米凯拉VanderKlugt, 22岁, a 生物学 辅修的专业 pre-nursing, 成为第一个进2分的康科迪亚球员,000点并收集1,在NCAA DII时代，他拿到了5000个篮板. She was named the DIICCA West Region Player of the Year and the PacWest Conference Player of the Year. 今年秋天，她开始了她的职业生涯 篮球 career in Europe, playing for the BC马尔堡制药公司 Blue Dolphins.
“She’s a once-in-a-very-blue-moon type of player that a coach gets,康科迪亚女篮教练说 克里斯汀Collins-Kiernan他是前DI助理教练. “She’s the PacWest rebound leader, and Concordia’s rebound leader. I don’t know if anybody will ever touch those numbers.”
All this after VanderKlugt was written off by many college coaches who scouted her in high school after she suffered two ACL tears by the time she was 16.
“回来后，我的身体不一样了，”她说. “我必须学会以不同的方式移动. 我戴了膝盖支架. 在我受伤之后，教练们都把我排除在外了.”
她说，那是一段“非常令人沮丧”的时光. “I knew my potential and what I was willing to do, and I just needed someone who was willing to take a chance on me.”
She was close to giving up sports when Collins-Kiernan, 谁看过她的游戏录像, 邀请她参观康科迪亚的校园.
“We started talking, and a lot of it wasn’t 篮球,” VanderKlugt remembers. “She wanted to know me as a person and to know my family more than my physical capabilities.”
Collins-Kiernan told her, “I love the way your mind competes. 你有目标和梦想，我也有. 我们一起来. I promise if you buy into me and give me your four years, I will make you freshman of the year and All-American.”
“我当时想，‘哇，她在我身上看到了这一点? I don’t even see this in myself,’范德克鲁格特说.
Collins-Kiernan has a proven knack for seeing undeveloped talent and identifying players who haven’t hit their ceiling yet.
“With Michaela, there was room for development,” the coach says. “She was an undersized player at about six feet tall, and that’s how people were viewing her. I saw a kid who could shoot the ball, was strong and a great rebounder. But the greatest thing I saw was an ultra-competitive kid out to prove something, who had tangible goals written down that she wanted to accomplish.”
范德克鲁格特接受了这个提议, and Collins-Kiernan challenged her to set goals for one year, 三年, 四年后, 然后朝着所有这些目标稳步努力. 大一那年, VanderKlugt started every game and averaged double digits in points in every game—“which is crazy hard,” says Collins-Kiernan—and was indeed named conference freshman of the year.
这个队的表现超出了预期, 太, qualifying for the conference tournament in its first year of DII eligibility and finishing third against the pre-season consensus that they would finish ninth.
“每年，她的技术水平都在提高,” Collins-Kiernan says of VanderKlugt. “At the end of the year, we do a plan for each player. She always followed that plan off-season and came back better. 她从不堕落. 她一年比一年好.范德克鲁格特说 her coach was strict with her, but knew how to get the best out of her.
VanderKlugt has an innate feel for good footwork and the ability to step around people without traveling, using ball fakes and head fakes to create enough space to get a shot off. She also learned to see passing lanes developing before they appeared.
“她有两种超能力，”柯林斯-基尔南说. “首先是她的成长型思维. She has a strong desire to be a lifelong learner and is never satisfied with what she’s currently accomplished. The other thing is her work ethic and consistency. 她没有不愉快的日子. She shows up every day and gets something out of that practice.”
In five years as an Eagle, VanderKlugt never missed a game or a practice. 她打过多个位置，主要是内线. Over the years she fought through injuries big and small, 领导团队, and even lived in the dorms on campus during the summer to work out with other players and receive private training.
每年，她的技术水平都在提高.
She set the school record and PacWest Conference record for career rebounds. She now ranks second all-time at Concordia in career points. She was named PacWest Player of the Week a league-record 14 times. She averaged a double-double during her final season, and shot nearly 50 percent from the field and 36 percent on 3-pointers.
大四那年, she achieved her final individual goal: to be named a first-team All-American, one of just five female players in DII in the nation to make the first team.
“That’s one of the things I’m most proud of as an athlete, is my All-American,” she says. “But the thing I’m most proud of is I left a great legacy as an athlete and a person. I built relationships with professors, with students, with other athletes. I think I embraced the whole experience of a student-athlete to the fullest in my five years here. 我为自己的成绩感到骄傲.”
Her next step is playing professional women’s 篮球 in Europe, fulfilling another dream she has nurtured since grade school. 5月, she signed a pro contract to play for a German team, BC马尔堡制药公司, 被称为蓝海豚. It is the first time in Concordia’s NCAA DII era that a women’s 篮球 alum will play professionally overseas.
“I knew from a young age I wanted to become a pro and would do anything to get there,范德克鲁格特说. “这是我热爱并充满激情的事情.”
她希望能打几个赛季, then perhaps coach in the Women’s National Basketball Association or go into nursing. 她会得到她的 Master’s in Coaching and 正规博彩网站排名亚洲体育博彩平台 Administration 从博彩平台网址大全毕业.