BY EMMA WADE
Senior Megan McCullough, 00, plays the guard position for the Varsity Girls Basketball team. While being on the team may be demanding of her time and energy, she makes the sacrifice of daily practices because “its what I love to do, I don’t know what I would do without it. Every stress or worry I have goes away when I have the ball in my hands.”
McCullough’s family gains support from her large family of thirteen siblings and countless other family members. She currently lives with her aunt whom she calls her biggest supporter. “She comes to every game, regardless if its two minutes away or thirty minutes away” said McCullough. Her inspiration stems from many years of watching professional basketball, specifically Lisa Leslie, whom she has met, and Kobe Bryant.
Despite her passion, the game does not come easy; she says the hardest part is defense. “You never want your opponent to make the shot, but at the same time you can’t get the foul.” said McCullough. Her favorite part of the game is quite simply “winning; especially after all the time and heart we put into it.” She has hope that the team will improve their record and show the league they are a threat.This year especially Megan has devoted her time to maintaining her grades. Her toughest experience was her sophomore year when her “grades slipped, and couldn’t play basketball.” She now is committed to making sure something like that never happens again.
Megan is not just a basketball player, however, she also participates in track and field. She runs the 400m, the 300 hurdles, and is anchor of a 4×1 team. Her goals this year are “to make CIF and to be league champ.” Although she has excelled in track, she prefers basketball and actually does track to “condition for basketball season.”
Outside of school, Megan says she does “basketball, basketball, and more basketball;” whether it be watching or playing a quick game, she finds some way to weave basketball into almost every part of her life. She plans to receive her college education at either the University of La Verne or Cal State Dominguez Hills. In college she will continue to play basketball, but will put her track spikes away to further focus on basketball. In ten years she sees herself either “in the WNBA or working toward becoming a behavior analyst.”
She would like to tell her coaches, “Although we had our differences, I can’t say thank you enough for always believing in us, coaching us, and just being there with us.” As for her opponents, she says “We don’t get fatigue, we make fatigue; so get ready.”
