Lady Griz Orientation :: Maggie Hutka

It's a tattoo doubling as a cryptex, at its simplest a nod to the Howard Simon poem "I Choose the Mountain." Unlock the deeper meaning, though, and you discover it's verse as mission, one accepted by a young woman, the choice to take the more difficult route as she tries to rise above past trauma.

She will not live there, in the pain of the plain. Her past will not define her. She will climb, climb, climb, overcoming with each step, distancing herself, other tattoos, doves, representing freedom, there to help her on the way, a gentle lift when the journey is at its most difficult. She will endure. She will succeed.

The only way to leave the past – and the memories that linger – in the past is to look forward, ahead. The mountain, the one offering escape if she can manage to scale it, is right there, ready to be tackled, ready to be chosen.

The low lands call; I am tempted to answer; They are offering me a free dwelling; Without having to conquer

The massive mountain makes its move; Beckoning me to ascend; A much more difficult path; To get up the slippery bend

I cannot choose both; I have a choice to make; I must be wise; This will determine my fate

I choose, I choose the mountain; With all its stress and strain; Because only by climbing; Can I rise above the plain

I choose the mountain; And I will never stop climbing; I choose the mountain; And I shall forever be ascending

I choose the mountain

The tattoo, the title of the poem, isn't hidden away in a nondescript location. It runs down the skin of her spine, a figurative backbone, not simply symbolic but stimulus, not simply ink but intention.

There was no way Celeste Hutka would ever sign off on her daughter, her youngest of six, getting a tattoo. But then she was told of the plan, the motivation behind it, the why, and all a mom could do was say, let me get the car.

"We went through a lot as a family," she says. "When she had me read the poem, what parent wouldn't say yes? Having that as her tattoo tells you a lot about Maggie. She's overcome a lot in her life." And by close association, mom has as well. It's why she's crying over the phone from Texas.

And she's only four minutes into the interview.

An understanding of all of her experiences, if not the details then at least the overview, is the only way you can know Maggie Hutka, how all of it shaped the person and produced the player who will be suiting up for the Lady Griz for the first time this season, after two-plus years at Colorado Christian.

It's been hard. The specifics, the happenings that prompted the tattoo, are the privilege of the family, not to be shared here, though she wouldn't be here without that family, her oldest sister, Rebekah, 21 years her senior, out the door before the end of the line, the twins, arrived, Maggie and Bryce.

It left the gender imbalance in the home of three boys, Bryce teaming up with Broc and Pierce, and one girl. In Texas. In Royse City, on the outskirts of Dallas. And all that meant. "There wasn't a lot of doll-playing," says Celeste. "We're a very competitive family that loves sports of all kinds."

She started playing soccer at 4, basketball at 5, baseball – yes, baseball – at 6, mom, doing it on her own with all those kids, unable to figure out how to get Bryce to baseball practice, Maggie to softball while working full time, so the two stayed together, the team's battery, Maggie pitching, Bryce catching.

"It was easier that way," says Celeste. "The cool thing was that Maggie was better than all the boys. The coaches loved having her on the team."

And those were only the organized activities, which were supplemented with backyard football, Maggie making one-handed grabs, throwing perfect spirals the length of the yard, those skills showing up nowadays on the basketball court and mom nodding her head. Yep, she's seen that before.

"I get tickled every time it happens," she says, connecting a basketball move to an all-around athleticism that blossomed across sports. "That was a football move. That was a baseball move."

Soccer held on the longest as a rival to basketball, that sport coming to an end the day Hutka got slide-tackled, taken out at the ankle, a clean play in that sport but one that had her ready to throw down. "Yeah, I'm done with that. I don't like that," she says.

It was probably always going to be basketball, from first grade, when she had UConn socks. And shorts. And shirt. And slept under a UConn blanket at night, dreaming of Geno and all those Huskies who were always on the TV, always cutting down one net or another come March and April.

Huskies, Huskies, Huskies dribbling around in her thoughts, shooting 3-pointers as she fell asleep. Huskies, Huskies, Huskies.

But how many little girls have the same dream? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Though how many little girls have their second-grade coaches telling their mom, when Maggie makes the WNBA, will you please remember to tell everyone that it was Anna Walker who was one of her very first coaches?

"She had a natural gift from very young," says Celeste, who pushed each of her kids when they made the choice to dive into something. "I was hard on them. If you are going to play a sport, you are going to play it to the best of your ability. Play it to 100 percent. We're not slackers.

"My kids saw they came from a family that worked hard and they have followed suit." This coming from a senior vice president at Texas Bank and Trust, who rose up through a mostly man's world, who did it without ever getting a college degree.

Home for her was Alabama, her dad an engineer, the family going to Florida while he worked for NASA, then the whole gang moving to Texas, her dad partnering with Pat Robertson to start channel 33 in Dallas in 1973, original home of the 700 Club.

Her dad had side businesses as well, her mom owned a clothing store, a bridal store. "I grew up with parents who were entrepreneurs," says Celeste. "I got into banking early on. I was intrigued by it." She started as a teller, climbed to new accounts, to consumer lending, to commercial lending, to senior VP.

"She is a strong, independent woman," says Maggie, who played college basketball first in Colorado before moving to Montana, who is pursuing a degree in engineering-physics, insinuating herself into a mostly man's world as well, her mom's mini-me.

She was hand-picked by The Jet himself, former Dallas Maverick Jason Terry, was asked if she would join his AAU team. She made varsity at Royse City High as a freshman, was voted her league's newcomer of the year, MVP as a sophomore, working out at 5 a.m. each day before the team's practice at 6:30.

Division I programs were taking notice, visits were made, dreams were beginning to form. If she had been on the verge of being a superstar as a sophomore, just wait until her junior year when … she grabbed a rebound in an early-season game, stepped on another girl's foot and tore her ACL.

All that interest? It went dead quiet, a junior in high school with a second knee injury, this one adding to the bucket-handle meniscus tear she suffered as a freshman to the same knee? Yeah, we're out. Don't call us, we'll call you. No, actually we won't. We need to move on. Sorry.

"That was tough to handle as a parent. It was very tough psychologically on her," says Celeste, adding that it was a double whammy, coming in November 2020, when the effects of COVID and its restrictions were still being felt, the silence even more deafening in a shut-down world.

Though there was a silver lining. This girl who would graduate No. 19 out of 482 in her class was doing just fine with online schooling and when the choice came to continue that or go back to in-person, she chose the option that gave her the greatest flexibility, the best chance to recover at a quickened pace.

She had her physical therapist, the baseline attention that most injured players receive. Her mom hired two more trainers, speeding up the process so much that surgery in early December was followed by an all-clear, full-go diagnosis by May.

"There is such an internal strength within her, such a level of fight to persevere through," says her mom. But the clock was ticking. She needed to get herself back out there for her final AAU season, even if her game wasn't at 100 percent, to show college programs they should not dismiss her quite yet.

The interest returned but more Division II than Division I. Midway through her senior year, about the time she was celebrated for joining the Double 1,000 Club, 1,000 career points, 1,000 career rebounds at Royse City High, the coach at Colorado Christian, Diane Thompson, reached out for the first time.

She committed before even taking her first visit to the school, coach and player syncing up in just the right way. "I liked that she wasn't afraid to tell me that she was going to push me really hard," Hutka says. "She wasn't fake and didn't lie about how hard it was going to be. I liked how honest she was."

Unburdened now by both injury and concerns of her future, Hutka returned to form as a senior. Defensive player of the year, all-region, all-state, McDonald's All-American nominee, surpassing 1,500 points and 1,000 rebounds in just three prep seasons, so many schools left to wonder, did we blow it?

Colorado Christian didn't. Thompson signed her and the Cougars never looked back.

"It did feel like I won the lottery," says Thompson. "You have to take risks on kids. A high risk is a high reward. With her knee injury, it was high risk. You don't know when a kid can re-injure it. To me, she was worth it. She was a good kid who I felt I could develop into an all-American."

She more survived than thrived as a freshman, twice battling through the flu, once pneumonia, losing 15 pounds but still averaging 6.7 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. Her offseason goal: to get herself and her body right. She planned on returning with a vengeance.

And she did, averaging 20.2 points on 49.4 percent shooting and 7.7 rebounds as a sophomore, breaking four single-season program records as the Cougars, in Thompson's third season, had a seven-win improvement and made their conference tournament for the first time in eight years.

Colorado Christian was on the move, on an upward trajectory, the future bright, with Hutka holding two more years of eligibility, Thompson's goal of turning Hutka into a Division II All-American looking more and more realistic and spot-on.

"I feel like the sophomore season is your hardest season because you're no longer a freshman. You no longer can make those same mistakes," said Thompson, who played collegiately at Northern Colorado and CSU Bakersfield and was a three-time NCAA Division II All-American.

"She knew the work she had to put in and what she needed to do to make that step, and she did it. She was always in the gym, always lifting weights, doing everything she could to make her an elite athlete."

With everything lined up for even more success in 2024-25, Thompson was let go in late September, leaving everyone to wonder, wait, what? How? Why? Right before the season, an interim coach was hired to take over. "It was a Friday. I'll never forget the phone call," says Celeste. "Now what?"

Hutka wanted out immediately. But could she do that to her teammates? She hung on, played the first four games of the season, before this player who had never had a conflict with a coach in any sport at any level told her mom she needed out. Her mental health demanded it.

Thirty schools reached out in the first eight hours after HUTKA, MAGGIE popped up in the transfer portal, including Montana. Really? Montana? What could anyone from that far away know anything about this girl from Texas?

They took the call anyway, listened to a coach who hadn't just heard of Royse City, Texas, had not only been in the city, he'd been to one of Hutka's basketball games, Nate Harris back then on the hunt for a program-changing player as the coach at Angelo State in San Angelo, Texas.

Who knows, maybe he even sat a row or two away from Celeste Hutka. He had even talked to Maggie on the phone, had sat there dejected when she politely told him she wanted to go somewhere out of state. But San Angelo is nearly 300 miles away! Might as well be in another state! Didn't matter.

This time around, Harris got to make it right, recruiting her to 1) a Division I program that was 2) out of state. Hutka took one and only visit, mom along for the ride. That's all it took.

Mother and daughter had been on plenty of recruiting trips before, had uncannily come to the same conclusions, a visit ending, the two of them looking at each other and saying at the same time, Nope. Next.

"She has a very good intuition about people," says Celeste. "That's a good person, that's not a good person. That's a safe person, that's not a safe person. I trust her intuition."

They were in Missoula for three days, "the very first day, watching her disposition, she just lit up. I was feeling it. On the final day, when we were getting ready to leave, she told the coaches, I'm ready to commit to Montana. This is where I'm supposed to be. There is not a doubt in my mind."

She moved to Missoula in January, her first day with the team the same day The Troubles began, the head coach taking personal time off, Harris stepping in as acting head coach.

Hutka had gone from stability to instability to stability to instability, two full laps of emotions, in less than four months. "It was one of the hardest times of my life," she says. "I was in shock. I didn't know what to do. My mind was spinning."

She didn't dare call her mom, not yet. Celeste had just returned to Texas after surviving a harrowing trip to Missoula through Wyoming in winter. She had just dropped her daughter off at what everyone hoped was Hutka's second and final college stop. Everyone was finally feeling better about things. Now this.

She waited a day, until Wednesday, then gave it one more. "She called me Thursday night. I had just gotten home on Tuesday. She said, I've got something to tell you. I just froze. I sat down in shock and disbelief. What do we do now? I just moved you there.

"It was emotionally taxing on her because she came in with so much hope and expectations. Then that happened. It was one of the most messed up things I've seen. What player in a four-month period of time has that happen? Who else can say that?"

As their world was spiraling, they sought something concrete they could grasp and hold on to, something real. They found their hope and refuge in Harris, who had followed Hutka, had watched her play, had recruited her, twice, who knew what kind of person Hutka was.

She stayed, welcomed in by a team that was drawing closer as the outside noise grew louder, who watched the team win its first two games under Harris, five of its first seven, make a run to the Big Sky Conference championship game, where the Lady Griz fell on a last-second shot.

"In January, I went through one of the hardest times in my life. Then March was one of the best times," Hutka says, "and I wasn't even playing. I was so hyped for the team and the girls. That experience gave me so much inspiration and excitement to push ourselves to get right back to that moment."

Who is she, other than the first Lady Griz ever to come out of the state of Texas? Call her a different version of Dani Bartsch. "She's a little more physical, a little more rugged than Dani," says Harris. "She is very strong, weight-room strong, plays physical, has a little bit of an edge to her."

Defensively, she can guard up or down, bigger or smaller. Offensively, she can score it inside or out. "She'll post some. She's really good off the bounce, really good on the offensive glass. She's good in all sorts of areas. We want people who are versatile."

Versatile? How about uniquely different? Has there been a Lady Griz who's been an engineering-physics major? That's all Celeste's father, who passed away when the twins were six. "She has my dad's brain. He was left-handed, she is my only left-hander. Being an engineer, she is just following his legacy."

She doesn't mind studying six hours a day. That's nothing for a curious mind. "I want to know everything about everything and how things work," she says. She has a 3D printer at home, loves making practical things, phone holders, fidget toys for her teammates.

"She's just this interesting, curious, unique kid. I just really respect people who think outside the box, who are so genuinely, authentically themselves," says Harris. "I'm going to be me and however you feel about that is great. She's going to be her and doesn't worry about any of the other stuff."

She's got a hardened exterior. Part of that comes naturally, some of it from life experiences, some of those traumatic, the reason she has chosen the mountain, to ascend above them, leave them behind. But that only masks a huge, caring heart.

When she was in high school, she was taking a forensics class, had an idea, found a forensic artist in New York, sent her photos, age 1 to 7, of the older sister Maggie never had the chance to meet, Natalie dying in a tragic accident before she reached her eighth birthday.

Maggie worked odd jobs until she had piggy-banked the $500 the project cost.

It was a gift to her mom on her birthday, the artist, using the progression of Natalie's photos, producing an image of a 30-year-old Natalie. Imagine the power of that moment, an old wound opening, then just as quickly being filled to overflowing with love. "That's the kind of cool kid I have," says Celeste.

It's the family's faith that has given it its strength, the youngest of them learning through life experiences that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope.

It's that robe of promise, that the best is yet to come, that she wraps herself in for the journey ahead, for the mountain she's chosen, just like she used to wrap herself in her high school letterman's jacket, the one embroidered with Deuteronomy 31:6.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you.

Does her story leave some questions, about things that have happened in her life that led her to getting that tattoo, to choosing the mountain over the ease of the plain? It does, it certainly does, but those are not ours to ask or our answers to know.

That's never been the way of the Lady Griz fan anyway. The relationship has never been transactional, never needed to be earned. It's always been only unquestioned support above all else. That's what she's hoping for, counting on, that warm embrace that doesn't need anything offered before being given.

As she begins her on-court career, you, then, become those doves, part of her freedom, the wind at her back, helping her climb, helping her become more whole. If she chooses the mountain, we all choose the mountain, going alongside her, joining her step for step. It's the Lady Griz way. It's why she's here.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Dani Bartsch

Maggie Hutka

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