Wake Forest Athletics
Gold Rush: Keila Evans Feature
2/16/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 16, 2006
By Sam Walker
At 6-3, Keila Evans stands out in a crowd. As a senior center on the Wake Forest women's basketball team, that's exactly what her Deacon coaches hope she does the entire 2005-06 season. As a junior who started 23 of 26 games a season ago, Evans represents the veteran in the low post on a team that now has some size down low but not a lot experience. Evans says she knows the mantle of leadership is hers by default as a senior but is ready to handle the responsibilities that go with knowing the ropes.
"Keila works hard in practice and in games, and what we're looking for now is her leadership," associate head coach Fred Applin said. "For someone who has been here four years, we look for leadership in games and in practice. Keila is a person who can help us. She has had game experience, and the person who has had minutes is the person we are looking for right now."
Evans has come far fast when one considers she didn't begin playing basketball until the eighth grade. As a highly touted player from Baltimore, Md., Evans made a name for herself primarily using her height. Sometimes having such a physical advantage can become a disadvantage.
"Unlike a lot of my teammates who started playing basketball when they were six years-old, I didn't start until I was 14 years of age," Evans said. "I had a lot of catching up to do. Then when you're the tallest girl in Baltimore you don't have to know too many fundamentals. Learning plays really wasn't a factor because you're tall. College was a big transition because I had to learn the fundamentals all over again, and I had to learn the game all over."
Adding to the difficult transition was the fact she didn't even join the team until after the fall semester of her freshman year. She was thrown into the fray in the middle of the season playing 16 games, 13 of them ACC contests. Evans began her career without the luxury of preseason practices and well behind the learning curve.
"Usually coming in as a freshman, you get a session of summer school and then start the fall," Evans said. "I came in and had no idea how hard college was going to be. I came straight in, and it was get going, this is what you need to do. At first it was overwhelming coming in and playing right away. I had to come in, learn plays and how to be disciplined. That's a huge thing in college - discipline."
Evans handles the stress of academic and athletic responsibilities through another discipline -- art. Her interests in art and basketball run parallel, but they have proven to be rewarding in distinctly different ways. Art offers a creative escape from the grind of everyday routine. Evans began drawing seriously in the eighth grade when she tinkered with emulating cartoon characters she found in the Baltimore Sun. She sketched on notebook paper but never really had a chance to fully develop her art throughout her high school years because she began playing basketball that same year. Her mother, Glorious Taylor, nurtured her interest in art, taking her to museums and urging her to look closely at different forms.
"I had no idea I had any art talent," Evans said. "I tried to design clothes for my Barbie dolls. For some reason, I have always had a passion for designing clothes, but I didn't know it was something that would follow me to college. I wanted to be a psychologist." Now majoring in studio art, Evans prefers charcoal pencil and most recently has developed a fondness for oil painting because of a recent class. Now considering major decisions about her future after college, Evans is looking at fashion design schools in Milan, Italy and in New York City.
"I'm looking at a lot of options trying figure out what I want to do," Evans said. "Milan is the capital of fashion design, so I want to go where the best is. I watch the Style channel and the Learning Channel. Fashion design and interior design is my thing right now."
Fashion and design will wait until after graduation and what Evans anticipates will be a highly successful senior campaign. Statistically Evans' game has improved with each season, and with the hours of work she put in over the summer and over the fall semester's individual workouts, she is poised to have her best season ever. This year, she will have the challenges of being a consistent performer as well as a team leader. The makeup of the team, along with the return of Melissa Washington from an ACL injury, will allow Evans to not only play in the low post but also play forward.
"We told her she has to be consistent inside the post, and we told her she has to score and be a presence on the post," Applin said. "Then, Melissa can come in and play the five position, and she can move back to four. We can play both of them together, and that's something we didn't have last year -- a big 6-5 post player (Washington). Everybody can play their natural position, and that's big.
"With Evans' ability to run the floor that's when she can score a lot. When she is in transition and can get on the block and score, or step out and hit a little jumper... She is always around the basket."
"I'm very proud of adding range to my game," Evans said. "We haven't had much depth in the post over the last three years so I had to play in the post. Now Coach Petersen has it setup where I can play facing the basket, and I'm able to create more shots and show my athleticism. I think I'm more comfortable facing the basket, and I have to have confidence I can shoot that shot and not just use my strength in the post. I can use that to my advantage against some of the bigger girls in the ACC."
Leadership may not be a role Evans naturally embraces, but it's a much-needed role she is best suited to fill on the 2005-06 team. Having experienced so much so fast Evans finds it hard to believe her collegiate basketball career is almost through. Having persevered, she'll lead the best way she knows how.
"I'm working my way into it because it's really just a shock that I'm a senior already," Evans said. "We had wonderful leadership (last year), so there are big shoes we have to fill, and I'm looking forward to taking on that leadership role with Cotelia Bond-Young, Liz Strunk and Porsche Jones."
"Leadership-wise she knows what Coach Petersen, wants and she just has to be consistent everyday," Applin said. "Last year what we didn't have in the post was a leader, and she is a true leader at that position. It's her senior year. This is it, and I think she wants to end it very well."
