Nicky Anosike has returned to the basketball court to teach young players at a training facility near her home in West Knoxville a little over one year after enduring a difficult pregnancy and a harrowing medical ordeal to save the lives of her twin boys.
The two-time national champion for the Lady Vols also has come a long way from her youth in Staten Island, New York – and said she somehow knew Tennessee was where she belonged. To this day, when Anosike needs to center herself, she finds a gym.
“I think for me basketball has always been more than just a sport,” Anosike told Knox TN Today. “It’s always been the place I go to get away from the stresses of life. I grew up in a housing project, eight children and a small apartment, and it was overcrowded and it could be stressful at times. But when I got to go to basketball for one or two hours a day, it was like a breath of fresh air.
“I think even though I’m an adult now, basketball still gives me that feeling of I can breathe even though the stresses of life seem overwhelming. I can get to the court and I just feel calm. It just stems from my childhood.”
Anosike’s sanctuary of basketball has taken her to courts across the United States when she played at Tennessee from 2004-08 – and won the late Pat Summitt’s two final national titles in 2007 and 2008 – and in the WNBA and across the world to pursue an overseas professional career.
She eventually made her way back to Knoxville to serve as a graduate assistant for UT women’s basketball for one season and then became the head coach for girls’ basketball at Anderson County High School. She ultimately had to stop coaching after the birth of her sons, Cheluchi and Chiemezie, with husband Uzochukwu Chidinma Chima because of their medical needs. She taught a class last July called “Pat Summitt Definite Dozen Leadership” for the University of Tennessee as part of the Kids U summer camps in a story that can be read here.
Now, Anosike is working at Triple F Elite Sports Training, located at 4900 Guinn Road off Oak Ridge Highway in the Solway community. One client, Natavia Alber, is now a freshman in high school, and Anosike taught her the game from scratch, including the rules. Natavia has gone from neophyte to recruit with college coaches keeping an eye on her, including Florida State, Clemson – where she just took an unofficial visit – and Tennessee.
Natavia Alber, Katie Gonzalez, Nicky Anosike and Aisha Patel at a training session.
Anosike has six players on her training roster and is ready to add more at all skill levels. Interested participants can call Triple F at 865-535-6333, stop by in person, sign up for a free tour or enroll on the website here.
“I have some who literally just started playing, so we go over the basics, the fundamentals, layups, ball handling, passing, those types of things,” Anosike said. “And then I have some players who have been with me for a while so they’re more advanced and we go over actual game moves, things that are going to help them statistically – how to score with contact in the paint, being able to knock down open jumpers, extending range, being able to shoot threes consistently. We’ll go over things like how to go off of a screen, how to read defense.
“I have girls who are 6 years old, and we need to go over everything from the very basic skills, and then I have some players that are more advanced and we go over more difficult skills.”
Anosike is comfortable getting back in the workforce – and she would love to be very busy – because the twins, who are now almost 17 months old, are thriving. Cheluchi, who is called Luchi, measured zero on the infant growth chart calculator when he was born and is now in the 90th percentile. Chiemezie, who is called Mez, exceeds the growth charts for length and weight. Anosike, who also is in the process of completing her online doctorate, sometimes brings the twins to the gym and foresees athletic futures for both boys.
Having her children in Tennessee is not something Anosike would have foreseen as a teenager when she basically knew nothing about the Volunteer State. She’s come a long way from that small apartment in a Staten Island housing project to a home in the Hardin Valley community that’s located a few minutes away from the Triple F training center.
Uzochukwu Chidinma Chima, Chiemezie, Nicky Anosike and Cheluchi
“I never would have thought but from the time I was 14 or 15 I would literally be harassing my high school coach like, ‘Did I get a call from Tennessee? Has Tennessee sent me a letter?’ ” Anosike said. “My heart just gravitated to Knoxville. And I had never been here, never heard of Knoxville, Tennessee. I didn’t even know the University of Tennessee was in Knoxville. I knew nothing about the University of Tennessee. I just knew I belonged here.
“And I would harass my coach. He would be like, ‘Duke called, UConn sent a letter,’ naming all these schools, and I could care less. I’m like, ‘But what about Tennessee?’ And he was like, ‘What do you know about Tennessee?’ I said, ‘I saw them on TV. They wear orange.’ I knew about Pat Summitt. I think I was just destined to be in Knoxville.”
Maria M. Cornelius, a writer/editor at Moxley Carmichael since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press.