Today's post is written by Katie Deen (class of 2005):
(Editor's Note: The next several weeks we are doing a "Where are they now?" section on our blog. This section will be a great update on what some of our former Lions are doing these days!)
Its been an interesting road since my "glorious" college days. I have to say, I still remember being punched on a daily basis and breaking a few noses, namely my own teammates and one of the poor players in an exhibition game (to which my coaches did NOT look so fondly upon), against a team we PAID to play us....not good business, I now know. (In my defense, I was simply doing what my fearless leaders, Coach Mitts and Coach Hubbard had taught me. To "jerk through"). The lessons I have taken away from my college basketball days are priceless as I still hear them ringing in my head on a daily basis. To name a few:
1. Go back the way you came (more on this to follow).
2. "If you are going hard enough and you twist your ankle, it will pop back into place". (verbatim quote by Coach Mitts)
3. You literally can relate ANY teaching point to cake or icing according to Coach Mitts.
4. Physical ability is most often dictated by mental toughness.
5. Keep moving
6. Listen (especially when there is a question involved with a 50/50 chance of getting right)
7. Your coaches are your most valuable assets.
8. Always focus on growth.
9. Effort always trumps talent
10.Do NOT be on your own agenda. It doesn't work.
I wish I had the time to recount my entire college career for you because I could write a novel. I would go back in a second for many reasons; one being the simple fact that, as a collegiate athlete, you are paid to do something you love. I don't know the exact statistics but in today's corporate world, I wouldn't imagine that a high percentage of workers can say 
this about their jobs or really any part of their lives. In addition, you get to play a game full time, build your self confidence, better yourself, get a degree, and best of all, be told what to do and how to spend your time so as to be successful. It is ironic to me that once we athletes finish our sport and graduate, we move onto a life where we have a career and different type of life where we then must figure out how to utilize our time in an effective and productive manner and many times we then, pay a "coach" to tell us what to do. Now, being that I learned a valuable lesson early to always focus on growth and bettering myself (Thank you Coach Mitts and Hubbard), I have found myself hiring someone else, an expert in whatever it is I am seeking, to tell me what I should do. I am a fitness professional and I have a coach and trainer of my own. I have had a plethora of life coaches, business coaches and trainers, mentors, etc., all of which I handed over a check to, so that they would simply, tell me what to do. This is fascinating to me because only 5 short years ago, I had the daily priveledge of knowing that someone was there to plan my day, my workouts, my academics, even my career path. All I had to do was show up. (and hopefully listen and apply!)
Moving on. As an athlete in college, a person takes one of two paths: a) finds another sport b) does not find another sport because they no longer want to so much as leave a seated position, because they have "trained" their entire life. I chose "A". I got to compete in a variety of marathons, triathlons, etc until I had a spill and had to find yet another sport to fill my competitive drive (that evidently doesn't just "go away" once you finish college). I chose to compete in "Figure" shows. This is a cross between bodybuilding and a beauty pageant...(I'm still trying to convince myself its a sport, unfortunately, when you're training consists of dieting, walking in heels, posing in front of a large mirror, and putting loads of eye-shadow on, I'm not quite sure it can reach that classification....I'll let you know when I justify it as a sport). Anyhow, it does require quite a bit of discipline and hard work. Bringing my college training to mind, I found that mind over matter is huge in dieting down to below essential levels of body fat....especially when you are on a diet through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Birthdays, Easter, etc. all the while working out several hours a day, subsisting on nothing but fish and green vegetables. Talk about mental toughness. (and the fact that all I thought about was food, I remembered Coach Mitts referencing cake, icing, and an oven in many of her illustrations....I still sometimes wonder how defense has anything to do with food, but she sure knew how to get her point across!) But having gone through some rigorous practices and seasons, one thing I learned was that one's mind is much more powerful than we think. 
My first competition rolled around and having dieted down for 6 months, trained and conditioned, and practiced my "stage presence" daily, I felt I was as ready as I could be. As luck would have it, I was randomly selected to be the first one out onstage for my class. With a packed audience, I confidently strode out onto the open stage in my 5 inch heels and struck my first, second, third, fourth, and fifth pose, without even a hint of a "basketball player jock walk" (which I was told is NOT acceptable in this sport...fine. I will just walk like an athlete the REST of the day :). Only was it when my competition entered stage left, that I realized I had turned the wrong direction...the entire time. Ironically, I was not suppose to go forward, but "back the way I came". Interesting how this would come up later in my life. I could literally hear Coach Hubbard yelling, "Deen! Go back the way you came!" (for those that are not aware, at MSSU, we had a standard play that we would run that required a guard to come to the top of the key, receive the ball, jerk it through to the other side, and take two dribbles in the direction from which they had come) and I, in my own agenda, had once again, gone the wrong direction in front of an audience. (at least my makeup looked good).
I could literally go on forever with lessons I learned and stories in my life where I have used them, but a big lesson that I continually am aware of that I thankfully was taught as an 18 year old kid entering into college was that its about the journey and not the destination. One never "arrives", we never will know it all, but we should continue to stay positive, keep an open mind for growth and learning, keep moving forward (and making mistakes and learning from them), and we will always be successful. (Just like Coach Mitts said, go as hard as you can and if you twist your ankle, it will pop back into place :)
Until next time...It's a GREAT day to be a LION!!
Katie Deen
Class of 2005
It is true that 8 years have passed since I played my last basketball game at Missouri Southern State University. I still get nostalgic thinking back to those years. Attending and playing basketball for Southern was undoubtedly one of the best experiences of my life. I am so thankful that I received that opportunity. And while that “season” of life is over, the values that I learned are pertinent to every season of life that I enter. One of the first lessons I remember from Coach Mitts is the one of “little victories”—meaning, don’t expect to do great in the big things until you learn to do great in the little things. In other words, success doesn’t come over night; it comes after a chain of conscious decisions to do the right thing...even when it seems inconsequential or even when no one is paying attention. Another lesson I remember being emphasized by the coaching staff was our need, as players, to be coachable. So much can be learned when you are willing to be taught and respond with obedience. It can be tough to swallow sometimes; it certainly requires humility, yet, it’s vital to success in life. The third thing I would mention that was emphasized by the coaching staff was the value in plain old hard work. They didn’t expect me to do everything perfectly, but they did ask that I do it with a high level of intensity and effort. And they didn't ask me to work hard just for the sake of working hard, although 
there is some merit in that. They knew (and I have come to learn) that working hard at something can produce a passion for the activity that would not have come otherwise and that working hard covers over a multitude of natural shortcomings. So, do I still need and use these lessons? Absolutely! To be good at my job as a physician assistant or to be a good wife and mother, I must be willing to work hard, to be moldable, and to succeed in the “little victories” all along the way. Thanks, coaches, for driving these home to me and for setting good examples of them through your own lives!
