A League of Her Own

OBSESSIVELY EXCELLENT

Alyssa Ustby has found the perfect home at Carolina

BY ADAM LUCAS PHOTOS BY JEFFREY CAMARATI

Courtney Banghart’s eyes lit up as she was asked about one of her favorite topics—her players.

She went through the full roster, describing their quirks and their personalities. And then she got to Alyssa Ustby.

“She’s a freak,” Banghart said of Ustby, “and it’s awesome.”

That’s the quintessential description of Carolina’s sophomore standout, the one who grew up battling with her three older brothers in driveway basketball at their home in Rochester, Minnesota, and now carries her own toaster and loaf of bread to Tar Heel NCAA Tournament games.

Unlike many of today’s Division I athletes, Ustby (it’s pronounced US-bee) wasn’t groomed from birth to be a basketball superstar. In fact, the family was surprised when she first participated in a YMCA basketball game that included girls and boys and scored 16 points in her first game.

So her parents, Todd and Lisa, realized she could play. They knew that in middle school games, when the score got out of hand, they sometimes had to tell her to stop stealing the ball from her opponent and taking it in for a layup. But they weren’t ingrained in the basketball world. And when their daughter came to them in seventh grade and said, “The coaches said I should play AAU basketball,” they had a very simple response:

“What’s AAU?”

It wasn’t long before they understood very well the details of travel basketball, and it wasn’t long before one of Ustby’s AAU coaches told them, “She’s going to be a Division I basketball player.”

Todd’s incredulous response: “Really?”

But that coach was exactly right. And although Ustby kept playing as many sports as she could all the way through high school—her softball coach once taught her to hit lefty in an afternoon so she’d be a couple steps closer to first base and could get even more hits, and she immediately looked like a natural—most of the recruiting calls were coming from basketball coaches.

One of those calls was from a talented young coach at Princeton, Courtney Banghart. She instantly connected with Ustby, two powerhouse females who loved to compete, but there was a problem: as part of the Ivy League, Princeton doesn’t offer athletic scholarships. With so many good basketball choices in the Minnesota area, it was going to be tough to go halfway across the country and also pay for the privilege of doing so. But then Banghart took the job at Carolina, and the situation became obvious. “Courtney is amazing,” Todd Ustby says. “She has confidence in her players and the players thrive because she has confidence in them. We visited a lot of other coaches “ WHEN WE DID OUR OFFICIAL VISIT AT CAROLINA AND SAW THE and met a lot of personalities. But Courtney had a plan. Alyssa was part of that plan, and Courtney told us exactly what was going to happen, and that is what has happened. She’s an amazing

CAMPUS, SAW THE COMMUNITY, coach and communicator. “When we did our official visit at AND TALKED TO THE COACHES AND Carolina and saw the campus, saw the SAW THE GYM, ALYSSA KNEW RIGHT community, and talked to the coaches and saw the gym, Alyssa knew right then THEN AND THERE SHE WANTED TO and there she wanted to be at Carolina.” BE AT CAROLINA.” Before she departed for Chapel Hill, Ustby had to deal with the disappointment of the cancelation of a possible state championship season as a high school senior. But that’s also when she began to make the leap that has characterized her college career so far. Instead of sitting around and wallowing in her frustration, she channeled it into twicedaily workouts. The schedule was simple: “I saw that Covid pause as a moment of separation,” she says. “I knew it was going to be really hard to get up and do my own workouts and stay disciplined during that time, and so I wanted to use that time to separate from everyone else. I got up at 5:30 and worked out in the garage. I’d finish with my workout, have four eggs, a protein shake and some milk. Around the time I was cleaning up the kitchen, my dad was getting up for work. That’s how bad I wanted it. My drive was so strong that it really wasn’t that tiresome for me.” That was just the first of her twice-daily workouts. Ustby

held herself accountable by tracking every session on a white board in the garage. The effort paid off a couple weeks after she arrived at Carolina, when Banghart told her, “You’re a lot more ready than we expected.”

The rest of the conference soon learned that Banghart was right. Ustby started 17 of the 24 games her freshman season, earning All-ACC Academic honors while also propelling the Tar Heels back to the NCAA Tournament.

That postseason trip to San Antonio to face Alabama is where the Ustby legend grew. Most players boarded the team plane with a bag stuffed with gear and shoes. Ustby had all of her clothes crammed into her backpack, because her suitcase was loaded with a few other necessities.

“I just wanted to make sure I had everything I needed,” she says. “I brought a toaster, a loaf of bread, bananas, a smoothie machine, frozen fruit, yogurt, and some milk.”

This begs the question of exactly how the NCAA falls short in their toasting capabilities. “I was just being careful,” Ustby says with a grin. Nothing, even the NCAA Tournament, was going to interrupt her nutrition regimen.

This type of fanaticism is exactly why Banghart called her a “freak,” in the sense of the word that is said with admiration by coaches. As you would expect, as a sophomore, she’s near the team lead in minutes per game and has started every game for a Tar Heel squad that has elbowed its way into the national rankings.

The same way Roy Williams had Tyler Hansbrough, Banghart

has Ustby. They simply look at the world in the same way, react the same way, soak in coaching the same way. In an era when women’s college coaches are regularly having to apologize for their behavior on the sideline, Banghart rarely goes much further than a well-timed eye roll. Likewise, Todd Ustby says he has “ I LOVE BEING A TAR HEEL BECAUSE THE ENVIRONMENT IS SO HEALTHY. never, ever seen his daughter complain about an officiating call or argue with a referee. Several years ago, he asked her about it. “Two things, Dad,” she replied. “A

THE RELATIONSHIPS I’VE MADE referee is never going to change the

WITH MY CLASSMATES AND MY call. And I don’t want to be on the bad side of a referee. So it’s not worth it.”

PROFESSORS, I FEEL LIKE I CAN After all, Ustby is much too busy to

GROW IN SO MANY ASPECTS OF waste time arguing with officials. She’s been playing piano since the third MY LIFE, NOT JUST ATHLETICALLY. grade. She had a near-viral moment

CHALLENGING MYSELF IN THE when her brother filmed her riding a ripstick (similar to a skateboard) while CLASSROOM IS A BIG PART OF MY juggling three basketballs and making EXPERIENCE AT CAROLINA. THERE a layup. With in-person visits curtailed, she’s been pen pals with a patient at ARE SO MANY PEOPLE WILLING TO UNC Children’s Hospital. HELP YOU AND ENCOURAGING YOU Over a thousand miles from home, Ustby has found the perfect fit, and

TO ASK QUESTIONS. I COULDN’T she’s intent on leaving the program

IMAGINE IT ANY OTHER WAY.” better than she found it. “I love being a Tar Heel because the environment is so healthy,” she says. “The relationships I’ve made with my classmates and my professors, I feel like I can grow in so many aspects of my life, not just athletically. Challenging myself in the classroom is a big part of my experience at Carolina. There are so many people willing to help you and encouraging you to ask questions. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”

NICE KICKS

Alyssa Ustby also has a slight shoe obsession. We asked her to rank her favorite three off-court shoe choices:

Jordan 1 Jordan 3 Jordan 11

A LEAGUE OF HER OWN

Malaika Underwood has made a life in athletics, both on and off the field

BY ADAM LUCAS PHOTOS BY UNC ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS & MALAIKA UNDERWOOD

Malaika Underwood is part of a very exclusive group among University of North Carolina student-athletes: those who received a full athletic scholarship for a sport that is secondary to the one that eventually became their most decorated pursuit.

Underwood, a San Diego native, came to Carolina on a volleyball scholarship. She excelled, including winning the ACC Tournament MVP award in 2001 and helping propel the Tar Heels to four straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

She’s clearly an accomplished volleyball player. But all her athletic dreams— and many of her athletic achievements—have actually come on the baseball field.

Underwood has represented the Team USA in baseball ten times in international competition, more than any other male or female on the diamond, and has won four gold medals. She’s achieved so much in and out of athletics that it’s difficult to know exactly how to describe her. But one depiction is indisputable: she’s a baseball player.

“I grew up playing baseball and that was my passion,” she says. “In San Diego, playing outside and playing baseball sandlot-style was an everyday thing. I played Little League. And in my mind, that’s all I cared about. I wanted to be the first woman in Major League Baseball.”

Underwood’s athletic career diverged when she needed to find a sport to occupy her time in the fall and winter of her freshman high school year. She knew she’d play baseball in the spring, but didn’t want to take a typical PE class in the other seasons. She needed to be part of a team.

Not surprisingly, she was a natural at volleyball in the fall and basketball in the winter. Recruiting attention in both sports soon followed, giving her a unique decision to make: pursue her passion of baseball, in which there was no clear path to the next level—or, arguably, even a next level—or the newfound enjoyment of her “other” two sports.

That’s what led her to Chapel Hill on a recruiting visit in the fall of 1998.

“When I showed up for my official visit at Carolina, the leaves were changing, and for a California girl the leaves and seasons were so dramatic,” she says. “They knew I was a Carolina basketball fan by way of Michael Jordan, and

MY BEST ADVICE

Underwood’s insight for student-athletes on navigating NIL

Asked for her best insight for current student-athletes navigating the world of name, image and likeness, Underwood said the following: “I would be very cautious about entering into any deal that was exclusive or that extended beyond my college career. I would also encourage them to ask for help. Ask people to read the agreements you’re signing. Use your campus and family networks to help you figure out what you’re signing. It’s so early. Don’t be a case study later on, ‘Here’s what you shouldn’t do.’”

arranged for me to meet Dean Smith. He was kind enough to spend a few minutes with me. I had a blast on Franklin Street.

“I still had one recruiting trip left, to the University of Rhode Island. I got off the plane after my visit to Carolina and told my dad, ‘I know where I’m going to school. Stop the process.’”

Thom Underwood advised his daughter to finish out her recruiting commitments, but Malaika already knew she was a Tar Heel. And while she couldn’t play baseball for the Heels, it did put her conveniently less than a halfhour from the USA Baseball complex in Cary.

She made the National Team for the first time in 2006, when she helped win a world title for Team USA. And she’s been a fixture ever since, even while building a successful career in an emerging area of key importance to current college athletes.

Underwood currently works as the senior vice president for licensing at One Team Partners. In that role, she works closely with professional sports, but she’s also integral to the company’s efforts with college athletes, which puts her squarely in the middle of the name, image and likeness discussion nationally.

Her current area of focus is group licensing, a topic where Carolina has been among the national innovators in the early months of the new world of college sports. It’s a rapidly changing field, one in which even the experts—Underwood was recently named to Sports Business Journal’s prestigious 40 Under 40 list—know the parameters change daily.

“I remind myself every day that we’re only seven months in,” she says. “I think there will be a lot of things that we look back

and say, ‘I can’t believe that used to be OK.’ I do think we’re moving in the right direction. The opportunity for athletes in college to maximize this moment in time for themselves, whether through individual opportunities or group licensing opportunities, is fantastic. As a former college athlete, I wish I had that opportunity.” It’s not difficult to imagine Dean “ THE BOND WE HAVE IS AMAZING, AND IT HAS CONTINUED FOR SO Smith being very pleased that a few minutes spent with a promising high school recruit has helped break new ground, extend the Carolina legacy across multiple fields, and find new MANY YEARS EVEN AS WE’VE GONE ways for student-athletes to expand OUR SEPARATE WAYS AND STARTED their influence. As Underwood says, it’s difficult to fully identify “home” when

FAMILIES. WE’VE ENDED UP IN you’ve lived on both coasts and currently

DIFFERENT PLACES BUT WE’RE live in the Atlanta area. But there’s just something about STILL VERY MUCH CONNECTED, AND Chapel Hill. With a busy schedule that THAT’S WHAT CAROLINA IS TO ME.” includes a family and two children, Underwood wishes she had the opportunity to return to Carolina more often. She hasn’t been back on campus since before the pandemic began. But like a longtime friend who picks up a conversation right where it left off, no matter how long an absence has been, she knows exactly what Carolina means to her. “There’s something special about just the campus itself,” she says. “I miss the brick buildings, the quad, Carmichael. It’s a great place. But it’s overwhelmingly about the people. I stay in contact with a number of teammates who I played with. The bond we have is amazing, and it has continued for so many years even as we’ve gone our separate ways and started families. We’ve ended up in different places but we’re still very much connected, and that’s what Carolina is to me.”