By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

(This is the fifth in a series of profiles of the 2015 Baylor Athletic Hall of Fame inductees)

Danielle Crockrom was the bridge between the bad and good of Baylor women's basketball.

Part of one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the history of women's college basketball, the 6-foot-1 post was one of the few bright spots in a 7-20 season in 1999-2000, averaging 12.0 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.

The next season, under first-year head coach Kim Mulkey, Crockrom earned All-Big 12 and All-America honors in helping the Lady Bears win 21 games and make their first trip to the NCAA Tournament in program history.

"It gets pretty tough just putting on your jersey every game when you feel like you don't have that chance or the belief that you're going to win," said Danielle Crockrom Fontenot, part of the 2015 class for the Baylor Athletic Hall of Fame. "Everybody figured we were an easy win. I saw that we had some potential, and if we could just tap into a little bit of that, great things could happen. Coach Kim tapped into that potential and really pulled it out of us. It was just amazing."

Not only was Crockrom part of the amazing turnaround on the court, she witnessed the early development of "Baylor Nation." After finishing last in the Big 12 and averaging just 1,508 fans during her sophomore season, the Lady Bears went 26-7 two years later, averaged 5,524 to rank 14th nationally and attracted a then-program-record crowd of 10,074 for a second-round NCAA Tournament game.

"You tell me, did you ever think you would see over 10,000 fans in the stands to watch Baylor women's basketball?" Fontenot said. "It was just special, because there were a lot of firsts for Baylor, a lot of firsts for players like myself. That's what made the whole team and those four years so very special, especially my last two years, of course."

A three-sport standout who scored over 2,500 career points at Houston North Shore High School, Crockrom joined a Baylor team that lost to Penn State in the finals of the WNIT the year before. She made an instant impact as a freshman, averaging 9.1 points and 5.5 rebounds per game in helping the Lady Bears win 17 games and advance to the second round of the WNIT.

Bouncing back from a disastrous sophomore season, a rejuvenated Crockrom averaged 21.2 points and 11.6 rebounds as the Lady Bears earned their first NCAA Tournament berth.

"Coach Kim believed in me," Fontenot said. "She pushed me to what I thought was my limit, but she knew that there was another limit beyond that. And she could see that in me. . . . I remember that first practice, all of us thought, 'Oh my gosh, what have we got ourselves into?' In the first five minutes, I was as exhausted as I had ever been in a full practice. She really came in and gave all of herself, which allowed her to ask us to give all we had."

Until Brittney Griner and Odyssey Sims a decade later, the Lady Bears' best inside-outside duo was Crockrom and All-American point guard Sheila Lambert, a 2013 Hall of Fame inductee.

"It takes a special talent to see the floor the way she did," Fontenot said of Lambert. "When you thought the pass couldn't be made, she made. You definitely had to be ready for those passes, because she would fire them to you, believe me. . . . She was a guard that loved to push it and I was a post player that loved to run, so it was a great combination."

Still ranked in the top 10 in career scoring (15.2), rebounds (8.4), field goal percentage (52.3) and double-doubles (42), Crockrom was a first-round WNBA draft pick and selected 11th overall after earning MVP honors at the WBCA All-Star Challenge.

After one season with the Utah Starzz, when she played minimal minutes, Crockrom played five years overseas with teams in Greece, China, Spain and Israel.

"Starting off, it was tough," she said. "There were so many things that took you out of your comfort zone. You're learning a new coach, trying to pick up the language, being without your family, without your support system, that's tough. My first year, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I'm never going overseas again.' But after that, I got acclimated to it, found my groove and totally loved it. It was a great ride, but I decided that there were other things that I truly wanted to explore and experience."

Fontenot dabbled in coaching, but decided "that wasn't my calling." She's been involved in sales and marketing since getting out of the game and will finish her master's degree at Liberty University in December.

Now 34, Fontenot and her husband, Colby, have a daughter named Bria who will turn 2 later this month.

"I'm excited about coming back and seeing all the changes on campus," she said. "It's truly amazing what Baylor as a whole has done in the sports realm. I mean, look at Baylor football, and everything from soccer to golf to tennis. I think Baylor is just that school now where every program is contenders. Coming from when maybe we weren't so much, it's just amazing to see. Seeing Baylor on ESPN all the time, that really does my heart well."

Joining Fontenot in the 2015 Hall of Fame class are football's Tom Muecke and Ed Marsh, basketball's Terry Black, golfer Jimmy Walker, soccer's Molly Cameron, track's Bayano Kamani and Benedikt Dorsch from men's tennis.

The banquet will be held at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, at the Ferrell Center. Tickets are $50 each and can be purchased by contacting the "B" Association at 254-710-3045 or by email at tammy_hardin@baylor.edu.