Friday, November 21, 2008
Not many college basketball players begin their senior season with a bachelor’s degree already in hand.
Or with a three-year-old child.
Nor do many coaches have the opportunity to sign the same player to the same school twice.
All of these things happened at once when Murray State University head coach Rob Cross persuaded former Hopkins County Central star Angela Mullins to suit up for the Racers four years after leaving the school at the end of her freshman campaign.
When Mullins entered the program in 2003, Cross, the team’s assistant coach, recruited her, but in March the school named him head coach. Among the first of his official duties was to look up Mullins, who previously chose to step away from basketball to raise her daughter.
“I e-mailed her and just kind of talked about the possibility, if she would be interested in me exploring the possibility because I would love for her to get some closure to her career and be able to end her basketball playing career on her own terms,” Cross said.
In her absence from Murray, Mullins went to Madisonville Community College to obtain her associate’s degree and received her bachelor’s in business administration through Mid-Continent University this year.
Although Mullins has already finished her undergraduate work, the NCAA’s pregnancy exception rule allows schools to extend the five-year playing clock for women who have had their careers interrupted by pregnancy, Cross said.
That left Mullins with one year of eligibility left, but coming back was not an automatic decision for the single mother.
“I knew that I would be able to have my master’s paid for and that’s an expensive thing, so I talked about it with people more mature than I and people that were more capable of making a decision like this,” Mullins said. “I talked about it with everybody I could get my hands on. I struggled with it, but I finally decided it was the direction I wanted to go. I didn’t want to spend my whole life wondering what it would have been like if I tried it.”
Balancing the responsibilities of a mother, student and Division-I basketball player has not been easy, but the hardest part was getting back into shape to play, Mullins said.
“It’s not been easy and they were all understanding of my situation,” she said of her teammates upon her first workouts in July. “I didn’t make the times to begin with, but I finished everything. We were lifting weights and it was just completely stressful and exhausting.”
With the season under way, Mullins typically drops off her daughter, Alexa, at daycare each morning before practice at 6:30 and then completes her homework and attends classes. When the team travels, Mullins takes Alexa to her father’s house.
Maintaining so many responsibilities, Cross said he holds Mullins in high esteem for her ability to stay level-headed.
“I have a son that is about the same age as her daughter and I have trouble handling him with my wife and not having to handle school or playing basketball,” he said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for what she does and the fact that she’s able to handle everything and juggle it all.”
Because Cross has his own child, he said he’s more than willing to be flexible to Mullins’ varying obligations.
“One thing I’ve always told her is her daughter is the most important thing and if we need to adjust individual workout schedules or things like that to fit her needs for her, we will do that,” he said. “If there’s ever a situation where she might have an individual workout scheduled and her daughter needs to be picked up from daycare, we’ll adjust the schedule around her needs.”
Murray began its schedule on the road, yet remained close, traveling to Western Kentucky University on Nov. 14.
Mullins started in 12 games her freshman season and made the starting lineup for the 2008-09 opener, but said her second “debut” had her more nervous than she had ever been.
“My stomach was upset all day,” she said. “I was nervous and I didn’t know if I could still run up and down the court. We play in practice, but when you get into a game situation it’s different. Until we started playing, I was a mess, but once we started playing it felt wonderful to compete again like that because once you quit playing basketball, there’s nothing to fill that spot in your life where you compete.”
By game’s end Mullins, the all-time Lady Storm rebounder (1,280) led Murray with seven rebounds, but the Racers lost 95-78. Four days later, Mullins posted eight rebounds to once again pace the squad in a 100-68 victory against Bethel College.
Cross said he feels Mullins aids the team beyond the stat book though.
“I really believe that she’s helped our freshman a great deal,” he said. “She’s been a good role-model for them and has helped them understand the pitfalls of being a student-athlete and pressures and things they have to deal with daily in their life.”
At 23 years old, there is a five-year gap between Mullins and her youngest teammates, which could open the door for age difference and generational jokes, but the 6-3 forward said she gets most of it from her coach.
“Coach Cross really eggs it on more than anyone about the being old thing,” Mullins said. “I get it from coach Cross more than the girls.
“The age difference is there and it’s obvious sometimes. The freshman will say something and I’ll just be like, ‘Oh my God,’ but we get past that really well. It’s not an issue. They come to my house, play with my daughter. It’s really, really a great group of girls.”
And it is with her teammates and the rest of her support network that Mullins said her comeback has become a reality.
“I have all the people I love: my family, my friends – everybody is here to help me,” she said. “They are so encouraging. I could ask for anything and they would help me with it, so it’s not like I’m completely single and on my own. My family makes it easier. It’s not easy by any means, but they make it possible.”
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