Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 11 No. 3 | January 2019

inside.hokiesports.com 33 118 S. Main Street TechBookstore.com Shop NikE gear and get game day ready! ® ORDER ONLINE FREE pick up in store! N ame pretty much any country in Europe, and she’s visited it. Popular places like Germany and Spain and more obscure parts, such as Belarus. Her travels have taken her to the Middle East, too. She has been to Saudi Arabia twice and took a trip to Turkey as well. She currently lives in the United States, her home for the past four-plus years. All those places provide or have provided unique and memorable experiences for Regan Magarity, but probably nothing will compare to her venture this past summer when she eschewed a trip home to Sweden and spent amonth touring around Australia and New Zealand with friend and Virginia Tech women’s basketball teammate Erinn Brooks. “It was really cool,” Magarity said, smiling, as her voiced resonated with excitement. “Our old teammate, Vanessa Panousis, plays over there, and Tara Nahodil [another former teammate] is just living over there, so we visited with them and went to different places in Australia, and then we went to New Zealand. We went scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, and that was really cool. We had a good summer. It was awesome.” Magarity loves to travel and hopes it becomes part of her future in some capacity, but for the time being, her travels are limited to places like Pittsburgh, Boston, Durham, and Atlanta, as the superstar and the rest of the Virginia Tech women’s basketball team navigate through this big women’s basketball nation known as the ACC, the most talented conference in women’s basketball. Then this bunch hopes to take another trip, going to a place that Tech hasn’t visited in more than a decade—the NCAA Tournament. “That’s definitely the goal for the team,” Magarity admitted. “Us seniors have talked about it quite a bit because this is our last chance to get there. It’s been a goal of ours ever since we came into college, and if we’re able to get there, it would be great, and it would be a fun group to get there with.” If the Hokies reach this destination, they probably will do so because of their talented fifth-year senior. Two years ago, she became one of the better players in the ACC. Last year, she validated that. This season, she deserves every bit of national notoriety that comes her way, as she certainly has established herself as one of the best players in the nation here at the halfway point of the Hokies’ 2018-19 campaign. Her numbers offer all the support for that. The 6-foot-3 forward leads the nation in total rebounds and double-doubles and averages a double-double at 14 points and 13.3 rebounds per game heading into a Jan. 10 contest against Virginia. Her rebounding totals may surprise some people. After all, European players often get tagged with the stereotype of not being physical, but Magarity’s physical attributes—height, strength, huge hands—lend to being a good rebounder. She brings a little attitude as well, showing a willingness to toss a subtle elbow here or there. It adds up to her owning nearly every rebounding record at Tech, some of which may last a generation. She is the only player in Tech women’s basketball history with more than 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. “I don’t know if there is one thing that makes you a good rebounder,” she said. “I think it’s more of a mindset. Once the shot goes up, it’s like, ‘I’m getting the ball.’ Obviously, you have to be in the right position. You have to hit them, box them out and go get it, but it really comes down to a mindset of just being tough and determined to get the rebound. “I take a lot of pride in rebounding, which I think helps. I know that I have to rebound well in order for the team to be successful, and I take a lot of pride in that. I think that, along with having the mindset to go get every rebound, makes me a pretty good rebounder.” Of course, it helps to have good genes. She couldn’t help but to be a good player considering her mom, Ammi, played for the Swedish national team and professionally, and her father, Bill, played at the University of Georgia in the early 1970s before embarking on a professional career overseas. He met his wife while playing for a team in Sweden. After his playing days ended, Bill got into coaching, and the family bounced around from place to place. He coached several different teams in Sweden, and he also coached in Germany, Austria and Saudi Arabia, but Regan calls Norrkoping home, a city of roughly 130,000 located two hours south of Stockholm. Continued on page 34 women’s basketball spotlight regan magarity