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Today, we meet Notre Dame’s Sonia Citron. This has been an episode a long time in the making given that her and I grew up mere blocks from one another. While I (Andrew) am about eight or nine years older than Sonia, we found out in the course of our pre-interview that we came up playing basketball in the same gym located in the basement annex of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Scarsdale, New York. Small world!
In our paid subscribers-only feature, we dive a bit deeper into the complexity of what expectations are in Westchester County and why she has become — and will continue to grow into — a unique legacy figure for young girls playing basketball in metro New York.
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For the uninitiated, Westchester County is a rather unique area in the state of New York. It’s one of the most populous counties in the country, historically has been home to some of the best athletes and developmental academies in sports but also possesses some of the most expensive real estate in America. In short, to be an elite athlete here comes with expectations that go beyond the on-field achievements.
“It was not an option to not go somewhere that was just as good academically as it was athletically,” Sonia Citron tells me.
That’s just the way it was on Lee Avenue in Scarsdale where Sonia grew up. Whether it was Eastchester, Edgemont or Scarsdale itself, the societal baseline was clear: being an athlete was only a part of life. What came after was just as important.
Now, there are some exceptions to this rule within Westchester. New Rochelle, Yonkers, White Plains and Mt. Vernon have regularly put players onto elite Division I programs and eventually into professional sports leagues. Ben Gordon, who won a national title at UConn is one of the most noteworthy examples. But those towns is more a reflections of America’s societal expectations around athletics because they are more representative of the average American city. What is demanded in the county falls more in line with Mamaroneck, Chappaqua, or other towns like Rye.
Those places tend to be decidedly less diverse, decidedly wealthier and can sometimes see athletics as a means to an end. It’s why you see top football players in the area end up at either an Ivy League program or a Big Ten institution with a respected academic reputation (think Michigan instead of Ohio State). But it’s not often you get an athlete that is able to do both: find the elite academic institution that also doubles as one of the best programs in their respective revenue sport.
Sonia Citron is one of the few.
“I’m a pretty good basketball player so I got to go to Notre Dame,” she explains, “and now it’s weird because that’s coming to a close so I’m either gonna make it to the WNBA — that’s the hope — but I think I’ve started to realize how big of an impact we have as women, as basketball players.”
Strong words from someone who initially wasn’t even sure if basketball would be her main sport. She didn’t specialize growing up and instead did a bit of everything, excelling in soccer in particular.
“As I grew up and I played soccer and basketball,” remembers Sonia, “Soccer was always my number one.”
But everything changed once she made the girls varsity basketball team as a seventh grader at Ursuline, an all-girls Catholic middle and high school in the area.
“I was like, ‘wait, I think I really like basketball’”, she jokes. “So I started to take playing basketball seriously.”
Her first ever offer came from UMass in 8th grade and from there, what started as some organized basketball in the annex gym of I.H.M Church in Scarsdale ended up becoming a full on love affair with the game. Soon, letters started to come from far and wide. It began regionally, and from the exact type of schools you’d expect to come to Westchester: Brown, Penn, Princeton, Syracuse, Boston College, Indiana, Michigan, Villanova and Harvard.
Societally, no one would have batted an eye if Sonia decided to end up at any of those schools. But then, the bigger fish started to take notice in 2019. Oregon, fresh off a program first Final Four run, offered. Then Stanford, UCLA, Louisville, Ohio State and Kentucky.
Finally, in August, Notre Dame made the call fresh off a 2019 National Championship. She committed in April of 2020 and is now a part of a three headed backcourt monster that is, as of this week, the number one team in the country.
“Freshman year to now, there’s just been pieces that people either got hurt and it always seemed to be at the worst time,” she explains. “But now that we’re finally all, for the most part, back together … and it’s amazing.”
While Hannah Hidalgo, the diminutive passionate almost WWE Heel-like figure, and Olivia Miles, the goggled 360 visioned point guard, leading the way, Sonia is sometimes relegated to a third role. She might not be the person on the front of every graphic or getting every postgame interview but her teammates know what she brings.
Beyond her counting stats — she averages 13.5 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.0 steals per game — she is the glue that keeps everything together. Like a silent assassin she fills in holes defensively, hits big shots when needed and is a top ten finalist for the Cheryl Miller Small Forward of the Year Award.
“Let me say something [Head Coach Niele Ivey] Soni is her, she’s literally her,” Olivia Miles said in a recent postgame press conference after a win against Pitt, nearly interrupting her head coach Niele Ivey to make sure she got a quote on the record. “That’s my dog. We came to Notre Dame to do this together. Our chemistry is insane. She does everything that this team needs to do and without a word said. Sonia is incredible.”
And she’s content to let Miles and Hidalgo have that spotlight. But there’s also been a learning curve for her to learn when to use her voice and achieve the maximum impact in getting the team to do the right thing.
“I’ve always been a more reserved, more shy person,” she says. “It took some getting used to, just because I’m not the most vocal person but I realized, you don’t have to be the most vocal person to be a leader but you do have to practice being louder and using my voice [but] not being the loudest person.”
In some ways it’s a reflection of where she comes from. While a lot of New York’s reputation is for bombast and swagger, Westchester tends to be a little bit more reserved and exhibits a preference to move in silence. But beyond that, there’s also a mindset that there is always something else to achieve. Citron fits that bill perfectly, as someone who has accomplished so much already but still readily admits that she has a lot more to accomplish.
When one looks at the history of women’s basketball players in New York, the best players come from all over the region. Breanna Stewart is an upstater, growing up in Syracuse. Nancy Lieberman helped put women’s basketball by getting her start on the black tops of Far Rockaway in Queens.
In Westchester, there are other success stories. Lindsay Gottlieb went on to coach at USC while her high school teammate Hilary Howard led Duke to their first ever NCAA Women’s Title game in 1999. Saniya Chong was one of the counties best ever players at Ossining and went on to win three national titles at UConn. Citron might be the most noteworthy to date especially given her potential as a WNBA prospect and her position in 2025 Mock Drafts. But she makes sure the humility shines through, knowing that there is still so much to do even while she charts a new course about what can be accomplished for girls basketball players in the county.
The sport, as you see her, isn’t as much a means to an end anymore as much as it can be a career every bit as long and legitimate as a gig with Deloitte.
"If you want to do it, you can do it,” Citron says. “Hopefully if they see me doing it, that just inspires them just a little bit. I really feel like I haven’t done anything yet. I still want to win a Natty, I still want to make the W and those things just haven’t happened yet.”
With precious few weeks left in the regular season and Tournament play around the corner, the kid from Lee Avenue sees what is to come and hopes that she is able to chart a path that will leave a lasting impact for those in the county to know that women’s basketball can give you the best of both worlds.