By Emma Sporleder
Student Reporter
Kalea King, a redshirt junior from Pflugerville, Texas, put her name in Northwestern Oklahoma State University’s record books when she became the 12th player in the program’s history to score 1,000 points.
King developed her love for basketball while watching her dad referee multiple basketball games
King said she always enjoyed watching basketball, and loved being in that type of atmosphere.
King began her basketball career in the 7th grade, and was even on an AAU basketball team that was sponsored by the NFL running back Adrian Peterson.
Throughout her AAU basketball career, King’s team traveled to 20 different states and three different countries. Her team even went on to win the world games in Austria.
King was very successful while playing varsity basketball at Pflugerville High School where she played for three years and during that time only lost three games in her high school career, all three losses being in the playoffs.
After graduating from Pflugerville High School, King chose to play for the Lady Rangers because of head coach at the time Eric Bozeman’s coaching style.
She said that his style was very similar to what she had been around her whole life.
This helped King realize that Northwestern was the university that she wanted to be a part of.
King faced adversity in 2015 when what started out as shin splints in her left leg turned into a stress fracture.
October 2015, doctors had to place a rod and screws into King’s left tibia, and then a month later she developed MRSA staff in her right knee and had to be rushed to surgery and monitored for four days.
During Christmas break of 2015, the MRSA came back again which brought another surgery and four-day monitoring for King.
Because of these surgeries, this caused King to use her medical redshirt for her sophomore year.
King left NWOSU during the summer of 2017 after she found out she had early signs of stress fractures in her other leg.
These fractures would cause her to have to undergo another surgery, so King decided to take some time off to let her body heal.
Despite all the hardship and injuries, King knew that there was unfinished business that needed to be handled, so she returned to the Lady Rangers basketball team for the 2018-2019 season after a lot of thinking and decision-making.
King was confident that with the help of head coach Tasha Diesselhorst and her teammates that she would be able to develop back into the player that she was before the injuries.
King’s time here at Northwestern has been nothing short of spectacular.
King was the Great American Conference Freshman of the Year, Second Team All-American, Female Athlete of the Year and she reached the 1,000-point club.
King currently averages 15 points per game, five rebounds per game and is a 70 percent free throw shooter.
Upon graduation from NWOSU, she plans to receive her bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice.
She hopes to become a realtor or work in Human Resources.
When King has time off the court and out of the classroom, she enjoys spending time with her boyfriend, who is in the Navy, playing with her dogs and shopping with her mom and sister.
In conclusion to the 2018-2019 basketball season, King plans to spend her last year of collegiate basketball as a Lady Ranger.
King and her teammates face Ouachita Baptist Feb. 21 at home.
The Lady Rangers wrap up their home game contest on Feb. 23 against Henderson State at 1 p.m.