Focus on Sports

She let God be the reason

“I was praying and as soon as I got up off my knees my mom said, ‘Marquette is on the phone.’”

In Efueko Osagie’s mind that telephone call was one of the signs she credits with bringing her to Marquette. There had been others. When Osagie was being recruited, Head Coach Terri Mitchell invited her to visit campus on a weekend so they could go to church together. “It hit me hard to see the harmony here,” she says. “Once Coach Mitchell told me how she wants faith and sports to work together, I knew I’d come to Marquette.”

Osagie’s passions for sports and her faith are tightly knit. She called on her faith when it seemed basketball might be taken away. She was running a drill before a big game her junior year of high school when she hyperextended her knee. No one could say for sure whether she’d compete again. But Osagie talked to God: “I decided that if I wanted to play ball I needed a reason, and why not let God be the reason?”

She called on her faith again when it came time to choose a college program. She sought one that would also offer “a church home.” She found it here.

Now in her fourth season at Marquette, she is a powerful force on the basketball court and a strong (she says “loud”) alto on Marquette’s Gospel Choir and the women’s choir at Mt. Zion Assembly Healing Temple in Milwaukee. Fans are often surprised to also see No. 32 step up to the microphone to sing the national anthem before tip-off.

Coming to Marquette has given her freedom to grow as an athlete and a woman of faith. “Coach Mitchell told me about her strong faith and it was just a relief to be able to talk about more than basketball with a coach. If a coach has a love for God, they will automatically love you,” she says.