John Espenmiller, Sandy's dad, the Cylone-est of them all, joins daughter and granddaughter. Now she's in Iowa City, or about the worst place on the planet if you're an Espenmiller. Later it will be All Iowa Attack, where she'll be clubmates with Caitlin Clark, one year her junior, two peas, one pod. There she discovers there are girls just like her, who only need a ball and a hoop to find true happiness. She looks 20 miles north, to Des Moines, and finds Kingdom Hoops. She'd hoop from sunup to sundown if she could, the only one of her kind, at least with that kind of love, that kind of passion for the game, in Indianola. There she is as a sixth grader, basketball now in control of her heart and every extra minute she has in her day. The other parents start to complain, about this girl who's beating on the boys, knocking them to the ground, secretly counting to herself: 5, 10, 15. I'll give you $5 for every yellow card you receive. Yellow cards, the ones given for playing a little too roughly? Yeah, those are good. Maggie's playing with the boys, so mom comes up with a way to heighten her motivation to up the physicality in her game. There's another, of Maggie playing soccer, the sport she almost chose over basketball, her mom sitting quietly on the sideline, not able to offer up any kind of advice in this strange sport, other than the cash incentive she came up with. Finally, in sixth grade, mom rebounds for daughter as she finally reaches the 3-point line, form perfect, a self-correcting skill she has carried on, fixing herself when her shot goes awry. She's tall and skinny and without the strength. Not as a third grader, a fourth grader, a fifth grader. You can move back when, and only when, you're strong enough to keep your form, while kids at other baskets shot from the hip, if not lower, from the alluring 3-point line. Maggie is shooting, form perfect, just feet from the basket, her mom's one rule of basketball that will not be broken. There's one, of Maggie in the gym with her mom, Sandy, a product of Iowa's 6-on-6 basketball heritage before it went away for good in 1993, the nostalgia overtaken by lawsuits that said the state's girls were being overlooked in recruiting by college coaches who needed 5-on-5 skills. It's an image that begins this story, one that can be told through snapshots of Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw's life. It's all a family requires, school and sports teams. Iowa State jerseys, ISU pom-poms scattered throughout, all three sitting in front of the Let's Go State yard sign. You can see it in the picture, an Iowa State starter kit: Maggie, maybe 6 or 7, with Lizzie, a few years younger, sitting next to her, Spencer, the youngest, being held upright in Maggie's arms. It's cardinal, it's gold, it's the life cycle: You're born, you go to Iowa State, you live your life, you pass on but not before passing down those genes to the next round. It's been that way for generations, Maggie, who was raised in Indianola, in a state that cherishes and celebrates girls' basketball like none other, part of the fourth that began with her great-grandfather, in all more than 30 from the Espenmiller clan attending the school. That roadway, two hours from town to city, might as well double as a series of roots, connecting a family's heart and history to the Cyclones. Pull up Ames on a map, trace your finger west, using Highway 30 as your guide, and you'll eventually land on Logan as you near the Nebraska border. For starters, you have to understand how odd, how out of the box, it is that Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw is even here, in Missoula, in her first weeks as a Lady Griz after playing (okay, not always playing but instead sidelined with injuries, but we'll get there) for four seasons at Iowa State.
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