Sophia Young Malcolm Hall of Fame Interview

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

Coming to America from the West Indies as a 15-year-old foreign exchange student, Sophia Young's basketball skills and knowledge were so limited that she didn't even use the backboard on layups.

"Basketball was something very new to me," she said. "As a kid growing up, I didn't like basketball at all. I didn't watch it on TV. I thought it was so boring. We would go outside and play all kinds of sports, but basketball was just not a sport for us."

A late bloomer, for sure, Young would become a two-time All-American at Baylor, lead the Lady Bears to the 2005 national championship and was then the face of the San Antonio Stars franchise over a 10-year WNBA career that ended last year.

Now married and expecting her first child, the 32-year-old Sophia Young-Malcolm will be inducted into the Baylor Athletic Hall of Fame on Oct. 14.

"I was totally shocked," she said of hearing about her election to the Hall of Fame. "Obviously, I knew there was something out there. But, it wasn't on my radar, it wasn't something I was thinking about or expected at all."

While Young could jump out of the gym and had this incredible, raw talent, she couldn't have been any farther off the recruiting radar. As a foreign exchange student at Evangel Academy in Shreveport, La., she had to sit out her junior season.

"It seemed crazy at the time, but it was one of those things where you just had to get through it," she said.

You want to hear something crazy? Young was MVP at a Louisiana Tech basketball camp the summer before her senior season and still couldn't get a scholarship offer.

"That's really where I wanted to go, because all my friends were going there," she said. "But they didn't offer me, so Nicholls State was really my only option, and I wasn't going there."

Call it luck, fate or a God thing, but Young's only connection with Baylor was getting some help with her game from former AAU coach Bo Roberts. Jennifer Roberts, Bo's daughter, was an assistant on Kim Mulkey's staff at the time and now serves as coordinator of basketball operations.

Bo's persistence paid off when Mulkey finally relented and made the trip to Shreveport to check out this unheralded prospect.

"At first, they were like, `Oh, Bo, you don't know what you're talking about,''' Young said. "He finally got Kim to come down, and I guess she was impressed."

Even as a freshman "with one post move," Young was the only player in the Big 12 to average a double-double (14.2 points, 10.0 rebounds). She led the league in rebounding that season and helped the Lady Bears to a runner-up finish in the WNIT.

"I was so new to the game that I still had that joy and that excitement of playing basketball," she said. "I just wanted to learn and grasp everything I could. I can't say I went in there thinking, `Oh yeah, I'm going to make it to the league.' I just knew I could jump out of the gym, so let me use what I have."

That next summer, Young added some post moves at the Pete Newell camp. She also credits longtime Baylor assistant coach Bill Brock for her development, "because I know a lot of times it was just him and I getting in there and working in the gym."

After a controversial Sweet 16 loss to Tennessee in 2004, Young and the Lady Bears "finished the job" the next year with a 33-3 record and the program's first national championship. A first-team All-American, she was named the Final Four MVP after averaging 23 points and 8.5 rebounds in six tournament games.

"It was absolutely remarkable," said Young, who had 26 points, nine rebounds and four assists in the 84-62 win over Michigan State in the championship game. "It was unbelievable the things that were happening, the way we were clicking at the right time. . . . We just had such amazing chemistry on that team."

That 2005 team was much more blue collar than blue blood.

"Everybody just knew their roles," Young said. "Obviously at the time, Baylor was not established, so they were probably just trying to find anyone they could. . . . We just had a bunch of people who loved the game and who were passionate about being part of a team. And that's how a championship team is built."

One of just four players in NCAA history to post career totals of 2,000 points (2,480), 1,000 rebounds (1,316), 300 assists (303) and 300 steals (315), Young joined an elite list that includes USC's Cheryl Miller and the Tennessee duo of Chamique Holdsclaw and Tamika Catchings.

So, it was no surprise when she was selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2006 WNBA Draft by the San Antonio Stars.

"I believe staying in Texas had a huge impact on my career," said Young, a three-time WNBA all-star who played her whole career in San Antonio before retiring at the end of the 2015 season. "A lot of people from San Antonio had watched that championship game and they were cheering us on. So whenever I did come to San Antonio, a lot of people were excited about that. The energy was a lot different when I got there, and then Becky Hammon got there, and things just kind of took off."

Young helped the Stars make seven playoff appearances in nine seasons, including the 2008 WNBA Finals, and finished as the franchise record-holder in points (4300), rebounds (1807), field goals (1659) and steals (477).

"Before my injury (2013), I always had nagging knee pain, and my teammates kidded me that whenever I got older I wouldn't be able to walk," she said. "As I was getting older, I started thinking, `OK, I want to start a family.' . . . Honestly, I love the game and there were definitely more years I could play. But, I think it was just time."

Sophia and her husband, Jermaine Malcolm, are expecting their first child in February and have also collaborated in starting a non-profit organization in San Antonio called RecChanges, which "connects users to different trainers around the city or around the country, eventually," Young said.

She is also coaching the Sophia Young Elite club team and wants to make it "one of the top programs in San Antonio."

"I took it over this past summer, and I realized how much I really enjoy coaching," she said. "I'm like, `Yeah, I may want to do this stuff,' but not in college. Maybe in high school."

Joining Young-Malcolm in the Hall of Fame class are men's basketball player Aundre Branch, football's Daniel Sepulveda and Bentley Jones, pitchers Jon Perlman from baseball and Cristin Vitek from softball, track and field's Darold Williamson and women's tennis All-American Jahnavi Parekh. Jay Allison and Bill Glass Sr. will also be added to the Wall of Honor.

The Hall of Fame Banquet will be held at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14, at the Waco Convention Center. Tickets are $50 per person, with table sponsorships (with seating for eight) also available for $600 and $800. Contact the "B" Association at 254-710-3045 or by email at tammy_hardin@baylor.edu.