I found this on ESPN.com and thought I would share it. Please take a second before you begin to grab some tissue to dry your eyes.
"Baylor junior Morghan Medlock has a story that Baylor Lady Bears coach Kim Mulkey says "will make you bawl."
It's about recognizing a young woman who is getting through enormous grief with the help of her strength and that of her team. It might make you cry. But it should make you feel good, too -- because thanks to basketball, Medlock has a whole community behind her.
"The support system I have at Baylor has helped me grow," Medlock said. "And it's let me know that there are people who are going to take care of you on the days you can't take care of yourself."
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Medlock got the call on her cell phone on Dec. 19, 2008. The Baylor team had checked into its hotel in Oregon that afternoon, and Coach Mulkey was taking a quick bath to relax when one of the team managers was beating on the door and screaming “Coach, Morghan needs you! Her mother's just been murdered!"
Medlock, three weeks shy of her 21st birthday, received the news from police in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her mother, Shannan Barron, was dead in what police determined to be a murder-suicide. Barron's boyfriend, Gerald Gallian, had shot her, then shot himself. Medlock's 12-year-old brother, Nizhan, had found their bodies.
"Morghan came up to the room and just collapsed in my arms," Mulkey said. "I just held her, talked to her, helped her calm down and said, 'Let's call the police back,' because she was so concerned about her little brother being put in foster care because there was no other family there."
One of Baylor's players, Whitney Zachariason, is from Little Rock. Coach Mulkey and Medlock asked police to keep Nizhan at the station until Whitney's mother, could pick him up. The Zachariasons took care of Nizhan until someone from Medlock's family in California could get him.
Then Mulkey had to gather the rest of her players to explain what had happened.
"The team was just crying," Mulkey said. "I can't tell you the things that I said, I don't remember. It just came from the heart."
This is a group of Baylor players who have dealt with other difficult things. Senior Rachel Allison's cousin, Natalee Holloway, disappeared on a trip to Aruba in May 2005 and still hasn't been found. Allison and Holloway were born just five months apart and were very close growing up. The Holloway case became a media sensation for several months and the mystery remains unsolved.
In 2007, as Baylor prepared for the NCAA tournament, then-senior Bernice Mosby learned her mother's house had burned to the ground and her family had lost everything. In February 2008, the team's emotional leader, Jhasmin Player, suffered a torn ACL and missed the rest of the season. But Player said that, of course, it doesn't compare to some of the things her teammates have faced. "The thing I'll never forget about that Oregon road trip is how we all grew together as sisters. I've never been closer to a group of women than I am to this group this year."
It was a trip that under different circumstances might have been considered taxing for other reasons. A snowstorm hit Oregon, preventing Baylor from making it to California for a Dec. 22 game at Berkeley. Then it was a complicated process getting everyone where they needed to go for the holiday break. Medlock had chosen to stay rather than go back immediately to Little Rock. Baylor beat Oregon 81-71 on Dec. 20, and Medlock scored seven points.
The previous night, after finding out what happened, the team had gathered for a somber meal no one felt like eating. There were two tables for the players. They were next to each other, not very far apart, but at this moment they wanted no distance at all. The players pushed the tables together. And everywhere they've eaten since, they've done the same thing.
"That's what people who never played team sports don't always understand," Mulkey said. "You have so many individuals of different races, religions, cultures -- but you bond for a single purpose: to excel on that floor and become a team that can go as far as your potential can take you. People see the fun part. They don't see missed holidays, and all the time we spend together as a team and not with our families. But when you spend that many hours together, you can do one of two things: You can grow tired of each other, or you can really learn to respect and love each other."
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Morghan Medlock spoke at her mother's memorial, and so did Coach Mulkey, who told of the story she had heard from Dawn Zachariason about Nizhan.
"While she had him, I asked her to go buy him whatever he needed, like clothes, because he couldn't get into his home then. It was a crime scene," Mulkey said. "And she told me she did that, and then when they were walking out of the mall, he said, 'Would you please buy me a Bible?' "Now, here's a child who had walked in and seen his mother murdered. I said that was part of the strength their mother left to them. The strength that helped Morghan say the powerful things she said at her mother's funeral and for her brother to ask for a Bible. I told them, 'That's your mother coming out in you.'"
Medlock turned 21 on Jan. 9, and Baylor began the Big 12 season the following day. For the next two months, she filled a reserve role. Then on Feb. 28, fellow junior post Danielle Wilson went down with a knee injury against Texas. Next it was on to the Big 12 tournament in Oklahoma City, and Medlock felt it was really time to step forward. "I thought, 'OK, Danielle went out, and there's going to be talk about "Baylor can't do this."' And I refuse to let the basketball world think we're going to go down without a fight," said Medlock.
Baylor, the Big 12's No. 2 seed, trailed Oklahoma State by as much as 15 points in the second half of its quarterfinal game, yet still rallied to win. Medlock had 14 points, and 12 of them came in the second half, including her second 3-pointer of the season.
In the semifinals, Medlock had nine points in a win over Iowa State. Then, in the title game victory over Texas A&M, she had 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting and was named to the all-tournament team."
By Mechelle Voepel
Special to ESPN.com
The Baylor came together as a family. How Mulkey dealt with it also was the mother coming out in her. She has two teenaged children of her own, and she knows that sometimes players need their coaches to fill in as mothers or fathers amid crisis. Kim Mulkey, has been mother, coach and confidant to Medlock. She also recognized she had to help keep Medlock focused on school, basketball, and her day-to-day responsibilities.
I have been a big fan of Kim Mulkey since she was the point guard and led the legendary “Lady Techsters” of Louisiana. In her 19 years (15 years as assistant coach – how did they let her get away) as either a player or coach she was associated with 11 Final Four squads and three national championship teams. As a player, Mulkey led the Lady Techsters to a 130-6 record, two national titles and four Final Fours from 1980-84.
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