The Two Sides of Sarah Rousey

Standing just 61 inches tall, Rousey has powered her way into the WPBA top 20. (Photo by Anne Craig-WPBA)

The insulin pump, which she carries in her back pocket and by running a small tube into her stomach acts as a pseudo-pancreas, was a huge step for her. She initially, at 16 years old, rejected the idea, not only for reasons of vanity but also, she says, because she "didn't want people asking me questions or to know that something was wrong with me." Around six years later, she finally broke down and got the thing. It's made her physical life easier and, emotionally, liberated her. She's no longer a closeted diabetic, no longer ashamed of it. "I started to realize that being different wasn't so bad," she says. "I also figured I could help educate people on the effects of diabetes and more importantly become an inspiration to others that have anything wrong with them."

"Sarah is just a real person," says Monica Webb, who's been Rousey's close friend for nearly a decade. "She's honest. She's competitive, yet humble. And she's centered, which I'm convinced is the big reason why she plays so well. Nothing gets to her. She could be down, 8-1, in a race to 9 and she's playing just as hard."

Says Mark Wilson: "I think because of her diabetes and the fact that she's been a competitive pool player since she was 10 has given her a rare maturity well beyond her years. You might beat her, but you won't scare her."

She's indeed a person bold enough to dye her dark brown hair pink or blonde or red, or even buzz her style into a Mohawk. She's also unafraid to speak her mind, as she took on Charlie Williams and Dragon Promotions after the 2009 Women's World 10-Ball Championship, writing in her blog that it was more a beauty pageant than anything else. She'll freely admit to being junk food junkie with major weakness for cheesecake, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and cheeseburgers. And on her right wrist, she has a tattoo of a heart - a reminder to have the "heart to keep on going" no matter what obstacles stand in her way.

"I love the person she became playing pool: She has a lot to overcome and she simply fights through it," Kate Rousey says. "She's my hero."

But in her most honest moments, Sarah will tell you about the bad days, the ones where she gets so depressed she absolutely hates her world, hates the fact that she has this thing called diabetes, hates whatever made it happen to her, and screams that private scream of "Why me?"

And there are days she can't help but wonder how her life would've been so different if she hadn't been diabetic.

Maybe she would've played other sports and never found her way to pool.

"If I could be an inspiration at all," she says, "I want people to know that having a chronic disease shouldn't control you, or hold you back, or ruin your life.

"I think, if anything, it's made me a stronger person. It's helped me deal with anything life has thrown at me."

The worries, the carb counting, the clunky pump, the horrible-tasting glucose tabs, the blood sugar highs and lows - she wishes she could think it all away. Of course, she does. But, like it or not, it is who she is, who she's been for a very long time. And the running from something she never wanted defining her, the fear of revealing a mere human imperfection, the internal fight to just be normal, has, at last, by her own strength of will, ended for good.

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