by Emma Sporleder, Student Reporter
In 2019, Kalea King became the twelfth Lady Ranger Basketball player to score 1,000 points in the program’s history during her junior season.
On Feb. 22, King scored her 1,500-point against Great American Conference opponent Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Ark.
King, a redshirt senior from Pflugerville, Texas, began playing basketball in the seventh grade. She played on an AAU basketball team that was sponsored by NFL running back Adrian Peterson. The team traveled to more than 20 different states and three different countries.
King has been a successful basketball player at the high school and collegiate levels. She won the world basketball games in Austria, only lost three games in her entire high school career, and went on to become a record-breaking collegiate player.
King decided to attend Northwestern Oklahoma State University and become a Lady Ranger basketball player in 2014. Throughout her career as a Lady Ranger, she faced trial and injury and even had to stop playing for two seasons.
In 2015, what started out as shin splints turned into a stress fracture. The fracture was so serious that King had to undergo surgery. She now has screws and a metal rod in her left tibia. A month after the surgery, King had surgery again due to the development of a MRSA staff infection in her right knee.
During Christmas break in 2015, the infection came back, and she went under for another surgery. In the summer of 2017, King found out that she was developing early signs of stress fractures in her other leg. Instead of having surgery again, she decided to take time away from basketball so that her body could heal.
Despite the hardships for King’s basketball career, she never let the injuries stop her from becoming a force to be reckoned with on the court.
Although King’s collegiate basketball career ended last Saturday against conference opponent Harding, she has climbed her way into the record books and become one of Northwestern’s most decorated athletes.
She earned several accolades, including: Great American Conference Freshman of the Year, Female Athlete of the Year, Second Team All-American, and Second Team All-GAC. She currently sits fifth in the Lady Ranger All-Time Scoring record books. She scored 1,563 points during her collegiate career and ended her career averaging 14.9 points per game. She played 915 minutes this season.
King graduated with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice in Dec. 2019, and she is currently working on a master’s degree in adult education. She plans to teach at an elementary school.