STARKVILLE — Seven months ago, Teaira McCowan knew she was going to play basketball in college.
Unsure if she would receive an opportunity to play at the Division I level or if she would have to go to junior college, McCowan needed someone to believe in her.
One phone call gave McCowan a way to achieve everything she wanted. That initial conversation led to a home visit with Mississippi State women’s basketball coach Vic Schaefer and associate head coach Johnnie Harris, who outlined a plan the 6-foot-7 Parade All-American from Texas could follow to find her way to Starkville.
“It really built my confidence because, at first, other schools made me feel like I wasn’t capable of going D(ivision) I right off the bat because I would have to go to junior college,” McCowan said. “That is what most D I coaches (said). They were like, ‘We’re going to find you a junior college and you’re going to have to go there first.’
“With Mississippi State, coach Harris and coach Schaefer were like, ‘No, you don’t have to go to JUCO first. You can just come right on to D I. You just have to put in the extra hours.’ ”
Months later, fresh off completing two courses in her first summer session at MSU, McCowan talked last week about the path she traveled to become a Bulldog and the role Schaefer and Harris played in helping her become one of the final pieces to MSU’s Class of 2015.
“It’s not all about basketball,” McCowan said when asked what Schaefer and Harris told her to build her trust. “We’re going to love you for who you are, and when you’re on the court that’s fine, but we want you to have an education outside of basketball.”
That message is similar to the one Schaefer and the rest of his coaches have used to build three solid recruiting classes in a row. Those classes have helped transform MSU from a program that won 13 games in Schaefer’s first season at the school to one that set a program-record for victories, including a school-best 11 in the Southeastern Conference, and returned to the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 2009-10 season.
Schaefer hopes his latest class will help elevate MSU to the next level. In addition to McCowan, a standout center from Brenham High School in Texas, the Bulldogs welcome guard Jazzmun “Jazz” Holmes (Harrison Central High), guard Roshunda Johnson (transfer from Oklahoma State), center Zion Campbell, and forward Jazmine Spears (a first-team All-American at Trinity Valley C.C.). While Johnson will have to sit out the 2015-16 season due to NCAA transfer rules, the class figures to provide MSU depth at every position as it tries to build off a 27-7 season and a trip to the second round of the NCAA tournament.
McCowan believes she can be an important piece in MSU’s continued development.
She feels even more confident about her place with the Bulldogs after seeing how Schaefer and Harris helped her through a pivotal time. McCowan said that as recently as March 2015 she wasn’t sure if she would be able to realize her goal and play Division I basketball as a freshman. She said she visited Trinity Valley C.C., a two-year school in Athens, Texas, and Texas Christian University, a Division I school in Fort Worth, Texas, but she was more concerned with weighing all of her options because she wasn’t sure she was going to graduate from high school on time.
McCowan’s thinking changed after her mother, Tracy Nunn, said she received a phone call from Schaefer. McCowan remembered Schaefer from his time as an associate head coach at Texas A&M and that he had followed her progress since middle school.
During a visit Schaefer and Harris took to her home, McCowan recalled telling the coaches she wasn’t sure if she would be able to play at the Division I level right away. She said Schaefer told her, “Don’t say that.”
Said McCowan, “He was like, ‘Yes you can.’ McCowan said Harris followed up by checking her high school transcript and telling her, “This is doable.”
From there, McCowan talked with Harris and found out what she had to do to become eligible to play basketball as a freshman at MSU. McCowan said a lot of college coaches who expressed interest in recruiting her told her they would look at her grades, but she said she ultimately realized those coaches “really weren’t trying to focus and actually get me to come to their school, I was like, that is not a school I want to be at. That is why I didn’t choose some of the other schools.”
McCowan said she saw something different from Schaefer and Harris. “She actually helped me to see and to plan what I needed to do and how I needed to get my grades,” McCowan said. “She didn’t have to do it. … I really do thank her for that and being there for me.”
McCowan said the belief Schaefer and Harris showed in her helped motivate her.
She said the work she did at the end of her high school career wasn’t the hardest stretch for her to that point, but she said meeting her goal was easier because she knew there were others who believed in her.
Harris said the time she spent with McCowan was similar to the work she did with MSU rising senior Sherise Williams, recruited to MSU by former coach Sharon Fanning-Otis and her coaches.
Harris said her goal in recruiting is to identify if a player will fit into MSU’s system and to build a relationship with the player, her family, her coaches, and everybody who is involved with her development as a person and as a player.
With McCowan, a player she first saw at a volleyball match, the process was a little different. Even though Harris said she had known McCowan’s family for a long time, she thought McCowan had narrowed her list of schools — according to what MSU had been told — and didn’t recruit her a lot once she and Schaefer arrived in Starkville.
That all changed in February and March when Harris learned McCowan still hadn’t committed to a school. She said she called Nunn and was given McCowan’s phone number.
“I just built a relationship with her and made her feel like she could make it,” Harris said. “When I first started talking to her, even after she committed to us, she didn’t think she was going to make it. There was a lot of encouragement there because we knew she could.”
“She would tell me or text me she had a really tough test, or she would call and tell me she had a test,” Harris said. “We kind of knew the classes and the grades she needed to get. Sometimes I would text her and ask if she was studying or ask if she had done this work or ask her what she was working on to make sure she was engaged and doing what she was supposed to be doing. And she was.
“She got into it and started to believe in herself and she worked really hard to get there. It wasn’t as bad as everybody thought it was.”
Harris said it was important she, Schaefer, and the rest of the MSU coaches were honest with McCowan and that she could become eligible if she worked hard. Not only did she help McCowan lay out a plan to graduate from high school, she also offered plenty of encouragement to help her arrive at that destination.
Harris said she believes that honesty helped forge a relationship with McCowan and Nunn. She said she realized she had established a connection with player and parent the first time Nunn called her back to ask her a question and one night when McCowan texted her to say hello and to let her know she was thinking about her.
“There was never a point where I felt like this couldn’t be done,” Harris said.
Schaefer agreed. He said McCowan trusted them and then focused on doing what she needed to do to become a Bulldog. He also credited Harris for being the “point person” in McCowan’s recruitment.
“Johnnie Harris is a tremendous Christian woman, and I think that is something that you pick up after five minutes in a room with her,” Schaefer said. “That makes it easy to form a trust factor. Anybody who is around her for any period of time gets that feeling with her.
“No. 2, she is a veteran of the game. She has been in the game for a long time and people know her for that. She is extremely knowledgeable and pays attention to detail. When she writes a scouting report, she is right on and doesn’t miss anything. … The relationship part, you just know you’re putting your daughter in good hands, and you know she is going to have that influence all parents want from a female perspective.”
McCowan said the significance of her accomplishment didn’t hit her until June 6, the day she graduated from Brenham High School. She said it didn’t hit her until that day because the next day she was scheduled to start summer school at MSU.With one summer session down, McCowan said she has a sense of satisfaction she proved people wrong. She also has confidence that is blossoming every day, thanks in part to Harris.
“She kind of built my confidence up because at first I didn’t really believe in myself,” McCowan said. “I have never really believed in myself. I don’t know why. That’s just always been me. My mom always tells me all of the time, ‘Why don’t you believe in yourself? You can really do things if you really just believe in yourself.’ I just can’t give her a good reason.
“(Talking with Coach Harris) really built my confidence (to realize) if I did this, then maybe I could do this. If I do that, maybe I could do this.”
McCowan’s confidence also is growing on the court. Even though McCowan hasn’t played against many players as big as Chinwe Okorie, who is 6-5, she is making progress on the offensive end and holding her own on the defensive side.
“I think it is going to help my game a lot because I am competing against people who have played in the SEC,” McCowan said.
Schaefer and Harris agree McCowan has the potential to be a force for the Bulldogs.
With new-found confidence and people who believe in her supporting her, there’s no telling what McCowan can do this season.
“Chinwe and Sherise have helped her a lot,” Harris said. “In workouts, she can see Sherise and Chinwe and how hard they go and the intensity they practice with. She can see that every day. That is helping her raise her level, even her level of expectation for herself.
“We already have seen some results. She made a move in practice where everybody on her team and everybody on the other team stopped and said, ‘Whoa.’ … She was able to do that because of how hard she works. I think because of how hard she had to work to get here, that is carrying over to knowing our level of expectation.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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