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LEADER ON THE COURT AND SOON: IN THE COURT

By Rich Myhre

By Washington Huskies

January 19^th, 2018

As a younger girl, Mackenzie Wieburg dreamed of playing college basketball. She devoted herself to the game, and by the time she graduated from Issaquah High School in 2014 she had both the ambition and, she truly believed, the talent to play at the NCAA Division I level.

What she needed was a chance.

A few college coaches reached out, and Wieburg herself reached out to several more. But those conversations never went very far, and by early summer she was still waiting for her first scholarship offer. Frustrated, she began exploring other options, including community college basketball and perhaps even switching to college track and field, where she also had prowess.

Then one day the phone rang.

LEADER ON THE COURT AND SOON: IN THE COURT

It was Damian Young, her AAU basketball coach, calling with some great news. He had talked with then-University of Washington women's basketball coach Mike Neighbors, who had agreed to let Wieburg join the team as a preferred walk-on. There would be no scholarship, at least at the outset, but it was an opportunity nonetheless. Making it even better, this was Washington. Not only an elite university, but also a premier women's basketball program that Wieburg had followed as a fan for several years.

It took her about a millisecond to decide.

And at that point, Wieburg recalled, "my mom and I just started balling. There wasn't even a question (about accepting), especially since it was the University of Washington. I'd been coming to Husky camps since I was in the third grade, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd get to play here."

Giddy with anticipation and joy, "I think I cried for about three days," she said.

Wieburg and her parents later went to visit Neighbors in his office on the UW campus. He welcomed the family, laid out his expectations for Wieburg, and asked if she was ready to be a Husky.

Once more, a millisecond to say yes.

Then, unable to contain her gratitude, "I kept saying thank you, thank you, thank you," Wieburg said. "He finally told me, 'Enough, stop saying thank you. Just come ready to play.'"

By the end of the summer Wieburg was participating in preseason workouts with the team, and she was experiencing what might be called freshman-itis. Common to first-year players, it is the uncertainty of entirely new surroundings and the daunting presence of so many remarkably gifted teammates, which together produce a nagging question: Do I really belong here?

For Wieburg, that question was even more burdensome due to her status as a walk-on amidst mostly scholarship players.

But then she noticed something. No one looked at her with indifference or scorn because she was a walk-on. Everyone from the coaches to her teammates to the support staff treated her just like they treated all the other players. Indeed, there were people outside the program, including UW athletes in other sports, who never knew she was a walk-on until she told them.

"I've heard stories of walk-ons (at other schools) being treated like dirt," Wieburg said. "They're hardly even acknowledged. But I never once felt like I was any less a part of the team than anyone else."

Still, she went on, "it was hard because you always think of yourself as a walk-on. I knew I could compete with these girls, but it was always in the back of my head, 'They're on scholarship and I'm not.'"

All that changed on Dec. 8, 2015.

That afternoon, the team gathered for a meeting prior to practice and then Neighbors dismissed the younger players, including Wieburg, sending them out to the court to warm up. Minutes later, the coaches and veteran players also arrived on the court, and at that point Neighbors called out Wieburg to lead the squad in a drill.

Tossing her a basketball, he asked, is this one OK? A little flat, she said, but it's fine. Someone asked, are you sure? Yes, it'll work, she replied.

By this time, smiles were breaking out on the faces around her, though Wieburg was still unaware. Finally someone shouted, "Read the ball!"

Wieburg looked down, saw an inscription that said she had earned a full scholarship, and promptly burst into tears. In the next instant her teammates tackled her and began smothering her with hugs and tears of their own.

It was a terrific moment, but there was another one equally special still to come. Wieburg needed to tell her parents, and this time it was her turn to pull off the surprise.

That night she went home for dinner with her mother and father, Tawan and Brett Wieburg, and her younger brother, Dominic. Coincidentally, a family get-together had already been planned to celebrate the birthday of Joyce Marie Pratt, Tawan Wieburg's mother and Mackenzie Wieburg's grandmother, who had died of breast cancer in 2013. Every year the family gathers on her birthday to enjoy some of her favorite foods and to share their own memories of her life.

At one point in the evening, and with perfect aplomb, Wieburg called everyone together. Maintaining her composure, she told her parents they probably ought to sit down to hear what she had to say.

"Any time your daughter tells you that she has an announcement and you need to sit down, it's generally not going to be good news," Brett Wieburg said.

"We were terrified," Tawan Wieburg said. "There were a million negative things going through our heads."

But the mood got very happy in a hurry when she told them about the scholarship. As proof, she showed them the inscribed basketball.

"Mackenzie surprised us with great news," Brett Wieburg said. "It was immensely great news."

"When she told us, there were tears," Tawan Wieburg said. "It was pure joy."

All in all, Mackenzie Wieburg said, "it was a great day."

The inscribed basketball remains a treasured keepsake. It resides in a special display case in the Wieburg living room, next to other family photographs and mementos.

Still, even with her new scholarship, playing time would remain scant for Wieburg in the next two seasons, just as it had been in her first season. A big reason, of course, was that Washington had become one of the top teams in the nation. Led by high-scoring guard Kelsey Plum (she would close her career in 2016-17 as the top scorer in NCAA Division I women's basketball history) and an outstanding supporting cast, the Huskies compiled a 78-27 record in those three seasons, highlighted by a trip to the Final Four in 2015-16.

But Plum departed to the WNBA after last season, and several other UW seniors also graduated. Likewise, Neighbors moved on, leaving for Arkansas -- both his native state and his college alma mater -- to become the Razorbacks' new head coach.

Jody Wynn, formerly the head coach at Long Beach State, was hired as Washington's new head coach and tasked with rebuilding a depleted roster. Forward Hannah Johnson was the only returning player with starting experience from a year ago (six games), and nine Huskies were either freshmen or returning sophomores with limited appearances last season.

Not surprisingly, there have been growing pains to date in 2017-18. But there have also been opportunities for everyone, including Wieburg, who is one of two seniors on the roster. She has played in all 18 UW games this season, and is averaging 2.1 points in a little over 13 minutes a game. She has also started eight games.

"The reason she's playing and sometimes starting (this season) isn't because of her scoring average or her shooting percentage," Wynn said. "It's because she does all the little things that make us a better team. She's going to be the best cutter on the team, she's going to set the best screen, she's going to step up and take a charge, she's going to go get a loose-ball rebound. She's going to do whatever we ask her to do.

"Those kinds of things might not show up on the stat sheet, but Mackenzie fills them up in the way she plays."

And beyond her contributions on the court, "she has a tremendous spirit," Wynn said. "She never seems to have a bad day. Her teammates love her and her coaches love having her on the team. She's one of those kids that never complains. I've never heard a negative word out of her mouth.

"The only time I've ever seen her down is when she gets down on her own self and her own performance. But she (shakes it off) pretty quickly. She's just a real positive young lady that's very bright, and she's been a major aspect of our team."

When the season wraps up, Wieburg expects to begin a transition from the basketball court to a completely different kind of court.

A top student she was an Pacific-12 Conference All-Academic honorable mention selection a year ago she will graduate in June with an undergraduate degree in law, societies and justice with a minor in political science. She expects to start law school in the fall, and has already been accepted at two law schools while waiting for final word from five others.

That Wieburg would decide on a legal career is hardly a surprise, given that Brett Wieburg is also an attorney. Tawan Wieburg was a longtime UW police officer up until her recent retirement, and she is now a paralegal in her husband's office.

Might Wieburg end up in the same law office someday, making it a family affair?

"My dad says he already has cases waiting for me," she said with a laugh. "But my mom has already told me, 'I'm not calling you Boss if you come and work here.'"

"She's going to be a great lawyer," Brett Wieburg said. "She can relate to anybody from any background."

Brett Wieburg is already honing his daughter's skills for the courtroom. When the two get together, they like to spar verbally. All good-natured, of course, though the debates can also get spirited.

"It's kind of what we do," Brett Wieburg said. "We poke holes in somebody's logic. We'll even take a position we don't believe in just to have some fun."

And because Mackenzie Wieburg enjoys a good verbal tussle, she carries that same banter over to her teammates.

"She's so stubborn that she wins all the arguments," said senior guard Jenna Moser, one of Wieburg's closest friends on the team. "I like to think that I win all the arguments, but she does.

"And she's usually right, which is the worst part," Moser complained playfully. Wieburg, she added, "will be an attorney I wouldn't want to oppose. But I'd sure want her to be my lawyer."

Wieburg will leave Washington with fewer accolades than many players before her, but she will cherish her UW experience no less than anyone. She arrived as a wide-eyed youngster, but has since grown athletically, academically and personally. Along the way she has also developed a good many enduring friendships, and for all of it she is profoundly grateful.

Being a college basketball player "is hard work every day," she said. "You have practice, training, school and everything, and it can be really hard. But I don't even have words for all the rewards. … With this (UW basketball) community and all the people around the program, it's been amazing.

"When I came in as a walk-on, I was kind of timid. I didn't know where I stood. I didn't know what I should be doing on or off the court. But now I have a lot more confidence in myself, both as a basketball player and as a person."

At the outset, she said, "there was this little voice in the back of my head that kept saying, 'Are you really good enough to be where you are right now?' But now at the end of four hard years here I'm able to say, 'Yes, I was good enough.'"