Mehta sisters: Brown hoop stars-turned-med school students
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (BVM) – Former Brown University women’s basketball players, Shayna Mehta and Nina Mehta, are the only Indian-American sisters to ever play for the same NCAA Division-I basketball team.
The Mehta sisters are now in separate medical schools and are hoping their story inspires other Asian Americans to pursue the sport of their dreams.
“In Asian culture, we tend to think that we have to choose between academics and athletics, but you don’t have to choose,” Nina said. “There’s a way to balance both. I want young Indian girls to know that it is possible to play any type of D-I sport and go into a competitive academic field – whether it’s medicine or another field. It’s not impossible no matter what other people tell you.”
Athletes of Asian descent have more recently made up only 0.7% of D-I women’s basketball players. The total for D-I men’s basketball is far less at 0.4%, according to a study presented by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
Asian Americans arguably face some of the toughest times getting recruited because of stereotypes projected onto them. Take current Indian-American Stanford guard Ryan Agarwal – who was once told that recruiters wouldn’t look at him because “When’s the last time you’ve seen an Indian succeed in the NCAA?”
Shayna and Nina have the Brown Bears to thank for allowing them to make history for the South Asian community, as well as challenge the traditional Indian cultural barriers and prejudgments made about their abilities.
“Even though I was a good player, people and recruiters hadn’t seen an Indian girl play at that level and succeed,” Shayna said. “But we never faced any hardship getting into the basketball world at Brown.”
Ultimately, Shayna played all four years of basketball at Brown (2015-19). When Nina joined the Bears for the 2018-19 season, the duo made history as the first Indian-American sisters to ever play D-I basketball. To their knowledge, they are still the only ones in history.
Despite being 5-foot-6, Shayna found immense success on the court at Brown. The Ivy League Rookie of the Year ultimately finished first all time at Brown and fourth in Ivy League history with 261 career 3-pointers. Her 1,785 career points were ranked second at Brown and 11th in Ivy League history. She also finished third in points per game at Brown (16.1).
“Growing up, I didn’t realize I was Indian and unique,” Shayna said. “Once I got to college, people were saying it’s amazing you’re Indian and playing at this level. And that’s when I realized that I was different. Things took off for me at Brown and I realized that I could even play pro. I had some agents reach out to me so it was a thought. But in the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to become a doctor.”
Today, Shayna, 26, is living out her other dream as a third-year medical school student at Wright State University (Boonshoft) in Ohio. Nina, 22, is in her first year of medical school at UNC at Chapel Hill.
Both admit they miss competitive basketball, but they’re passionate about becoming doctors. They gave credit to Brown University for making both dreams possible.
“Brown’s open curriculum was great for us to explore pre-med because we could take the classes that we wanted to and also focus on sports,” Shayna said. “It was also nice that the Ivy Leagues don’t require you to be present during the summer because they want you to get internships and make connections. We had summers to focus on research, but they still kept us in line with our training by giving us summer goals.”
“Academics came first,” Nina said. “In pre-med, we had four-hour labs that we couldn’t miss that were in the afternoon during prime practice hours. So coaches would work around that because they knew we couldn’t miss a lot of class.”
Despite the rigorous basketball schedule and an even more packed school schedule – the Mehta sisters graduated at the top of their class and are now flourishing in medical school.
“I started this one research project on recreational cannabis use to see if it has an impact on postoperative outcomes for breast augmentation,” Shayna said. “That was a project I recently presented at a national meeting in Miami. That was an awesome opportunity to be in front of a lot of top-notch plastic surgeons and present my work there as a medical student.”
“Over the summer,” Nina started, “I’m going to be working at UCSF in San Francisco to work on a project to improve understanding for patients seeking gender-affirming mastectomy.”
The future Dr. Mehta(s) have another 4-10 years to go, depending on the specialty they each choose. Nina is considering surgery or orthopedics while Shayna is considering orthopedics, plastic surgery – or fittingly, sports medicine.
While their basketball journey is over, they hope they’ve inspired at least one Indian girl to aim for a college basketball scholarship.
“We love getting our story out there because we hope we can show other young girls who look like us that we do exist and can make strides in sports,” Shayna said.
While sibling duos are becoming more common and popular (like with former Miami basketball stars Haley and Hanna Cavinder) – the Mehta sisters hope that they aren’t the last for the Indian community.
