Micha Mims, a former standout at Cedar Rapids Washington, has wrapped up a stellar career on the Mount Mercy University women's basketball team.If you think the constant pressure to train and compete at a high level is sapping the enjoyment from high school and college sports, meet Micha Mims.

The former Cedar Rapids Washington and current Mount Mercy University basketball player glows with delight over her team’s 27-9 season, which culminated in a postseason dash to the Elite Eight of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Division II National Championship. It was Mount Mercy’s first tournament appearance since 1995.

Playing in the national tournament was the capstone for a personal journey that started nearly 20 years ago for Mims. Notwithstanding a few disappointments and detours along the way, she says, every part of it was “so much fun.”

You get the sense that “fun” follows her wherever she goes.

“I’m a very lucky person, and I feel blessed to have the opportunities I’ve had in my life,” says the graduating senior with an effervescent grin.

Mims started playing basketball “as soon as I knew how to walk,” she recalls, and organized her own Jane Boyd and YMCA teams before joining the venerable AAU Panthers program where she and countless other top local preps honed their skills.

“That’s where I learned my core fundamentals and developed my love for basketball,” she says. It’s also where she met future Washington teammates Katelin Oney and K.K. Armstrong.

“We were together all the way through Panthers, McKinley, Washington and the Iowa Elite. They called us the Three Musketeers,” she laughs.

She and Oney played on the Wash varsity as freshmen. “We were numbers six and seven off the bench,” she remembers, “then we started the next year. I think about those days all the time, it was so much fun.”

Her Warriors teams were state runners-up three times but never got the big prize. “That’s always tough,” she says with a grin, admitting that she has taken some ribbing from former state tournament opponents she has encountered in the years since.

Her time at Wayne State

Oney and Armstrong headed to the University of Northern Iowa after graduation, but Mims wanted to experience life outside Iowa, she says. She visited Wayne State College in Nebraska with close friend Claire Duwelius, a Dowling Catholic player who was on her Iowa Elite summer team. “I loved the team, the campus and the coach,” says Mims, who committed to the school along with Duwelius.

Two weeks before classes started, Wayne State Coach Ryan Williams called to tell her he had accepted an offer to coach at the University of South Dakota in its first year as a Division I school.

“It was tough,” she states, “but it’s part of the game, and he needed to take that opportunity.

“A different coach came in and he played a completely different style, but I wanted to stick it out. It was fun, but it wasn’t as fun as I wanted it to be. I was used to being run-and-gun, fast-paced, man-to-man, and that’s what Coach Williams was. This coach was more structure, zone-to-zone, and I felt pretty stagnant.”

Returning to Cedar Rapids

A summer chat with Washington Coach Frank Howell convinced her that she should make the most of her college experience by considering other options. Howell put her in touch with Coach Aaron Jennings at Mount Mercy, which had recruited her out of high school, and she decided to return home and resume playing the style of game she loved.

“He is perfect all the way around,” she says of Jennings, “as a coach, a mentor and a person. He’s a great, great, great guy.”

Playing at Mount Mercy also meant that her family – her mother and father, their spouses, her older brother Justin and 11-year-old half-sister Loren – could attend her games.

“Both families are a big part of my life,” she says. “They are my backbone and have supported me in every decision I’ve made. My mom’s made it to every game. When our season ended, Loren cried as hard as I did.”

Highlights at Mount Mercy

Mims has given them plenty of highlights during her three years as a Mustang. As a sophomore, she was a shooting guard learning the system. The next year, Jennings tapped her to play point guard, and she developed into one of the best in the NAIA.

“She has always been a very good athlete and a smart basketball player,” Jennings says. “She started every game for us as a sophomore, but was always a two/three combo player. She was our best ballhandler, and we needed her to become our point guard. She stepped up and really went to work.”

A strong rebounder and the best defender on the team, Mims also became a prolific 3-point shooter, leading the NAIA as a junior with a 45 percent  shooting percentage. This year she placed 10th, landing 83 treys.

“In high school I was always under the basket guarding people who were five inches taller than me, and I never really had the opportunity to be a shooter,” the 5-foot-7 guard says of her transition. “At Mount Mercy, coach put us on the shooting gun and we got lots and lots and lots of shots. The next thing I know, I’m a 3-point shooter.

“I was surprisingly pretty comfortable with becoming a point guard,” she adds. “It’s easier with Mount Mercy’s Princeton offense – the best in the  league. It’s hard for other teams to guard.”

Becoming a long-range shooter added an important tool to her skill set, she says. “I can post up and drive the lane. Adding that 3-point shot made me more versatile.” But her favorite part of the game was “pushing the ball and creating for my teammates and getting them shots. I don’t necessarily like all eyes on me.”

A memorable final season

Finishing a terrific senior season with a run through the national tournament was “icing on the cake,” Mims says. “It showed that all of our homework, our sweat and tears, paid off. It was a great experience and nice to know we got what we deserved.”

A couple of turnovers and missed shots late in the game were the difference in the Mustangs’ season-ending 81-76 quarterfinal loss to Briar Cliff, she says.

“There were some tears, but it’s hard to hang your head when you know we even got there. You have those two very strong emotions, and our heads were down a little bit right after the game. But you have to take it all in, and I couldn’t have asked for any better people to be with in that locker room at that moment.”

Mims, who led her team in assists, steals and free throw percentage during the season and was second on the team in scoring with a 14.4 game average, was named to the All-Midwestern Collegiate Conference first team and NAIA
All-American third team.

Looking to the future

A 3.5 GPA student with a double major in business marketing and business management, she is applying to graduate school programs where she’ll be able to follow her passion.

“I had an epiphany,” she smiles. “I always wanted basketball in my life,  but now I know I need it in my life. It’s what I love and what I’m good at. I would love to get my master’s in sports management, and I’d like to get a graduate assistant coaching position.”

Jennings has her full support on that. “She would be a very good coach,” he states, describing her upbeat but intense on-court personality.

“She’s funny, and she definitely commands on the run. She’s loud and outgoing in a good way. Everybody on the team responds to her work ethic and her attitude. She can lighten up a room but get everyone to work hard at the same time.”

Mims surveys her pathway through collegiate hoops with the grateful perspective of a ripe old college senior.

“Since high school I have found myself,” she says. “I was young. I have definitely matured and become more independent. It has been a journey and that’s what the college experience is about – becoming you. I have zero
regrets. It’s all about the experience for me, and it’s built me into the person I am.”

Having milked every ounce from her experiences as a student-athlete, she is determined to keep spreading the joy of the game.