When your entire family has been into something your whole life, you’re bound to eventually fall into the same interest as them.

Junior Nicole Richards has been playing basketball for over 10 years, and she doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.

“Ever since I was six or seven, I knew I wanted to play basketball.” Richards says. Although her major influence for loving the sport is her family, mainly her aunts, there are also star NBA players that caught her attention way before she even started playing the game.

Richards says that her favorite basketball player is Kobe Bryant. “Just everything about him is amazing” she says.”I know everyone loves Michael Jordan, but I say ‘out with the old, in with the new.’ And Kobe is definitely the ‘new.’”

Although she plays sports that require lots of running and jumping around, it can sometimes be a struggle. “I have really bad asthma, so sometimes I need to sit and take a break from playing, but most of the time I just power through because I don’t want to miss any of the game,” she says.

Richards also does lots of other sports such as volleyball, tennis, and track, which is her favorite of the other three. She says she kind of just does them for fun, not really trying to “go pro or anything like that.” Even so, she loves the sport she plays and says she will continue to love it “for as long as she lives.”