Zia Cooke

I used to go to church every Sunday.

My mom would go to church every Sunday.

I'd have my Sunday dress on.

And my brother was outside playing with his friends.

When I got back home, I went out there, and I just shot the ball.

And my brother was like, hold on, like do that again.

And then I ended up doing it again.

And it was like, ever since then I fell in love with the game of basketball, just from being able to see my brother do it.

And then just finally trying to pick up a ball and see what I can do with it.

So yeah, but at six years old, that's when I started.

it was i was probably like six or seven damn that's crazy yeah either way yeah i was super young and i'd be afraid of you okay baby genius no relax it's crazy because a lot of the boys like they would look at me like yeah she can't play basketball and then i get out there and i just do them bad oh man and these it just used to be so hustling people always such a girl against me

right oh i love that that makes me that really activates my prey drive thinking about men getting shown up like that all the time and not only that but i played football too okay i was quarterback wide receiver running back i literally played it all my jersey got retired and everything hung in the rafters yeah it was just something like slight work yeah no big deal

But, yeah, so I got my first college offer in the seventh grade by Eastern Michigan.

And I was playing football still at the time.

For some reason, I thought football was going to be, like, what I was going to do until I got older.

And I started developing as a woman a little bit.

And my dad's like, you're getting offers in basketball.

You're not in football.

So which one do you want to do?

Yeah, so I locked in, and from the seventh grade on, I took basketball 100% serious.