Destinee Walker on Bahamian Pride, Hoops & Building a Legacy
Beyond The Stay: Live from Baha Mar
Professional basketball player Destinee Walker shares her journey from growing up between Florida and The Bahamas to competing at the highest levels of the
Key takeaways
- Representation matters: Destinee emphasizes the power of seeing oneself in successful role models, especially for young Bahamian girls and Black women.
- Balancing performance and recovery is crucial for elite athletes; downtime at destinations like Baha Mar helps maintain mental and physical well-being.
Main topics
- Bahamian heritage and cultural pride
- Professional athlete lifestyle and recovery
Notable quotes
Having young Bahamian girls, young Black women, having someone to look up to and you see yourself in that person, you can watch games and you can dream big and know that that can be you someday.
It's just like being able to come here and clear my mind and everything has been great. But this is also a place where you can clear your mind and still do all of that.
Conclusion
Destinee Walker's story is one of pride, purpose, and passion—rooted in her Bahamian identity and fueled by her journey as a
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Having young Bahamian girls, young Black women, having someone to look up to and you see yourself in that person, you can watch games and you can dream big and know that that can be you someday. Speaker 1 (0:34) Welcome to Beyond the Stay here at Bahamar Studios, the podcast where we tell you about the people, the stories and everything that goes on behind the scenes to make Bahamar such a great destination and the stories that extend well beyond the stay. I'm your host, Ronaldo Dorsett. And in studio today, we are joined by a celebrity on and off the court. Destiny Walker. Destiny, nice to have you on the pod. Thank you so much for having me. Now here at Bahamar, the first question we always ask guests, and I know this may be a business trip for you. You're here to enjoy at the same time too, though. What's your favorite part about being here at Bahamar? Speaker 1 (1:09) My favorite part is being able to be here and be able to relax. As a professional athlete, I feel like my mind and my body is just like always on go. So having this opportunity to come here, slow down, still get some workouts in, but be able to just relax by the beach and the pool and clear my mind for the next journey ahead is my favorite part. Now, what's that perfect day of downtime looking like? I know there are so many options to choose from from the time that we wake up. Run me through that day. What's that going to look like? Okay, so the room that I'm in has an ocean view. So this morning, actually, I opened up. I actually woke up at like 7.30 this morning, went out on the dock. Speaker 1 (1:49) Sat down. I was on the phone looking over at the ocean view. So I probably start off with that. Then I get like a nice little workout in. I'm a big coffee, matcha drinker. So I have to start my day with that. Probably go down to Cafe Mandolin and get a coffee, iced vanilla latte. Probably switch into my swimsuit and then go on the beach, relax a little bit, grab some lunch. maybe go by the pool again. You can't ever do it enough times. You can't. Or maybe go down to the water park. Yeah, maybe just relax the rest of the day. They have casinos. Y'all have different restaurants. Just walk around the property and really just take it all in. Relax. Like you said, you're a professional athlete, a professional hooper. Tell us how important it is for you to have this relaxation in the downtime because the season... Speaker 1 (2:41) is a grind. Everything from preparing your body, from being ready to play, even to recovery. How important is it to kick back and be able to do that in a place like this? It's very important. And especially playing at such a high level. Sometimes I feel like for me, I have to remind myself to do those things. So having this opportunity to come here and relax is great because I feel like you're always looking for the next opportunity. And it's like, you always have to be working. You always have to be ready and stay on top of your game, like weights, running. Speaker 1 (3:09) You know, you always want to stay in shape and you always want to just be ready to, you know, for the next thing. So it's just like being able to come here and clear my mind and everything has been great. But this is also a place where you can clear your mind and still do all of that. And still do all of that. I mean, but also there's a spa and everything. And then there's also, you know, you'll have like a weight room and everything. So I can still get my workouts in and then I can, you know, I can do a little bit of both. There's something else that you can do here that I know you're a pro hooper, but also a pro content creator as well. So Bahamar offers so many different avenues for that. What's the content creation that you're thinking about doing while you're here? Speaker 1 (3:45) Hmm. A little bit of everything. Y'all might have to tune into my socials to see exactly what I'm doing, but I'm a little bit of everything. I'm thinking about showcasing the water park and I'm thinking about showcasing the beach and everything, maybe doing an excursion like jet skis or something fun like that. And just really just showing the property and everything it has to offer, honestly. And I know you do. Speaker 1 (4:07) custom courts, custom basketball courts. It's something you do. It's a passion of yours. It is a passion of mine. And so here they do, they have courts that they set up in the convention center for Bahamar Hoops. If you had to envision a design for a court here at Bahamar, what would that look like? That's a great question. For me, it would get very much tropical. I actually designed a court back in Florida that was tropical and like Bahamas themed. It would definitely have some type of, you know, like. trees on the court. It definitely have like the waterline, maybe like a shore and like sand. It'd be a very beachy look on the floor for sure. Speaker 1 (4:45) Yeah. I feel like that's something that we should see more of. I don't think a lot of people know about the custom courts, but those are pretty cool. How did you get into that? It really is. They're actually a German company and it's the only court that's available in the States right now. And it's in Orlando, Florida. And basically, if I can kind of talk about it, there's different courts that you kind of like design them on an iPad. And I can put like. Speaker 1 (5:10) the schools that I went to, like I went to UNC and Notre Dame, I played at those two schools and I can like drag their logos on the court and design that. I can put different, um, like Nike Adidas on there. You can design different backgrounds. If you have like different grains of wood you want to put on there, it can still look like a traditional court, but it's like, it's led. So it's like, you can change it. And at the push of a button, it literally just changes. So there's like maybe. Speaker 1 (5:34) 100 designs on there right now. And so a lot of NBA guys actually go in there. I actually saw Vijay in there like a couple of weeks ago, but a lot of them go in there, get their workouts in. And as soon as they come in, it's good for them to be able to, they can even have their faces on the court. Like I have a court with like my face and my stats are on there. Like there's pictures of me literally on there while I'm working out. So to be able to come in there and customize exactly what I want. the aesthetics and the workouts match. I even match my outfit sometimes to the court just for fun. I'm like, I have on blue today. Let's do a blue court. Or like I have on pink, I have pink nails. Let me match with like a pink court. Speaker 1 (6:10) All right. So we're going to have to talk to the higher ups of Bahamar when they watch this episode. I feel like this is something that we could bring here. Like that's something that we should have. Oh my gosh. They would love that. Yes. I could connect on everything, but yeah, they would love that. And especially