Making their way through the Dallas airport at the end of Final Four weekend this past April, with their new Division III national championship trophy in hand as a carry-on (you don’t baggage check the national championship trophy), the Transylvania women’s basketball players got their first taste of stardom.
The NCAA championship weekend serves as the ultimate meetup for basketball coaches and fans, with the championship games for all three levels played on the same weekend, and a national coaching convention taking place in between. When the weekend ends, a mass exodus coincides.
“Everybody is leaving the national convention at the same time, and so the Dallas airport was just basketball fans. And everywhere they went, everybody was clapping for them,” recalled head coach Juli Fulks recently. “It was pretty amazing.”
Head basketball coach for the Transylvania Women’s Basketball team Juli Fulks took over the program in 2014. Photo furnished
Two seasons ago, the Transylvania Pioneers finished 27-1, with the team’s only loss coming in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division III tournament. Last year, the team went 33-0 and brought the school its first national championship. While watching the Division I championship, also in Dallas later that weekend, Transylvania star Madison Kellione was shown on ESPN speaking with Dr. Jill Biden and Billie Jean King. Back in Lexington, a spirit rally was held in the Clive M. Beck Center where Mayor Linda Gorton presented the team with the “Spirit of Lexington Award.” In June, the team accepted an invitation to visit the White House.
While not covered or revered to the extent of their Blue and White neighbors up the street, intrigue is growing around the city’s other college basketball team.
“Everybody around town knows Transylvania University, but now if we go out with our Transylvania Basketball hoodies on, people are like ‘Oh you play for the women’s basketball team?’ and they want to know everything about it, about the championship game, and about who we are,” says fifth-year player Laken Ball.
This season, all but one of the key contributors from last year’s championship team (Kellione) is back and the program is picking up right where it left off, racing out to an early 5-0 record at the time of publication. On-court consistency has been part of head coach Juli Fulks’ model ever since taking over the program back in 2014. Fulks posted a cumulative 211-38 record over her first nine seasons in Lexington, culminating in the 2023 national title, but her goals for her program extend far beyond the sidelines on Transy’s Don Lane Court.
Coach Fulks keeps her players busy with community engagement and giving back, taking them to play and read at local elementary schools, but she is just as eager to find people to serve as mentors and role models for the players. To that end, she created the Guest Coach Program as a means of building connections between her players and female community leaders. Each guest coach joins the team for pregame warm-ups and strategy sessions, delivers a pregame speech, sits on the bench during the game, and meets with players to share career advice. The list of previous guest coaches includes Valvoline Chief Financial Officer Mary Meixelsperger, USA Hall of Fame triathlete Susan Bradley Cox, and Kentucky 22nd Judicial Circuit Judge Julie Goodman.
“I want them to see the things that they could do,” Fulks says of the program. “I wanted somebody to talk to them about how it’s 2023 and there’s still so many hurdles you’re going to come over as a female in these jobs… And then I wanted them to realize how many of [these women], when they were in college, were just normal college students.”
For Grace Shope and Grace Bringard’s senior night, the pair were allowed to choose their guest coach, and they selected Christy Hayne, a Transy alum who began teaching at the school in 2013. A lawyer by training, Hayne returned to her alma mater to teach accounting after realizing that the downtown campus felt like home in a way no other workplace could. She has taught several players from Fulks’ teams through the years, but during the 2021-2022 academic year, she formed a particularly close bond with Shope and Bringard, who were senior basketball players at the time.
Transy seniors Kennedi Stacy, Laken Ball, Kennedy Harris, Dasia Thornton, and Sydney Wright. Photo by Mick Jeffries
A big believer in the power of a network of women supporting each other, Hayne took her guest coaching role seriously. She invited the team over to the home of her mother-in-law, radiation oncologist Marta Hayne, for a sort of panel/open house with some of her other local friends and associates. The night was a success and the beginning of a strong relationship between the women’s basketball program and the Hayne family — in particular Hayne and two of her daughters.
“I think that was actually what kind of helped form the relationship with the girls on the team, that my girls loved them,” says Hayne. “We started going to games and cheering them on and they’ve been really good about including my daughters in stuff.”
Once someone serves as a guest coach, they remain part of the circle. Last season, Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame referee Lisa Mattingly served as a guest coach. Interested in a career around basketball after she graduates, Laken Ball took to Mattingly and vice versa. Mattingly, a Kentucky native, invited the starting forward to come work at her referee camp and introduced her to a network of female referees.
“She’s built a community around me,” Ball says of Mattingly. “I’ve got a lot of refs’ numbers if I need anything one day.”
While not all guest coaches are alums, the city of Lexington’s ability to retain many of its university graduates has proven fruitful to the program. Along with Hayne and Judge Julie Goodman, Sherry Holley (president of Gratz Park Private Wealth), Latarika Young (senior manager of quality, compliance and sustainability at Lexmark International) and Kristin Chilton (Lexington Fire Department’s first female chief) are among the Transy graduates who have served as guest coaches. Even on a day-to-day basis, the number of local alums serves as a dependable mechanism for outreach. Fulks recalls taking her team to work out at Title Boxing, where their instructor was a Transy alum and former Pioneers soccer player.
“To be able to go and do those kinds of things in the community where we have so many alumni who are supportive of what we do, [and] finding different ways to have that connection, that’s been pretty special,” she said.
Stepping into the Clive M. Beck Center on a game day is to find Fulks’ work on display — not only in the 2023 championship trophy, prominently displayed in the foyer, but in the arena below. A hodgepodge of students, former players, professors, children, community members, alumni and parents cheer from the bleachers as the team takes the floor. Upbeat music blares from the speakers as the team warms up. The players have a bounce in their step, a swagger. Their coach, clad in sneakers, is cool and composed. The starting lineups are announced, the ball is tipped, and Transylvania is off and running toward another victory. The program’s perspective and vision extend beyond graduation, but the imminent goal is clearly defined.
“We’re trying to run it back,” says Fulks. “That is the first goal.”
The 2023-24 Transylvania Women’s Basketball team (seated from left to right): Grace Bruner, Keaton Hall, Amara Flores, Kennedi Stacy, Sadie Worth, Kennedy Harris, Aubree Littlejohn; (standing from left to right) assistant coach Tim Whitesel, manager Catie Jacobs, volunteer assistant coach Lea Wise Prewitt, Sydney Wright, Riley Flinn, Raegan Barrett, Emilie Teall, Micayla Hurdle, Laken Ball, Dasia Thornton, McLain Murphy, Sierra Kemelgor, assistant head coach Hannah Varel, assistant coach Loren Bewley and head coach Juli Fulks. Photo furnished