{"id":136565,"date":"2023-03-28T09:08:19","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T13:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=136565"},"modified":"2023-03-29T10:39:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T14:39:07","slug":"giving-back-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2023\/03\/28\/giving-back-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving back"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Former Wright State basketball star Kim Demmings now helps current Raiders as the academic advisor in the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.<\/p><\/div>\n

When Kim Demmings talks, student-athletes have learned it is a smart play to listen closely. She\u2019s been in their shoes\u2014or sneakers\u2014on the court and in the classroom. She passes along what she learned in both arenas that can help make them successful
\nat Wright State and in life.<\/p>\n

Demmings is not just any former athlete. At Wright State, she\u2019s the GOAT\u2014Greatest of All Time. She starred as a guard on the Raiders women\u2019s basketball team from 2011\u201316, finishing her career having scored 2,677 points, which remains the most by any Wright State player, men\u2019s or women\u2019s, and the most in Horizon League history. Her jersey No. 4 is retired, a nod to her prowess on the court.<\/p>\n

She did well in the classroom, too, earning a bachelor\u2019s degree in organizational leadership<\/a> in 2015 and a master\u2019s in sports management<\/a> in 2019.<\/p>\n

Demmings now uses her talents as the university\u2019s academic advisor in the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics<\/a>, a role she assumed in July after being an administrator and coach in the department since 2017.<\/p>\n

It all started on the playgrounds of her native Richmond, Indiana. \u201cI was 6 or 7,\u201d she said. \u201cI picked up a ball and was just good at it.\u201d Elementary school presented the opportunity to start playing organized basketball, where she excelled and learned the fundamentals.<\/p>\n

Then came high school\u2014and academic problems. \u201cMy freshman and sophomore years were rough,\u201d Demmings said. Then-Wright State women\u2019s basketball coach Mike Bradbury, came to one of her high school games and stressed the importance of good grades.<\/p>\n

Demmings said Bradbury\u2019s talk motivated her to do better\u2014and she did. She made a recruiting visit to Wright State and was sold.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got here my freshman year, I was around a great group of coaches and people in the athletic department,\u201d Demmings said. \u201cI was given the tools and the resources to be a success academically and athletically. We had pride in the classroom as well as on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright State won 20 or more games four times in Demmings\u2019 five years, including a Horizon League championship and NCAA tournament appearance in 2014. She rebounded from a season-ending foot injury in the 2014\u201315 season opener to be named Horizon League Player of the Year as a senior.<\/p>\n

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In a nod to her elite career, Kim Demmings\u2019 jersey was retired during a 2018 ceremony at Wright State. (Photo credit: Allison Rodriguez)<\/p><\/div>\n

After graduation, she played professionally in Israel, then reconnected with Wright State under then-coach Katrina Merriweather and worked her way up in the department to where she is today.<\/p>\n

She meets with roughly 200 Raider student-athletes from all intercollegiate sports. She asks about their goals and creates a plan with them \u201cto navigate their four or five years at Wright State. I do the best I can to keep them academically eligible and have them understand what that means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demmings makes sure each student-athlete is registered for classes, competing, and that \u201cthey have their path toward their diploma and they\u2019re eligible to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking from experience, she tells them, \u201cI\u2019ve done it; you can do it too, academically and athletically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those conversations allow Demmings to become \u201ca small piece of the overall picture\u201d in student-athletes\u2019 lives, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cKim is one of the most sincere and down-to-earth people I know,\u201d said Robert Ray, associate athletics director. \u201cI trust her completely as a colleague and as someone our student-athletes go to for guidance. She\u2019s honest. She speaks with a depth of goodwill and common sense, and she genuinely cares about the students as people and does her best to support them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKim has always been incredibly humble,\u201d said Brandon Hays, associate athletic director of external operations, \u201cto the point where I get a bit of an eye roll every time I explain to a group of student-athletes that she\u2019s the best we\u2019ve ever seen on the court here at Wright State. If it were up to her, she wouldn\u2019t even mention that she played here. I was just such a fan of hers during my first stint at Wright State (2012\u201315) that I have to share anytime we\u2019re both in front of a group of student-athletes. It\u2019s so cool she\u2019s here giving back to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping people see me as giving back,\u201d Demmings said. \u201cI\u2019m trying to create the positive environment that was made for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cThe goal is for them to have a great student-athlete experience, then get them into the world to have success. I take great pride in doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Wright State\u2019s Kim Demmings dribbles upcourt during a 2016 game against Oakland at the Nutter Center. (Photo credit: Tim Zechar)<\/p><\/div>\n

Demmings\u2019 work with student-athletes has helped Wright State remain consistently competitive across the athletic program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re punching above our weight class,\u201d she said, noting that Wright State competes successfully in Division I against larger schools. \u201cWe bring in the right people to be successful. We\u2019ve proven that we do belong in Division I.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demmings is aware she\u2019s helping future Raider alumni. \u201cBeing an alumna means something to me,\u201d she said. \u201cWorking with future alumni is wholesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has a message for fellow alumni: \u201cCome out and support our teams, support athletics. We care about them as people and as students and as athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for herself and her future, Demmings says, \u201cMy feet are here and I\u2019m putting everything I can into being a great academic advisor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Wright State basketball star Kim Demmings now helps current Raiders as the academic advisor in the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":136579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,733,4309,4299,2798,2104,2060,2017,744,725,4898,4896,4827,715,2061],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-alumni-association","category-alumni-profile","category-athletics","category-teacher-education","category-graduate","category-nursing-health","category-education-human-services","category-home-news-sidebar","category-kinesiology-health-sciences","category-leadership-studies-in-education-organizations","category-magazine","category-news","category-undergraduate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136565"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136909,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136565\/revisions\/136909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}