My first encounter with Maleia Bracone occurred when I interned with North Carolina A&T Aggies Athletics. Meleia and I are both journalism and mass communications students in the sports communications office at A&T. She is looking for those golden 60 practicum hours we have all had to seek, and I'm looking to write as much as I can to fattened my resume. 

I noticed how quiet she was and thought she was the kind of lady who just wanted to be left alone. However, the more I got to know her, the more I thought, "Nah, she's cool and almost humble to a fault. 

Maleia would walk into our sports communications meetings in September and October with A&T gym shorts and lettering on a jersey that read North Carolina A&T Women's Basketball. Like the other six students at the meetings, Maleia had aspirations of making it in the highly-competitive media world. But later, I discovered, she may have other plans before she makes it big on television. 

Maleia is a member of the A&T women's basketball team. Once the 2022-23 season started, we all figured out how good of a basketball player. Crossover dribbles, sweet passes, and drives to the basket complemented three-pointers. The woman has skills. 

But like she left our meetings so many times, after swishing a few threes and dropping a few dimes, Maleia quietly walks off the court with a quick wave to her family and a giant smile for everyone else. 

"She is a humble beast," said teammate Nyah Willis. 

Fittingly, Bracone is from the humble, small town of Anderson, S.C. It is a town so small, Bracone graduated high school with some of the same classmates that were in her kindergarten class. Anderson is not so small, however, that Bracone could not find a love for basketball. Spearheaded by her father, Michael, and mother, Sonya, who played shooting and point guard, respectively, during their school days.

"My dad coached me when I was 5," said Bracone as we chit-chatted about the good old days. "I was kind of born to love basketball." 

Bracone joined a YMCA Rec League at 5, and when she was 12, she began playing with an AAU team. Bracone chose to play Division I college basketball at Presbyterian College out of high school, so I had seen Maleia before because the Blue Hose played A&T during the 2021-22 season. But unfortunately, I didn't pay much attention to my future classmate and intern buddy. 

Bracone transferred to A&T because she wanted to find someplace where she fit in. I can understand that. I did not start at A&T either. Like Maleia, I started at a school in my hometown – Trident Technical College in Charleston, S.C. But when you find that happy place, you know … you just know. So when Bracone visited A&T on a recruiting visit, she felt comfortable in the environment. "This is the school for me," she remembers thinking. 

We have a lot in common, but she has a little more talent than me on a basketball court. Plus, I'm biased toward her since we bonded over a few sports communications meetings at A&T's Moore Gymnasium. A tougher critic would give me a different perspective, so I went to talk to Maleia's coach, head women's basketball coach Tarrell Robinson. 

After a game, I met C-Rob, as he is affectionately known to his players. He has won at A&T way more than he has lost, but on this night, they did not win. As if walking up to a coach after a loss is not scary enough, coach Robinson stands at 6-foot-7 with an authoritative voice and demeanor. But as we talked, he could not have been more gracious with his time and praise of Maleia.  

"Maleia brings everything to the game," said Robinson. "She's a very well-rounded person and a well-rounded basketball player. I am so glad she decided to come to A&T, and I think her best basketball is ahead of her." 

Willis calls her the teammate everybody likes. Willis knows Bracone way better than me. She transferred to A&T with Maleia from Presbyterian. They are like sisters. "We annoy each other, steal each other's clothes, and eat each other's food," said Willis. "But it's all out of love, and I am extremely thankful to have met her and developed this lifelong friendship." 

Maleia and I are not close like that. But we once shared an internship before I knew how gifted she was as a basketball player. I'm thankful because I got to understand the person before the baller. Maleia wants to do sideline reporting at games. She can also see herself working as a content creator for a professional sports franchise. 

Perhaps our paths will meet again in the future, with two young minority females making big in the world of sports. Who knows? I do know Maleia taught me a valuable lesson. There is more to a person than what they can do in a particular sport.