievably important, I think, for all of us," Barber recalled. "The greater NYU community was obviously hurting. But, we had a very special women's basketball family that helped get us through that time period."



Though they only shared the court for a single season, Barber and Kazay are both in the group chat, and continue to be in touch nearly two decades later. Barber said that women's collegiate athletics provide a unique community, and the shared space of their basketball sisterhood has had a significant impact.

"It's a space where women can show strength, can have the same value system that men have in that space," Barber said. "Obviously it is not something that is celebrated at the same level. And it's a fight that's worth fighting, because what college athletics does for women, for the rest of their lives, is incredibly important."

Kazay agreed with Barber regarding the importance of college athletics for women. In fact, both of them — and Quinn as well — referenced the same statistic in separate conversations: that an outsized proportion of women in corporate board positions played college sports. 

For Kazay, that was one of the reasons she pursued collegiate basketball, despite knowing that she would never abandon her dream of becoming a lawyer to pursue professional sports (she still does play occasionally for fun, including at the annual NYU Alumni Game).

Retaining a sisterhood that she could lean on has always been of great importance.

"Essentially that's what basketball was for me. It was my sorority, and I say that all the time to the girls," Kazay explained. "Basketball was my sorority, and I still think of all of these girls as being part of my sisterhood."