When Mabrie Hermann left the comfort of home and finished her undergrad and master's degrees in sport management at Texas A&M, "I never, ever thought I would be back in Waco."

Like the prodigal son, though, Mabrie keeps coming home.

Other than a brief 10-month detour in Chicago, where she served as an assistant director of championships with the Big Ten, the 30-year-old Hermann has spent the last seven years working in the Baylor Athletics compliance office back in her hometown of Waco.

"It's really cool being back and seeing the growth of Waco," she said. "Just the success of Baylor and the growth of Waco and Fixer Upper and the silos, it's really neat that Waco is now on the map. . . . When you say you're from Waco, Texas, now it's 'Oh, do you know Chip and Jo?' It's gone from the negative of 'Oooh, Waco!' to 'Oh, Wow, Waco is great!'

"When I was in Chicago, my nickname was 'Texas' because I was so true to my roots. The coaches didn't know how to respond when I said y'all.''

Born and raised in Waco, Mabrie grew up around athletics and specifically basketball as the daughter of longtime college basketball referee Scotty Hermann. A gynecologist, Dr. Hermann used to officiate Big 12 games and is now working with Conference USA, the Sun Belt, Southland and Mountain West keeping him globetrotting around the country.

"My mom (Tracie) had me and went home the next day, and he left to officiate a basketball game," Mabrie said. "I like to say I got my independence from my mother, because she just figured it all out and was raising a newborn."

With a March 3rd birthday - "I was a March Madness baby" - Mabrie remembers the family's annual trips to Austin for the UIL state high school basketball tournament. "Dad was working the state finals, but I thought it was for my birthday," she said. "Little did I know . . ."

"Our vacations, everything, have always revolved around basketball," she said. "I remember when (Baylor women's coach Kim Mulkey) came, and we had that natural Louisiana connection. So, we would follow them and travel, continuing my March Madness."

Developing a "pretty good 3-point shot," Mabrie played basketball at Waco High School under Michelle Shilling and Kay Murphy. "I tore my knee my sophomore year, and I kind of never mentally got back," she said. "I played scared."

Saying it's in her DNA, Mabrie threw herself into extracurricular and community projects, serving as a representative on the Youth Council and United Way liaison. To this day, 13 years later, Mabrie says her parents' proudest moment came when she won the 2005 Rotary Scholarship for McLennan County.

"That's probably the pinnacle of my life," she says jokingly. "You're just involved, it comes naturally. I joke that I was so involved in high school that I needed to take a break in college and just focus on me."

With her mother graduating from Texas and her father from the LSU School of Medicine in Shreveport, La., it's not too surprising that Texas and LSU were in Mabrie's final list of college choices, along with A&M.

"They joke that they don't know how they genetically came together to make an Aggie," she said. "I never thought I would go to A&M. I hated A&M growing up. But, I went and visited each school, and A&M had the most business-related sport management program at the time. The other two were kinesiology-based. Plus, the dorms were better at A&M, so that was a priority to me at the time."

After receiving her undergrad degree and doing an internship with the Big 12 office in 2009, Mabrie was convinced that she was going to get a job offer. Instead, Senior Associate Commissioner Dru Hancock "gave me my best advice and my biggest disappointment."

"She told me I had to go back (to A&M) and get my master's," Mabrie said. "She told me, 'I'm not going to hire you, because this market is becoming saturated and you need a master's. So, go do it now and get it over with.' So, I did. . . . I'm forever indebted to Dru, because she gave me my first opportunity in the industry. She took a chance on an official's daughter."

Finishing her master's degree at A&M, and working a second internship with the Big 12, Mabrie developed a friendship with Lori Ebihara at the league office that eventually resulted in a job offer at Baylor.

"My cubicle was outside of her office, and she and I got to know each other even though I wasn't working for her," Mabrie said. "We'd talk, and she'd ask me what I thought about compliance. And I said I thought it would be a great starting point, something to have on my resume."

Ebihara left Baylor less than a year later and currently serves as the Senior Associate AD/Chief of Staff and Senior Women's Administrator at Maryland, "but she gave me my first opportunity on campus. I'm forever grateful for the chance that she gave me."

"And here I am, nearly eight years later, and I'm still in compliance," Mabrie said. "Once you start doing something, I guess you kind of refine your craft. I like to add a human element to compliance."

What coaches and student-athletes sometimes see with the compliance office is "the police are coming," Mabrie said. But, the reason she enjoys working in compliance is "because we get to work with every area."

"We're working with every single sport - coaches, student-athletes, internal, external, university. So, we're touching so many different areas, and getting to have an impact and a purpose."

Since working in a Power 5 conference office had always been her "dream job," Mabrie got the chance to "follow my dream" with the Big Ten in November 2014. The first week on the job, she was there when Ohio State blew out Wisconsin, 59-0, in the conference championship game in Indianapolis.

"I remember sitting in my hotel room that day, watching ESPN Game Day at Baylor and thinking, 'Oh, I miss my family, my friends. I wish was there,''' she said.

Overall, though, it was a good experience that exposed her to "so many different schools and so many different mindsets and philosophies, and having an opportunity to be in meetings with (athletic directors) and (senior women's administrators) and be exposed to the whole thought process."

What she wasn't prepared for was the cold and snow, living in Chicago and working at the conference office in Rosemont, Ill.

"The first big snow, I remember looking out the window, saying, 'Oh, my gosh, it's snowing. I need to go,''' Mabrie said. "People were still working, and I didn't understand why people weren't taking a snow day. And then I learned, that's just the norm. You don't stop working when it snows.

"I purposely kept my Texas license plates on my car, so that when I was driving people would know to be aware of me on the road. Because I really didn't know what I was doing."

The thing Mabrie missed in her time with the Big Ten was just being on a campus and the daily interactions with coaches and student-athletes. She returned to Waco in August 2015 as Director of Compliance and dealing more with eligibility issues.

"It was an opportunity for me to come back in a different role as well, so it wasn't like I was coming back to exactly what I was doing before," she said. "Thanks to Chad Jackson, I was excited to have the opportunity to come back home, to be at Baylor and continue to be a part of the growth and involvement with coaches and student-athletes and being able to work with everyone."

Jackson, Senior Associate AD for Compliance, says Mabrie "has been a key member of our staff for quite a while now."

"Having been at Baylor for seven years, she understands our compliance system and approach as well as anyone," Jackson said. "Her interaction with people stands out as she embodies our service mindset in navigating the complexity of NCAA regulation."

Mabrie admits that she is a lover of all foods - "I haven't really found a food that I don't like" - so she jokingly says, "I run to eat." (Her go-to hamburger choice is the Lip Locker at Kitok's.)

But, it's also a chance to "detach and get away for a second, even if it's just 10 minutes or three miles . . . it's me time, where I can kind of tune out the world."

As far as her future or any long-term goals, Mabrie says she's not sure what's next.

"I'm just trying to be in the moment and be where I am and really invest. I really want to make our compliance better, Baylor better, myself better. I feel like there are people who are always looking for the next best thing. My mindset isn't that the grass is greener, it's more like be where you are and give it your all."