Juli Fulks reports there are aspects of winning an NCAA basketball title for the first time that test a head coach. One of them is managing the bounty of championship memorabilia that accumulates.
Since Fulks coached the Transylvania University women’s hoops team to a 57-52 win over Christopher Newport University on April 1 in Dallas to complete an undefeated NCAA Division III national championship season, the plaques and awards and official proclamations saluting the Pioneers’ achievement keep rolling in.
“It’s become a bit of a storage challenge,” a smiling Fulks said Tuesday in her office in the Clive M. Beck Center.
Life is different for a national champion.
To start, impressive doors open. Last month, Fulks took her team to the White House.
The Pioneers and other teams from across various collegiate divisions that had won national titles were saluted in Washington, D.C., on June 12 as part of “College Athlete Day.”
A root-canal procedure sidelined President Biden from the festivities, but Fulks and her team were on the White House lawn to hear Vice President Kamala Harris speak about the importance of sports as a vehicle to connect diverse people in our politically polarized nation.
“In the year (of the 50-year anniversary) of Title IX, having our team there with the first female (U.S.) vice president, an African-American, I thought her message really resonated with our players,” Fulks said.
Winning a national title can create high-level networking opportunities. One of Transy’s standouts, forward Dasia Thornton, has the publicly-stated ambition of becoming president of the United States.
“She’s serious,” Fulks said of Thornton’s lofty goal. “She means it.”
Another Transylvania starter, guard Kennedi Stacy, has interest in a possible career in the U.S. Secret Service.
On Transy’s trip to the nation’s capital, both Thornton and Stacy were able to make potentially helpful professional contacts. “Basketball is the best internship ever for all athletes, but I think especially for female athletes,” Fulks said.
Claiming an NCAA title can leave a coach with her own personal inventory of meaningful championship recollections.
The Transy coach said the fact her three siblings — Cheri, Brant and Tim — put their lives in Ohio on hold and drove to Dallas so they could be there to see Fulks coach for the national title “was a really heartfelt moment for me.”
Fulks cherishes a picture of the five youngest of her eight nieces and nephews holding the NCAA championship trophy after Transylvania won it all.
Transylvania women’s basketball coach Juli Fulks’ The five youngest nieces and nephews hold the championship trophy after the Pioneers won the 2023 NCAA Division III Tournament. From left, Lorelei, Kinsey, Christian, Ettilee and Clara Fulks.
Transylvania women’s basketball coach Juli Fulks’ The five youngest nieces and nephews hold the championship trophy after the Pioneers won the 2023 NCAA Division III Tournament. From left, Lorelei, Kinsey, Christian, Ettilee and Clara Fulks. Photo provided
Strangers cheering the Transylvania players as they carried the NCAA championship trophy through the airport in Dallas on the night the Pioneers had won it all is another memory that Fulks will long treasure.
Winning the national title can draw new attention to the stellar record of a coach who toils far from college basketball’s marquee lights.
A native of Dola, Ohio, Fulks began her head coaching career in 2004 at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Over her first five seasons, Fulks went 58-67.
However, through the influence of her now longtime aide, Tim Whitesel, Fulks became an early adapter to using advanced statistical information to improve basketball strategies.
Over her final four seasons at Lewis & Clark, Fulks went 87-25. Since coming to Transylvania in 2014, she is 211-38 in nine years. For the past five seasons, Transy is 126-13. Fulks and Transylvania have gone 60-1 over the past two seasons.
Bob Ryan, the legendary basketball writer of Boston Globe fame, visited the Transylvania campus in 2022. He apparently came away impressed by Fulks. During Transy’s drive to the NCAA title, Ryan tweeted that Fulks “may be the best-kept, superb coaching secret in America.”
At some point, isn’t some forward-thinking NCAA Division I athletics director going to give Fulks a chance to prove her coaching mettle at the highest level of college hoops?
Actually, that chance might have already come. “As you would have guessed, I’ve had lots of opportunity,” Fulks said.
However, Fulks says there is much keeping her at Transy. In Transylvania Athletics Director Holly Sheilley, Fulks said, “I have the best boss in the country — and I am smart enough to know that. But I know how the world views success in basketball coaching: You move up.
“Maybe my views of what success is don’t always align with that. I really am lucky now. I have a great family, great friends, have a great job. I really feel like I am winning at every turn right now.”
To win a repeat national championship in 2023-24, Transylvania will have to do it without star guard Madison Kellione (team highs of 15.3 points and 4.4 assists a game last season). Deciding to test herself in NCAA Division I, Kellione has transferred to Tennessee Tech.
Even so, Fulks knows what having four starters back from an undefeated national champion means.
“High expectations,” she said.
The Transylvania women’s basketball team was saluted at the White House on June 12 as part of “College Athletes Day” for its undefeated NCAA Division III national title.
The Transylvania women’s basketball team was saluted at the White House on June 12 as part of “College Athletes Day” for its undefeated NCAA Division III national title. Johnny Bivera Visual Media One via Transylvania
By all evidence, the culture Fulks has constructed in the Transylvania women’s basketball program is built to endure any challenges that arise after having attained the ultimate team success.
On the trip to Washington, D.C., last month, Fulks said “College Athlete Day” had one disappointing note: The ceremony ended with the White House lawn strewn with plastic cups left by some of the same athletes who had been honored.
In response and without prompting, the members of Transylvania’s national championship team picked up every last one of those cups until the White House lawn was again pristine.
“Part of our (team) culture, we don’t leave any place worse than when we found it,” Fulks said. “No one asked or told (the Transy players) to do that. That was a moment where I had real pride in my team.”
