7 minute read
Mayberry breaks 1,500 points
Upon starting her collegiate basketball career, Maya Mayberry didn’t have a numerical scoring goal for her time at TU. However, as the games and seasons progressed, it was quickly apparent that Mayberry was going to break 1500 career points, whether it were a goal of hers or not.
The fifth-year shooting guard on the Tulsa women’s basketball team surpassed 1,500 career points after scoring a three pointer against UCF on Jan. 7. The team screamed, jumping up and down and throwing water to celebrate the mile marker while Mayberry jogged into position to play defense.
Advertisement
Wanting to achieve the 1,500 point mark was a “growing process” as Mayberry says. She didn’t begin her career with the lofty goal, but began to realize it was something she could definitely achieve.
Mayberry started off her career-long process at Oral Roberts University before transferring during the 2020-2021 season to TU. For many athletes, the “COVID season” is looked back on with dread and feelings of being tricked out of a season of their favorite sport. Mayberry looks back on the season fondly though, as she had a unique experience not many other athletes have. The season allowed her to play with a younger sister on the court, Wyvette, and an older sister on the coaching staff, Taleya.
“I had the best of both worlds [that season] with a coach I was related to and a teammate I was related to, it can’t get better than that.”
Mayberry grew up in a “basketball family”. Her dad was an integral part of his
Arkansas team and Taleya played professional basketball for three years overseas. She never had the chance to play with any of her siblings before this point. In high school, Maya was a senior and Wyvette, a freshman. Despite being on the same team, Maya played point guard and Wyvette was her back up, so they were never on the court at the same time.
Joining TU during the 2020-2021 season also allowed Mayberry to experience the rebuilding of the TU women’s team from the ground up. She feels that the main difference with their new coach, Coach Angie Nelp, is the speed of play. “With Coach Angie right now, we play so fast. That’s been a big turnaround from what was previously going on.”
Coach Angie is also big on relationships, and making sure the teammates are forming bonds. Although Coach planned all different types of activities during the summer to help build chemistry, “[they] just molded pretty well together, it was pretty natural.”
Mayberry said most of the real bonding came in the weight room or on the court. She says, “All the hard work we have put in during preseason made us come together more because during those hard workouts, those hard times, we had to lift each other up because we’re all we had.”
The team is currently 15-3 overall and sitting at an undefeated 5-0 in their conference, making them the team to beat. Despite definitely “enjoying [their] success”, Mayberry says it’s not hard to stay focused when winning, that “the success [they’ve] had just makes [them] focus even more.”
Personally, Mayberry likes having this “chip on her shoulder” type of success, as it “adds a rush” to the games. She played hard for the 2020 team that “had nothing to lose, and just went out there to play” and she’s continuing to play hard for the team that goes out “to win these games because people are coming for [them].”
Tulsa women’s basketball still has a lot of important games left in the season. They have yet to lose a home game, which Mayberry believes “shows that [they] play hard and fight for [their] home court.”
Their next home game is Jan. 25, where they will have the opportunity to break the record for most home games won in a row against USF. In Mayberry’s time as a Golden Hurricane, she has never beaten USF, so the game is “something [she’s] definitely looking forward to.”
Photo by Callie Hummel
Sports writer Ryan Shumaker speaks on the good and the bad of the World Cup.
Courtesy @IaIigafrauds on Twitter
The 2022 FIFA World Cup saw the might of football’s powerhouse nations clash with a resilient rising tide of smaller nations to produce unforgettable moments of magic and drama. Unfortunately, there is a dark side of this World Cup’s story which its hosts and governing body would rather not be told. While the football aspect brought fantastic flair, the world’s most beloved carnival was staged at the expense of the rights and lives of thousands. Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup was the centerpiece of their broader sports-washing mission and an unnerving reflection of how humanity’s greatest game is being used to brighten the perception of totalitarian governments around the globe.
For every criticism levied and scandal uncovered, this World Cup produced an inspiring moment of beauty on the field to drag eyes away from the cruel reality of it. In February of 2021, it was revealed in an article from the Guardian that 6,750 South Asian migrant workers brought to Qatar to construct the tournament’s necessary infrastructure died between 2011 and 2020, one of which was a Filipino worker who died while working to repair lights at a team’s training facility just 10 days before the World Cup final. When asked about the death, Qatar’s World Cup chief executive Nasser Al-Khater demonstrated the state’s unambiguous indifference towards the lives of migrant workers when he stated, “Death is a natural part of life – whether it’s at work, whether it’s in your sleep.” Furthermore, a report published by Amnesty International in 2021 indicates that roughly 70 percent of the migrant worker deaths are either vaguely attributed to “cardiac arrest” and “natural causes” or are a result of “unclassified” incidents.
The Qatari state’s apathy towards the mass death of migrant workers paired with their continued abuse of the workers who survived led many people to conclude that Qatar hosting the World Cup was a humanitarian negative for that region of the world. mophobia and systemic racism. However, citing these issues to call Americans who criticize Qatar hypocrites is no different than insisting Americans should remain silent about Russia invading Ukraine because we once wrongfully invaded Iraq. To find an
example of real hypocrisy, look no further than FIFA running anti-discrimination and LGBTQ+ pride campaigns in the summer, then threatening teams at the World Cup with sporting sanctions if their captain wore a OneLove armband in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
Qatar’s sports-washing ventures extend far beyond the World Cup. Paris Saint Germain FC is owned by the Qatari state, and it just so happens that the Parisian club’s two biggest stars were shining brighter than ever in Doha as they lit up the World Cup final. Argentines and those pious to Messi everywhere finally witnessed their idol immortalized while the French and a young generation of fans will forever remember their hero Mbappe scoring a hat-trick in the final. Finally, as Messi was presented with the trophy, the Emir of Qatar placed a black Middle Eastern garment known as a Bisht on his shoulders, largely covering the Argentina jersey, ensuring the Qatari state’s attachment to the historic moment and applying the finishing touch on a 12-year project to obscure the world’s view of the humanitarian horror show taking place in Qatar.
In response to this consensus, officials from FIFA and Qatar advised such critics to remember how the Arab World united in celebration when Saudi Arabia defeated Argentina and when Morocco became the first African team to reach a World Cup semifinal. Additionally, they point to the abundance of Palestine flags that were waved by fans in support of the long oppressed Arab nation. However, these wonderful moments of unity were solely down to the enduring magic of football, rather than the actions of FIFA or the Qatari state. While underdog nations flourished on the field, it is unlikely that their accomplishments recompensed Indian workers who were treated like slaves or provided any solace to the Nepalese families who lost loved ones as they built the stage for Qatar’s ultimate show.
Another method of deflection employed by Qatar was accusing critics from Western nations of hypocrisy, racism and cultural intolerance. Unfortunately, this tactic seems effective in swaying many Western liberals who fail to understand that one can fight injustice at home and still condemn atrocities abroad. The United States is far from being the world’s standard bearer for workers’ rights and is still deeply infected with ho-
