Let’s give a warm William and Mary Welcome to Madison Magee, a 6-foot-2 power forward from Surprise, Ariz., a rising senior at Valley Vista High School and a 6A state champion with the Monsoon.
Magee is the second player committed to our 2021 Tribe women’s basketball recruiting class, after Danielle McTeer announced her commitment to play for us in early August.
We at No Bid Nation are all excited to welcome Magee into the William and Mary community— but I’m especially excited because I now have the privilege to welcome a fellow Arizonan into the Tribe.
Among all the high-achieving students from Northern Virginia (looking at you, Brendan) and all the Yankee transplants from New Jersey (looking at you, John) who didn’t want to go to Rutgers or Princeton or couldn’t get in, it’s rare that I get the chance to meet a fellow student from Arizona — the Grand Canyon State, the Copper State, the Best State. So, I’m excited and grateful for the opportunity each time.
For Magee, like it was for me, it’ll be an adjustment moving to Williamsburg, Va., and leaving the desert climate of the Southwest behind. But it’s one Magee is looking forward to greatly.
“I would definitely say having four seasons [of weather, not basketball — but also basketball],” Magee said of what she was looking forward to the most. “I think that’s gonna be really nice because it’s been really hot over here. Definitely like a new environment, seeing a lot more green and just like a really different experience. I feel like I’m a very independent person, especially at home, so just being able to live that out and kinda focusing on those things.”
Proudly tweeting from her home in Arizona, Magee announced her decision to play for our incredible women’s basketball team Tuesday, Aug. 18, on Twitter, having received an offer from head coach Ed Swanson in late July.
“First, I would like to thank all of the coaches that have recruited me during process,” Magee wrote. “Thank you to my parents, Coach [Rachel] Matakas, my trainer Tony Miller, Coach Ben [Isai], Milee, the Select family and past coaches for helping me become the player I am today.”
“I would also like to thank Coach Swanson, Coach [Mary] Gleason, Coach [Michelle] Kurowski and the entire William and Mary staff for taking the time to recruit me,” she added. “I would like to announce my commitment to advance my academic career at William and Mary. Go Tribe!”
After committing to William and Mary last month on Twitter, Magee caught the attention of both The Arizona Republic, the state’s pre-eminent newspaper, and the Surprise Independent, Magee’s local newspaper. The Republic ran a story on Magee the same day her announcement came out, and Surprise Independent published a profile three days later, Friday, Aug. 21.
“I think it’s really cool,” Magee said of her recent interviews (including this one). “It’s definitely a first for me. I feel like ever since being at Westview and transferring, I haven’t really been noticed like that, just because I had to sit out for so long. So I think it’s really nice kinda, really being seen for everything that I’ve done for the past few years, and it makes me feel that everything’s paying off.”
Magee, a transfer student last year from Westview, sat out the first half of the season because of the Arizona Interscholastic Association’s transfer rules. But once she became eligible to play in January, she started dominating Arizona girls’ basketball alongside the Monsoon (28-3).
She played nine games for the Monsoon as Valley Vista went on a successful run toward the 6A state title — the team’s third girls basketball championship in the past four seasons.
To win the title, Valley Vista edged out Perry 48-47 in the semifinals Wednesday, Feb. 26, and defeated Hamilton, the reigning champion, 42-38 in the championship game Tuesday, March 3, at Desert Financial Arena. The win against Hamilton (23-7) was the Monsoon’s 18th-straight victory last season.
Before transferring to Valley Vista, Magee was the leading scorer, rebounder and shot blocker for Westview 18 games into her sophomore season. Yet she decided to transfer onto a stacked Valley Vista team that was primed for another state championship.
Her decision paid off tremendously, and after winning the 6A state title with the Monsoon this spring before COVID-19 hit, Magee began receiving offers from a growing number of schools, including Eastern Washington, California Baptist, California State Bakersfield, Hartford, Fordham, Hawaii Pacific, Cornell, Air Force and Florida Atlantic.
Magee’s top choices, she said, were Columbia, Loyola Chicago and Manhattan.
However, she soon realized she wanted to study and compete somewhere much quieter and much less urban than New York or Chicago, especially with the coronavirus tearing through those cities and many others across the United States.
“For a long time I was really stuck on like a few New York colleges,” Magee said. “I realized that was somewhere I’d rather visit and just go for possible internships, but I’d rather not be in that environment for college. Especially with everything going on, I wanted to stay a little more away from that, like at a good distance.”
Out of 15 different offers, Magee ultimately chose William and Mary.
“I think it was a lot of different things,” Magee said of why she chose our College. “I wanted a really good mix between academics and athletics. I felt like [William and Mary] really had the best mix between a great program that’s very successful and a good balance between academics and being very understanding with that in case anything pops up. They have great internship opportunities that really drew me in. And when I got on the Zoom, I felt like I really clicked with the players, and it just felt like home.”
The Zoom call Magee referenced was a video conference organized by Swanson the night before Magee officially received her offer Wednesday, July 22.
During that call, Magee not only spoke with Swanson, who gave her the William and Mary recruiting pitch, but she also spoke with rising senior Nyla Pollard, rising junior and women’s basketball superstar Eva Hodgson and two other incoming William and Mary freshmen.
That meeting gave Magee a strong impression of Swanson, who struck her as a serious motivator and a recruiter as well as an easily approachable figure.
“I talked to him a few times leading up to the Zoom call and then a few times afterward, which was really nice,” Magee said of Swanson. “He’s very open. He’s very funny. He just felt like very chill and laid back but knew when to get serious. “
The call also gave Magee a good impression of Pollard, Hodgson and the team, which drew Magee in further and made her choose William and Mary above all the rest.
By the time Magee arrives at our College as a freshman in the fall of 2021, Pollard and the other veteran players will have graduated, Hodgson will be a senior and the undisputed leader of the team, and, hopefully, the coronavirus will have greatly diminished allowing athletes to compete in Kaplan Arena in front of fans once again.
Fingers crossed; prayers whispered.
“I think it’ll be a really good experience,” Magee said, looking ahead at her William and Mary basketball career two seasons from now. “I think that they’re obviously gonna have — speaking about leadership — a good spot for that. I just think it’ll be a lot of good areas to learn from. Because obviously being a senior, I’m fitting into the captain and leadership role on my own squad. So I’m hoping to really bring that into them at a young spot and just be around a competitive atmosphere again. I think I’m really excited for it.”
What drew Swanson to Magee was her versatility as a player, being able to play forward with center-like abilities, Magee said.
Asked whether she preferred to drive to the rim and lay up the ball like a forward, or play the center grabbing rebounds, laying up shots and throwing passes, Magee said, “Both. I definitely enjoy all of it.”
For Magee, what drew her to William and Mary, meanwhile, was its strong reputation for academics as well as women’s basketball.
Our College’s smaller size appealed to her as well.
“I would definitely say high-energy,” Magee said of her ideal campus. ”I’ve always wanted to go to a little bit smaller of a campus, nothing too big. Just so I could really know people and walk by and be like, “Hey.” And have like a lot of my friends come to games and just everyone be close-knit and supportive of each other.
Magee’s interests are sports, psychology and business, she said. Her dream job: working as sports psychologist for a college team.
On the court, Magee said he hoped to make an impact as soon as she set foot inside Kaplan with her future team.
“I would definitely say … leadership and just really a lot of effort and hard work,” Magee said. “My coach pushes us extremely hard, and I know all coaches do, but I just feel like that really has an edge on me. I kinda hope to have an impact from the get-go. And I just really hope to do the things people don’t think about, and be impactful on the defensive end, because I take a lot of pride in that. So I would just say definitely bringing a lot of defensive effort, stops and things like that.”
Magee’s role model, she said, was Brittney Griner for the Phoenix Mercury. Last season, Griner averaged 20.7 points, 7.2 rebounds and two blocks per game in 31 contests, while shooting 56.4 percent from the field.
For fans, Magee had a very simple answer to the question, “What do you want Tribe basketball fans to know about you once you arrive?”
“That I’m a very outgoing, energetic person,” Magee said. “I’ve always had a bunch of energy, both off and on the court. I’m just very happy and joyful all the time. That I’m just very caring as well. I’ll always be there for everyone if they need it.”
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Welcome to the Tribe, Madison! Congratulations on your decision — very well-made! We’re very excited to see you play two seasons from now, and so are your future teammates. See you soon.