Sac State star Natabou brings style and scoring to Hornets historic season
SACRAMENTO -- Isnelle Natabou sticks out on a basketball court. It's not just because of her dominating size -- she's 6'5" -- or her post-game that earned her a Big Sky Newcomer of the Year honor last season. What catches the eye is her hair and its ever-changing styles.
"It's my way to express my inner rainbow," says Natabou.
Her teammates in Sacramento say she's the most stylish one on the roster, with a unique and unapologetic fashion sense. Natabou says she actually makes some of her clothing herself and that her hair changes between colored, natural, braided, or whatever style feels like it fits her in the moment.
"My ability to make my hair look any way I want is our ability to be anything we want," she explains.
It's also -- in a different way -- a grounding technique. Born in the Czech Republic, Natabou moved towns before finding basketball. She fell in love with the sport and the seemingly endless possibilities it offered. It wasn't long until it became an all-encompassing obsession.
"Since I was little I was very much into arts and drawing and painting and I stopped doing that because I put all my effort into basketball at school," recalls Natabou.
But the creativity manifested itself in different ways. Her sense of fashion began to develop as did her interest in how her hair could be a reflection of her personality. As a woman of African descent growing up in the largely Slavic Czech Republic, her relationship to her hair took on a deeper meaning. She was representing a collective cultural hallmark as much as she was her own individuality.
"I was born in a white country and I knew that people are gonna always look at me and it's never gonna disappear," she explains. "And I became taller than everybody. They're gonna look at me always and forever. We know this for a fact so what are we gonna do with it? Am I just gonna have fun with it and be nice and have colorful clothes and be myself? So when they look they have something to look at."
The hair colors changed as much as the jerseys Natabou wore over the years. From the Czech Republic, she wound up playing junior college basketball for Iowa Western. Despite only playing between 10 and 15 minutes per game, she caught the eye of a coach that referred her to Mark Campbell and his new staff at Sacramento State. The recruitment had just as much to do with her talent as it did with her character. To build a culture, Campbell had to find the right mix of talented players and good personality fits. Natabou would be the first to tell you that her advantage is having two personalities: one on the court and one off of it.
"Athletic expression is what I wanna be," Natabou explains. "It's not exactly what I am right now. Basketball for me is all about possibilities, about hope, about challenges."
"How does the off-court Izzy translate to the on-court Izzy?" Campbell asks himself. "It's that. It's the genuine interest in learning and growing and she's like a sponge."
In a lot of ways, Natabou's journey mirrors the journey Sacramento State is taking as a program. The Hornets are a win away from setting a new record for wins in a single season and could make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in their history with a run at the Big Sky Conference Tournament. Natabou leads the conference in rebounding and field goal percentage and is sixth in scoring and her teammate Kahlaijah Dean is one of the top scorers in all of college basketball. Those very same possibilities that first made basketball appealing to Natabou exist on a macro level at Sac State.
"He told us 'We can create something new, almost from scratch and there is so much we can do here,'" she says.
"Her journey and our program's journey have been on similar parallels," Campbell follows up.
And, for her part, Natabou has been instrumental in that rise. It has a lot to do with her play but just as much to do with her creativity and open-mindedness, Campbell says. Although she's settled on one hair color -- she's enjoyed coloring her hair red during her Hornets career -- her styles and fashion still change regularly. The possibilities on and off the floor continue to present themselves and Campbell believes that can open her up to a path typically reserved only for the best.
"To see how far she's come and what should transpire over the next two years in knowing her work ethic and how bad she wants to be great, she's gonna have a chance to play in the [WNBA] and the chance to be one of the best players in college basketball," says Campbell.
"Basketball for me is more about the possibilities of who I can be," Natabou concludes. "And is there a chance for me to reach who I really wanna be?"