By Aseem Rastogi, Brandeis University Assistant Women's Basketball Coach

I am a first generation American. My mother was born and raised in Kenya, my father in India. I was born five years after they came here and set out to achieve "The American Dream."

Let's talk about my mom for a minute.

Her father, in his prime, was the top tennis player and golfer at the same time in all of East Africa. He was a STELLAR athlete - in fact, now in his mid-80s, it's likely the only thing keeping him alive. An athlete and a successful businessman. There's a twist.

You see - my mother wasn't allowed to play sports growing up. My grandfather was a great field hockey player too. His brother was as well - enough to go to the Olympics, apparently. But when my mom wanted to play with the boys, she was scolded and beaten - girls aren't allowed!

She grew up well-adjusted, modern, and understood the value of education and being a good person. That, I think, came from my grandmother who just GETS IT. But - in that time, she wasn't going to go against her husband and allow my mother to play sports or even go to college.

Fast forward - my mother turned 18 and met my father - six months later, they're married and she's moving to India. High school education, didn't know the language (she spoke Punjabi, my father's family spoke Hindi). Then they came to the U.S. seven years later with a 2-year-old.

A 2-year-old, $80 in their pocket, and a job offer at a company at which my father would stay for 30 years. My mother toiled away, working wherever she could. She worked in our day care so we could go for free. She worked as a teller and took classes at night.

She worked tirelessly, never missing a meal with us, the house cleaned, and her schoolwork always done on time and immaculately. She got her associates in four years going one class at a time. New opportunities awaited her as education unlocked access to jobs.

At the age of five, I remember the school secretary coming to see me in my kinder classroom. She had an envelope for me and all the other kids said "OOOOHHHHHH" as if it was something disciplinary. Inside? A registration form for the local basketball league.

My mother had called the school trying to find something for me to do when I was a kid so my energy could be channeled to something positive. She knew sports were the answer to that. She knew I would benefit from playing sports and being part of a team.

At the age of five, I was playing with the 7-year-olds. I was a bigger kid and fit in there. She never got to do what she went out of her way to make sure I could. And the rest is history. Without her calling Ms. Randall at Little Run ES, maybe hoops doesn't become a calling.

She showed the epitome of "I want better for my children than I had," - not in terms of STUFF, but in terms of access to opportunity. "You'll have to work twice as hard to get half as far here, beta." She is right. I feel it every day. But because of her I persevere.

I coach women and girls because I want to use the platform I've been given to elevate the individual women, the collective sisterhood, and the game that has been integral to my life for the last 28 years. All because my mom made a phone call. A call no one ever made for her.

I coach women and girls because I don't ever want another story like my mother's to go untold or for one to feel as if she can't achieve or doesn't belong in sport or in any industry they want to be in. It's not just about putting the ball in the basket.

If the opportunity provided can elevate the life of even one girl or woman through the game and through the influence, however small it is, the experience of our connection has on them - that's the ripple I'm in search of. That's why I do this and will never stop.