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Dasia Thornton graduated from Transylvania University with a major in international relations. She’s now putting her studies to good use, as she is beginning her pro basketball career in Albania.
Before she left the States, Thornton spoke to Swish Appeal about her incredible NCAA Division III career (2023 champion, 2024 Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Female Sport Athlete of the Year), her activism (and presidential aspirations) and the Montessori method of education. Some highlights from the interview include:
About the Montessori education method:
I think I’d recommend it to everyone. I say, “Put your kid in Montessori. Whether that just be the kindergarten or all the way through.” It’s very hands-on learning and you have an open mind to everything you’re around and are exposed to many different things, cultures, experiences, and you learn how not to judge people. You just live with an open mind and you kind of see all the different perspectives that there might be.
How she got into politics:
When I was younger, I would always tell people that I wanted to be a foreign language interpreter. I wanted to learn every language in the world and, you know, be able to speak to everyone, but then someone told me, “You should go bigger, think bigger,” and they basically were like, “Why don’t you want to be president?” And ever since then, I was like, “Yeah, I think I want to be president.” So I’ve lived my life thinking that I’m going to be president, knowing that I’m going to be president eventually. So I study international relations, so I get to know world politics, the world happenings. I’m still kind of on that track to become president, but I wanted to play basketball while I still could.
How the Division III national championship game compares to Division I:
Actually [2023, the year Thornton and Transylvania won], it was a combined event, so we had Division I, Division II and Division III. We got to see the Final Four games of Division I and the championship game as well, and then we played our championship game. We all got to experience basically what Division I got, and that was one of the best experiences of my life, you know, just being able to walk the runway and to be around other athletes and go to the White House….That’s more things that you’ll see at the Division I level. Next year [2004], we went to the Final Four and we definitely saw the difference between just a Division III event and a combined one.
A special thank you to Thomas Prodromou of Flash Agency for arranging the interview.