USA Today FREMONT, Calif. — Beneath the foggy mirror in a makeshift locker room no bigger than a storage closet sit 11 women, their wide eyes affixed to an overdressed basketball coach who is delivering a pregame speech that is equal parts inspiration and four-letter words.
The scene plays out at colleges across the country each night, but on this rainy evening inside a dimly lit Bay Area junior college gymnasium, it serves as prelude to a debut unlike any other in the sport’s history.
When the focus of the 12-minute pep talk pivots to this topic, the eyes of 10 18- to 20-year-old women – including one deaf player and another woman a few inches shy of 5-feet – focus on the one Mission College player who has yet to play this season. There near the door sits the oldest (50 years old), tallest (6-feet-6, 230 pounds) and most muscular person in the room: Gabrielle Ludwig.
Ludwig is 50 and last played a college basketball game in 1980 – as a man. They don’t know the odyssey: one failed suicide attempt, two failed marriages; one 19-year-old daughter who insists on calling her dad, two girls who insist on calling her Momma Gabbi.
Written by Eric Prisbell, Read full article here on USA TODAY Sports