Freshman orientation with Katie Mayhue

Katie Mayhue has issues.

A past addiction to Fortnite. A lack of trust in anyone with the word coach in their job title. An obsession with Arizona.

Not the state but that school's women's basketball program. Because she was on the court in December, when the Wildcats didn't relent despite entering the fourth quarter of the teams' game in Tucson with a 37-point lead.

Arizona would press and score its way to a 100-51 victory.

The shot clock was turned off after Mayhue, who led Montana with 17 points, missed with 15 seconds left. The score was 98-51. Rather than run out the clock, the Wildcats got off three shots in the last six seconds, their 100th point rolling in as the final horn sounded.

The gnashing of teeth from Montana's postgame locker room still echoes.

"After the game I was fueled," says Mayhue, who has played just 31 minutes since Jan. 10 and is sitting out the remainder of the season because of a foot injury. The lack of competition is doing nothing but allowing those internal fires, which have no outlet, to burn even hotter.

The date of Arizona's trip next winter to Missoula as part of the home-and-home agreement has not been finalized. When it is, at least one Lady Griz will be flipping the calendar ahead and uncapping a pen of red ink.

"They were so arrogant. There is no point in scoring 100 points on someone and still pressing them. I want to do that to them. I want to rub it in their face next year," says Mayhue.

And if Montana was sitting on 98 points and in possession with the shot clock turned off in the rematch, and if coach Shannon Schweyen was telling Mayhue to dribble out the clock?

"I'm taking the shot. For sure. I'm going out for blood next year. On every team but them especially. That still fires me up," Mayhue says.

December 5 was hardly the genesis of that passion. To find its source, you've got to go back years, to Casper, Wyoming.

"She's been super competitive since before she could walk," says Mayhue's mom, Susie, who gifted her daughter with an older brother, Tyler. And later a younger brother, Kale.

"She was always competing with her brother. I can drink my milk faster than you. They'd go to the dentist and it would be, How many cavities do you have? I have less than you. With everything in her life, she competes constantly."

Basketball with the Lady Griz is only the most recent outlet for that competitiveness. Or was until early January.

Katie Mayhue's issues? The most pressing one now is that foot.

Everything seemed fine up until Montana's home game against Eastern Washington. She was in the starting lineup by the second game of the season and scored 17 points on Arizona, a total she would match in early January, when her five 3-pointers rescued the Lady Griz at Sacramento State.

But after scoring six points against the Eagles, her season went the way of Madi Schoening. And Sophia Stiles. And Taylor Goligoski.

"After the game, I was listening to the talk in the locker room and got up to go change and couldn't walk it hurt so bad," says Mayhue, who sat for two weeks before giving it another go at Idaho State. Then for eight minutes two days later at Weber State. Finally eight more at Montana State a week after that.

"We thought I was ready to go. All I did was make a cut, and I couldn't even walk after that at MSU."

Two tendons were torn, one along the ankle, one along the arch. Another was partially torn. Had her arch collapsed in the process, her playing career would have been done.

"It was the most painful thing I've ever felt. It shot a pain that went straight from my toe halfway up my shin. I just called it," she says.

To see Mayhue rolling around campus these days, her injured foot in a cast and propped up on a knee scooter, is to see a high achiever sidelined and out of her element.

That's not to say things have always come easily for Mayhue -- that would discount the work she's put in -- but they've certainly come naturally.

"My favorite story is when she was in kindergarten. She invited two friends over and took them out to our front driveway where we had a basketball hoop. Okay, you stand here and you stand here. I'm going to dribble over here and pass it to you. She had this whole play going on," recalls Susie.

"Those two little girls stood there looking at her like, We don't know what you're doing. It was hilarious, but that's always been Katie."

When classmates weren't around, the driveway became the site of Mayhue Ball, as Katie calls it. It's a family activity/challenge/proving ground that continues to this day. Mom and dad and one of the kids against the other two. And there is trash talking. And often weeping.

"We always end up with someone crying. Usually it's my little brother. That's when you know you've got to someone good," says Mayhue.

She was getting asked to be on travel teams by the time she was in second grade, she played her way to first-chair saxophone by middle school, and she tied for second at the Wyoming Class 4A state track and field meet as a freshman in the high jump for Natrona County High.

She was on a steep trajectory in everything she was doing. Then she joined the Northwest Blazers travel basketball team, in the process becoming teammates with future Lady Griz Jordyn Schweyen and Kylie Frohlich, and things really changed. Wyoming was the first school to reach out.

"It was totally shocking. Then a bunch of other teams started contacting me. I was pretty overwhelmed," she says.

Then the Pac-12 school reached out. And Katie Mayhue was awestruck.

"We sat in (the coach's) office when she was a sophomore in high school," Susie recalls. "He was not going to let us go until he had a commitment.

"I asked him, 'But she's so young. Is this offer always going to be here? Are you always going to feel this way about her?' 'Oh, absolutely. I want her on my team so bad. We're going to build a team around her.' He just went on and on and on. So I said, 'Okay, we're trusting you.' "

It was a family opportunity for the Mayhues, one they were all going to be an active part of, so Steve, a high school math teacher, and Susie, an elementary teacher, both found jobs in Albany, Ore., and the entire clan pulled up the roots they'd established in Wyoming and moved west.

Schools kept contacting her, offers kept coming her way. All were let down easily. Mayhue had found her dream school, her dream program.

"I was full-bore in. I went to every single basketball game of theirs I could. I went and did open gyms with the players," says Mayhue, who the summer after her junior year at South Albany High traveled to Italy with the Adidas USA Select team.

It was when she returned home from Italy that she first sensed the change. A coaching staff that had been in constant communication with her went strangely quiet.

A program that ends every social-media offering with #WeAreFamily was, unbeknownst to her, on its way toward divorcing itself from Mayhue. It had found someone new, someone it liked better. Old promises no longer applied. Besides, no papers had been signed.

"I didn't hear from them for three months, so I was worrying and stressed out. I was anxious because I thought something was up," says Mayhue.

It was. Soon it was October, the month before signing day. Wanting to force some conversation between the two sides, Mayhue, on the advice of her dad, reached out and asked about how things would work on the big day, when she was announced as part of the school's next class of recruits.

The return text arrived. It read: I'll have my assistant coach call you tonight.

"My stomach just dropped. I knew something was up," says Mayhue. "I was waiting all day for my phone to ring. My dad kept telling me, It's going to be fine. They made a commitment to you.

"When I picked up the phone, the first thing (the assistant coach) said was, 'Our team is full. There isn't a spot for you anymore.' I thought it was a joke at first. After I got off the phone with them, I remember sitting there thinking, I don't know if I want to play basketball anymore."

Signing day was just weeks away.

In an effort to minimize the damage, Mayhue began reaching out to the schools she'd turned down. Sorry, we're full is all she heard back.

She's not sure what brought Montana to mind. Perhaps she began reminiscing of earlier times, when everything about the game was simpler, more innocent, more fun. Like when she'd played with Schweyen and Frohlich with the Northwest Blazers.

And weren't those two committed to Montana? And didn't Mayhue know Shannon Schweyen, the coach of the Lady Griz? So she sent Jordyn Schweyen a text message.

Less than two weeks later she and her parents were in Missoula on an official visit.

"It was Homecoming, the weekend the Champions Center opened. I got to watch a great football game and meet all the girls. It was God leading me here," says Mayhue. "I was super excited that a team wanted me."

But to pin it all on some divine plan sure excuses some sketchy behavior.

Susie Mayhue wasn't as easily sold as her daughter. A family had gone all in on a promise made by a coach. Now the Mayhues sat in Shannon Schweyen's office and were hearing the same kind of pitch.

Trust us. We promise. We're family.

"I turned and looked at her and said, 'I'm sorry, I heard these exact same things from (the other coach).' You just sit there and wonder, what is the truth? You don't necessarily trust what anybody says anymore," says Susie. "Is this just another line that someone is using to get you to go to their school?"

But Katie Mayhue was convinced everything had happened for a reason and that the lifeline extended by Schweyen had led her to where she was supposed to be.

So she returned to Albany and promptly did to Schweyen what had been done to her. She left the coach, who was desperate for an answer, praying for it to be yes, hanging and playing out different scenarios in her head, all while wondering what was going on in someone else's.

But the delay was for a good reason. Mayhue didn't want to just make a phone call and declare her intention of signing with the Lady Griz. It deserved something more than that.

"Shannon did a lot for me. She had my back, so I wanted it to be special. My mom and I had this great idea of doing it in a picture frame," says Mayhue.

They took the best photos from their official visit and mounted them, then sent them off to Missoula. Her decision would arrive at the speed of mail. And only Lady Griz assistant coach Mike Petrino was in on the plan.

"Shannon was calling me every day and all I could do was say, 'It's a lot for me to think about,' while knowing it was in the mail," Mayhue says. "And I'm laughing.

"When it arrived, Mike put it in Shannon's cabinet and had her call me before she opened it. It gives me chills thinking about it."

And the Mayhues went all in once again. They now live in Kalispell, where Steve is the assistant principal at Evergreen Middle School and Susie is teaching fourth and fifth grades.

But this isn't a happily-ever-after story. Once the thrill of signing day came and went, the reality of everything that had taken place took hold. The lasting scars ran deeper than anyone imagined.

Katie Mayhue had been damaged by the experience. A coach had stolen her joy, her happiness, her future. He'd taken the game from her. She brought that heavy baggage with her to Montana. If she had a bad practice, a bad game, would her scholarship be pulled?

It's how she approached every day, with an underlying anger, because the trust a player has to have in her coaches wasn't there. It wasn't the fault of Montana's staff. It wasn't the fault of Mayhue either. She was the product of what had been done to her.

During the first part of the season, she rebelled, she resisted, she fought everything. She sought out the negative. She surrounded herself with people who accentuated the darkness. Some wondered if she'd even want to return after the short holiday break.

"It's been a big struggle for Katie," says Susie. "It crumbled her ability to trust."

But these days she's operating in a better place. She has shrunk her circle of friends, to those who bring out the best in her, kicked out those who don't. The joy of the game and of being a member of a team is returning, even if she isn't directly involved because of her injury.

"Now I'm focused on letting out my emotions. I still have some coaching trust issues. There was no way in heck I was ever trusting another coach again. Once one coach did it, I felt all coaches could do it. It's getting better, but it was a really, really big step I had to take," she says.

Mayhue isn't naïve enough to think she is the only player it's happened to, to be cast aside when something potentially better comes along. The win-or-else mentality isn't exclusive to football and men's basketball. It's prevalent in women's basketball as well. All of it comes with a human cost.

"I'd hope he would feel pretty guilty if he saw me. It's part of the college world, but at the same time, everybody has a heart," Mayhue says. "I don't think you can be so cold that you let someone go and be fine with it."

The coach? He called one day. Said Mayhue could practice and redshirt at his school one season and he'd help her find a new landing spot. Then the kicker: an insufferable suggestion that there shouldn't be any hard feelings on her end, because it wasn't personal.

Dude, Katie Mayhue wants to rip the heart out of Arizona and stomp on it at center court for making a last-second basket. You think you're going to get off with her blessing?

"He said, 'You know, once you're a (REDACTED) fan, you're always a (REDACTED) fan,' " says Susie. "I was pretty proud of Katie. She goes, 'I'm not a (REDACTED) fan. Don't think for a second I'm a (REDACTED) fan."

Katie Mayhue, always the competitor, may have issues, but coach (REDACTED) is no longer one of them. And with it, her happiness, her ability to trust, returns a little more, one day at a time.

University of Montana Athletics

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Kylie Frohlich

Taylor Goligoski

Katie Mayhue

Madi Schoening

Jordyn Schweyen

Sophia Stiles

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