For athletes, the acronym “ACL” is never not followed with an immediate cringe. Petal’s Myla Cox, who tore her ACL in the summer of 2018 playing AAU basketball, says the injury is the toughest obstacle she’s faced in life, but she also views it as somewhat of a blessing in disguise.
“It led me to sit down and really look into what I could go into after basketball,” she said.
A standout on the court and in the classroom, Cox wasn’t short on options. A handful of Division I programs from across the country came calling, but with Cox being an aspiring Biomedical Engineer, that field narrowed.
Brown University, which boasts one of the most prestigious Biomedical Engineering programs in the country, was one of two Ivy League schools that offered Cox a basketball scholarship. After traveling up to Providence, Rhode Island and taking a visit to the school last September, Cox knew that was where she was destined to be.
The six-foot forward put pen to paper and officially signed with the Bears on Wednesday.
“To be quite honest, I never, ever would’ve thought I’d go Ivy League ball,” she said. “It’s really hard, especially for a black female from Mississippi, to make it to such a prestigious school like this. But I have nothing but God in my head, he led me there.”
There, Cox is thrilled to continue her basketball career, but she’s also got an eye on the future.
“Once I graduate and I get a job, I know this will take me to something that I really wanna pursue,” she said. “Praying, putting in the hard work and being dedicated to your craft, it takes you a long way, and I think that’s for anything you wanna do.”
Speaking of a long way, Brown is about 1400 miles away from Petal, but the distance between the destinations didn’t faze Cox.
“I didn’t want that to be the reason why I didn’t choose the school of my dreams.”
Cox describes Providence as “the perfect mix between city and beach”.
“I’m gonna have a lot of fun up there,” she said. “It’s a lot different from the south, mentality-wise and location-wise, so it’s gonna take a lot of adjusting, especially the winters. But I have my family, my coaches and my teammates on my side, and they’re gonna help me through everything.
“I’ve gotten this far so I might as well keep going.”
