Beacon College took steps forward in the evolution of its athletics program by recently hiring a former WNBA player to lead the women’s basketball program.
Mfon Udoka dazzled on the court in the 2004 Summer Olympics. The Nigerian-American averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds per game at the Athens Games against the world’s top athletes. But the Nigerian team, coached by former Orlando Magic player Sam Vincent, now the men’s basketball coach at Beacon, was a group of plucky underdogs going into the final match against South Korea. The Nigerians won by four points.
“It didn’t matter at that point that we had lost all our games before,” Udoka said. “It was just the best feeling ever.”
It is one of the many stories from her lengthy career. Now Udoka and Vincent are reuniting to make some more magic.
Udoka, whose basketball career has taken her to the WNBA and around the world, said she is excited to build a program at Beacon. The women’s team was winless last year in its first season in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association. That means Udoka understands the reality of what it takes for a turnaround and the deeper lessons of perseverance and growth her team will learn from her own experience playing with Nigeria.
Udoka said she has already started recruiting players who can make an impact with conditioning starting in September. From there, Udoka wants to build a culture both on and off the court.
“I like the idea of building something,” she said.
Vincent wooed Udoka to Beacon because he believes Udoka, who once worked as a teacher, will be a great college coach.
“She’s passionate about the game,” he said. “I just thought she had the personality and patience to be able to develop young females and turn them into good players.”
For Udoka, her love of basketball started as a kid growing up on the West Coast. She was the middle child and the only girl in her family. She is biracial. Her father is Black and from Nigeria while her mother is White. Her parents met working at a restaurant in Portland and raised their children in the city. As a little girl, Udoka loved playing sports with her two brothers. Her younger sibling is Ime Udoka, former NBA player and now the head coach of the NBA’s Houston Rockets.
Udoka realized her best shot to win a college scholarship was through basketball. She led DePaul University to three NCAA tournaments, scored more than 1,000 points and grabbed 1,000 rebounds during her career in Chicago from 1994-1998.
She left school early and went to the WNBA training camp. But her professional career got derailed when she got clipped in the knee as she went up for a rebound. Pop. She felt her knee would not stop extending backward. Her torn ACL became an existential question about her dreams and her life. Was it time to give up basketball? Or was she willing to put in the months of rehabilitation for a comeback? She decided not to quit. She also went back to school to finish her bachelor’s degree in communication in 2000.
“Education is always important in my house, so there’s just no way that I would not have gotten it,” she said.
Her father rarely talked about Nigeria and his past in fleeing during the county’s civil war. Udoka had never been to Nigeria until she began playing for the country’s national team which had unexpected success playing in tournaments to win a berth in the Olympics.
In her pro career that lasted until 2010, Udoka played for the Detroit Shock, Houston Comets and the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA. Mfon and Ime Udoka made history, becoming the first sister and brother duo to play in the WNBA and NBA. She also played overseas in Portugal, Israel, China, Spain, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and France.
“What the game has done for me… it’s things you could never imagine or dream of,” Udoka said. “And it’s not even only the sport itself, it’s just all the experiences that have come with it — all of the ups, the downs, the successes, the failures, the friendships, the teammates, the memories, experiences.”
