Culture
Why South Carolina's freshman sensation is wowing Magic Johnson, the NBA and college basketball
Let’s begin with the play, because what else initially comes to mind when thinking of South Carolina star freshman MiLaysia Fulwiley?
You know the one. Against No. 10 Notre Dame, in the season opener, in Paris. Fulwiley receives an inbounds pass with just over two minutes to go until halftime and begins galloping up the floor. By the time she reaches the 3-point line, three defenders are inside the arc, but nothing is stopping her. Fulwiley picks up her dribble, goes behind the back with the ball and elevates. For a brief second, it looks as if she will attempt a scoop layup on the basket’s right side. But then, in an instant, she cradles the ball to the left and uses her right hand to flip it up with the perfect amount of spin so it falls through the hoop. “The Eiffel Tower is shaking,” ESPN’s Ryan Ruocco says on the broadcast.
MILAYSIA FULWILEY 👀
The handles + the finish…
🎥 @GamecockWBB pic.twitter.com/cpWoj7M4ed
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) November 6, 2023
The razzle-dazzle electrifies the 3,200 spectators in attendance and hundreds of thousands watching on TV. Kevin Durant, amazed by the string of moves, tweets about it. Magic Johnson tweets it’s “the best move in all of basketball including the pros like LeBron, Steph, KD, Victor, and Jokic” and urges his 5 million followers to seek out the replay. It’s undeniably eye-popping. But to those who know Fulwiley best, the sequence isn’t surprising.
I’m watching the women’s basketball game between South Carolina and Notre Dame right now and I just saw the best move in all of basketball including the pros like LeBron, Steph, KD, Victor, and Jokic. Everyone must see the coast-to-coast, behind-the-back move by freshman guard…
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) November 6, 2023
“That play is routine for her,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley says.
“That play, we’ve seen it 1,000 times,” her high school coach, Reggie McLain, says.
“She’s just special. I have not seen a kid play the game the way she plays it,” adds Ashley Rivens, her grassroots coach at Team Curry.
Although she’s only a freshman, Fulwiley has been making on-court magic in Columbia, S.C., for as long as she can remember. She grew up a 13-minute drive from the university’s campus. Long before she made Colonial Life Arena her stage, she created, and re-created, highlights in the driveway of her family’s three-bedroom home and at nearby Crane Forest Park. She’d watch YouTube videos — often of LeBron James, Columbia native Seventh Woods or other mixtape stars — grab a ball and experiment for herself. She’d tell her sisters, Zyana and Jayla, to sit on the porch and count down from five. “One day, the camera is gonna be on me and I’m gonna be like everybody else I see on YouTube,” Fulwiley says she would think to herself.
In daylight and darkness, on a strip of concrete or surrounding grass, in front of the house or at the goal in the back, she imagined nailing buzzer-beaters. She played in the park until she could no longer see the hoop. She practiced crossover combinations and spin moves. Eventually, in high school, the 5-foot-10 guard worked on dunking. (Yes, she can throw it down.) “You are gonna be somebody special,” her mother, Phea Mixon, told her.
Fulwiley’s highlights are a reminder, however, that just because something is routine for one person doesn’t mean it’s replicable for others. By the end of her seventh-grade season, McLain invited Fulwiley to join W.J. Keenan High’s varsity playoff run. South Carolina and Ole Miss offered her scholarships before the school year ended. As an eighth-grader, she played high school varsity full-time. Keenan won four state titles and played in five championship games with her on the roster.
Immense talent hasn’t led to immense ego, say those who know her best. Mixon describes her daughter as humble. Staley calls Fulwiley low-key and sometimes shy. “We have to teach her that you’re not an ordinary young person,” Staley says. Fulwiley, 18, knows she has much to learn. And though she’s comfortable skying above defenders, she reminds herself to stay steady. To remain grounded, even when her aerial acrobatics go viral. “I’m in control of how I want to feel,” she says. “My mom did a great job telling me, ‘Don’t get the big head because you can lose everything just how you got it.’”
As Fulwiley surged up ranking lists — eventually making her way to No. 13 in ESPN’s Class of 2023 — and past her defenders, Mixon often put her daughter’s opportunities over her own career in customer service. She prioritized attending Fulwiley’s tournaments and college visits. “I really wanted MiLaysia to secure her future, because once I saw how special she was, I knew that things can change,” Mixon says. Through hard work, she told her daughter, Fulwiley could accomplish what she aspired to achieve.
Fulwiley noticed her mother’s efforts. “It means a lot to me,” she says, “just knowing that my mom cares about me enough to stop things that’s going on in her life (and) sacrifice.” Mixon can count on one hand the number of times she’s missed Fulwiley’s games in high school or college.
Though she’s competitive off the court — McLain says Fulwiley didn’t even like to lose in PE kickball — she has largely maintained a singular focus. “Basketball has been my one and only love,” she says. In elementary school, her answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” questions was always a professional basketball player. She stood out in youth events. Fulwiley recalls attempting a 3-pointer in a boys’ church league game when she was only 6 or 7 and wondering if she was dreaming because she had tried a shot that even she thought was audacious. In the sixth grade, she scored 60 points in a game, but her team lost 71-70. She now calls her 60-piece “a waste” because of the result. Nevertheless, it brought more attention to her.
In her final home game at W.J. Keenan, senior Milaysia Fulwiley went out in style as the Raiders rolled into the third round of the 2A playoffs.
Fulwiley goes over the 3,000 point mark for her career and at halftime, she received some special gear.@MilaysiaF @wjkeenanraiders pic.twitter.com/nEOVX0OMJg— Reggie Anderson (@ReggieWLTX) February 18, 2023
When McLain first watched Fulwiley play, as a seventh-grader, he saw a player who stood out among her peers. He observed her elite athleticism, prodigious basketball IQ and competitiveness. A motor Fulwiley describes as “go-go-go.”
That spring, McLain added her to the high school’s playoff roster, and she immediately dominated practices, taking over in one-on-one drills. Still, McLain adds, she was “extremely quiet.” She didn’t get fazed by the teachers, trainers and other coaches poking their heads in the gym to see her play.
Staley says the success of her program is “based on the kids in our area.” A’ja Wilson is from Columbia. Alaina Coates is from a nearby suburb. “No one leaves the state,” Staley says, “without them making it really hard for us to say no.” The Gamecocks made it hard for Fulwiley to say no.
As she flourished in high school and on her grassroots team, her family kept envisioning her wearing garnet and black. It was initially only a lofty aspiration, but one they hoped could be a key step to reaching the WNBA. Mixon says Staley promised to hold Fulwiley accountable and help her reach the next level. The idea of staying home in Columbia also brought added excitement because her friends and family could easily see her play. Fulwiley’s now-deceased grandfather, Charles, was a longtime Gamecocks fan. He wore the school’s apparel and had school stickers on his car. He told Fulwiley he could see her suiting up there one day. She wears No. 12 in his honor; it was his favorite number.
One morning during Fulwiley’s second week of summer classes at South Carolina, she arrived late for a team breakfast. She says she was only two minutes behind schedule. She thought nothing would come of it. But tardiness in college, she quickly learned, was different from being late in high school. Staley told her she would sit out of a practice.
The discipline resonated. “Stuff like that made me lock in,” Fulwiley says. She told her mother: “Dawn does not play.”
In the weeks and months that followed, Staley has continued emphasizing the team rules. She stresses to Fulwiley the importance of being on time to class and weight training and creating pro-ready habits. Even in moments of tension, Staley reminds Fulwiley of her potential.
“She’ll ooh and ahh us,” Staley says. “She’ll make me turn away from her because of a move she’ll make. I gotta walk away from it because it was so very good. And then she also has some things that she needs to work on that will make me scream at her. And I don’t like screaming at her because she’s got an angelic look to her. She doesn’t like to be screamed at, but certain things will hit me differently.”
The 18-year-old has even stunned coach Dawn Staley with some of her moves.
In those instances, Staley will correct her, often prefacing the feedback by saying, “This doesn’t mean that you’re not a generational talent.”
In high school, Fulwiley was Keenan’s star. In college, she has starred at times, like in her 17-point, six-assist, six-steal outing against Notre Dame or in an 18-point, nine-rebound showing against Clemson. However, there have also been games when Fulwiley watched idly from the bench. She saw the floor for only three minutes in a 7-point win over North Carolina, with Staley saying Fulwiley lost her opponent a few times on defense. She played a mere 10 minutes in South Carolina’s 24-point victory over Missouri and missed all five of her field goal attempts. Yet it is then when coaches see Fulwiley’s trust in their decisions. “She really embraces the process, and I love that about her,” Staley says.
Against Texas A&M on Sunday, Fulwiley put on perhaps her best showing. She scored 21 points in 20 minutes, exploding past defenders in the pick-and-roll on multiple occasions. Staley said Fulwiley’s confidence translated to magic. The top-ranked Gamecocks matchup against No. 9 LSU on Thursday night provides another opportunity to unearth something amazing. But Staley also stresses that “the stuff in between the spectacular plays is where (her) greatness is really going to come.” In other words, how she makes the ordinary extraordinary.
Fulwiley says she has plenty to learn — too many things to rattle off. Staley notes Fulwiley can sometimes be unselfish to a fault and that she has room to “be in the gym a little bit more.” Fulwiley has nearly as many assists (40) as turnovers (34). Nevertheless, she takes feedback well. Coaches demonstrate something once, Staley says, and Fulwiley can execute it immediately. “She wants to be great,” Staley says. “And wanting to be great takes listening. It takes doing. It takes vulnerability.”
Fulwiley feels grateful to be at South Carolina, soaking up knowledge from the veterans. And although her stage has changed, she has stayed attached to her roots. She has returned to Keenan three times this season to watch the Raiders play. Once, she sat on the end of their bench, and she has spoken to the players at halftime. Sure, her sister Jayla is still playing there. However, Fulwiley goes back for more than that. “They played a big part as to why I’m here today,” she says. “I owe them my support and my dedication.”
Even with an arsenal of aerial attacks, she’s stayed tied to the ground. To her past. To her family. To Columbia. Mixon says, “I can’t tell you how many times I cried” seeing people scream her daughter’s name in Colonial Life Arena. She thinks about the sacrifices and how her father would say, “Whatever you do, you need to make time so that your daughter can follow her dreams.”
“I’ve prayed for times like this,” Fulwiley says. And in her driveway, she prepared for times like this, too.
(Photos of MiLaysia Fulwiley: Jacob Kupferman / Getty Images)
She was blond and he was dark-haired; they were almost photonegatives. She looked as if she’d been in Bergman films. He was, visually, America’s Camus — wary, heavy-lidded, wreathed in cigarillo smoke, an intellectual turned out in black Levi’s and sheepskin-lined leather jackets.
Hustvedt and Auster’s double-barreled impact could prompt strange reactions. Before their wedding dinner, Hustvedt writes, a poet friend of Paul’s lifted a glass and said, “To the bride and groom, two people so good-looking I’d like to slice their faces with a razor.” Hustvedt wasn’t surprised when he slowly faded from their lives.
Auster was diagnosed with cancer in January 2023, when he was 75. Hustvedt tells the story of his illness — the chaotic E.R. visits, the hair loss, the shrinking and then metastasizing of his tumor, the wracking immunotherapy, the wheelchairs, the inability to write and the gradual loss of language — largely by reprinting the matter-of-fact group emails she sent to close friends to keep them apprised of his progress.
These sorts of missives, as anyone who has written or received them knows, are an art form of their own. When delivering good news, Hustvedt urged caution. “There is an important difference between optimism and hope,” she wrote in one such email. “The optimist’s tendency to cheer every piece of good news and predict a good outcome is understandable but creates emotional swings that, at least for those who love the patient, are unsustainable. Hope, on the other hand, is necessary for living on.”
Auster was stoic about his illness, but restless and held captive in the borderless region he termed “Cancerland.” No longer able to write fiction, near his death he began to compose a series of letters to his grandson. These letters, which are largely about family history, are printed here and are models of that form: warm, direct, undogmatic.
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge is focused on unfinished novels that their authors didn’t live to see published. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
CHERNOBYL, LIFE, AND OTHER DISASTERS, by Yevgenia Nayberg
“You have to share many things with others … but what you remember belongs to you and you alone,” Yevgenia (Genya) Nayberg writes in the author’s note to her graphic memoir, “Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters.”
The elegantly composed pages of this moving story, told largely through Nayberg’s effervescent illustrations, make clear the special place she holds in her heart for memories of her childhood in Kiev (now spelled Kyiv), Ukraine.
It is 1986, Ukraine is still part of the Soviet empire, and the entire world is anticipating Halley’s comet. Yet there are more important things in Genya’s life than the approaching comet. She is 11 years old and preparing for the entrance exam to Kiev’s National Secondary School of Art.
Inspired by her mother, who is an artist, Genya loves to draw and paint. But there is an obstacle: The family is Jewish and the art school — like many schools in the former Soviet Union — accepts only 1 percent of Jewish applicants.
When Genya was 5, her grandpa, who lived through Stalin’s Terror, told her she should “not stick out in school.” He taught her to read using Pravda, which was filled with articles about imperialism and inflation — evil spirits that haunted her dreams. (Pravda and Izvestiya — The Truth and The News — were the two major newspapers in the Soviet Union, and everyone knew the joke that accurately reflected Soviet reality: There is no news in The Truth and no truth in The News.)
In first grade, Genya’s “Honorary Teacher of the Soviet Union” — as manipulative and sinister as the government she served — demanded unconditional love from the pupils in her class, going so far as to ask them to raise their hands if they were willing to give blood to her in the event she needed a transfusion.
The same year, in military training class, the children learned the pretending game: When Genya complained that the gas mask she was supposed to practice putting on, in case of an American nuclear attack, was too big for her face, the instructor replied, “Pretend that it fits.” Both teachers and students were to pretend that everything in the country was ideal, while they waited for the promised dawn of a bright Soviet future. Nobody knew then that the nuclear fallout would come not from across the ocean but from within.
Now it is spring and Genya is bored, painting Young Pioneers with red neckties (a Soviet national scout group) over and over again at the behest of the tutor who is helping her get ready for the July exam. She consoles herself with the thought that if she is accepted she can paint whatever she likes.
On April 26 there is an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, 90 kilometers from Kiev, but there is no official information about the damage or even about the accident itself. On May 1, International Workers’ Day, everyone goes outside for a parade, as usual.
On the left-hand page of a double-page spread, Kiev, in Nayberg’s exquisitely wrought, soft-hued rendering, is “blooming like a giant cream cake with white, pink and purple chestnut flowers.” On the right-hand page, as if it were part of the same scene, Nayberg has drawn a stark picture of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, stamped with the word “RADIATION” in Russian, that makes it look like a colossal tombstone. “Like every year,” young Genya wryly comments, “it is a perfect day.”
In the absence of information, Genya’s family must rely on rumors. Her mother, the driving force in the book, adds iodine to the children’s milk and takes Genya and her 3-year-old brother 1,300 kilometers away to Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), in Russia, to stay with their cousins.
As Genya bikes by the city’s many World War II monuments that depict victorious soldiers, she encounters “war survivors that never quite survived,” begging for bread. In Soviet Russia, it turns out, they play the pretending game, too.
In July, to their hosts’ horror, Genya and her mother return to Kiev for the exam that cannot be missed. The three-part test — two days for composition, two days for painting and two days for drawing — is grueling.
Happily for Genya and her repeated painting of Young Pioneers cheerfully performing selfless deeds, the theme of the composition portion is “In the Morning of Our Country.” Weirdly, this could be her ticket to freedom of expression.
Nayberg’s narrator is resilient, funny and ironic, observing her surroundings with an artist’s probing eye.
Her story gracefully brings to life the Soviet world — torn down in 1991 and recently resurrected by the latest Russian dictator — provoking thorny questions about different approaches to art, the cost of trying to conform and the complexity of family ties.
“Stories let us hold on to people a little longer,” Nayberg writes at the end of this tender memoir dedicated to her artist mother. Genya’s mom, and the rest of the characters in “Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters,” will stay with me for years to come.
CHERNOBYL, LIFE, AND OTHER DISASTERS | By Yevgenia Nayberg | (Ages 10 and up) | Neal Porter Books | 200 pp. | Paperback, $15.99
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