Bailey Staton cannot remember a time when she didn’t want to play college basketball.
That dream pushed her during early-morning and late-night workouts, often alone in empty gyms. It drove her through runs on summer days, to dietary changes, to shooting sessions that routinely included more than 1,000 attempts and often left her hands cracked from the effort.
Everything in pursuit of a single goal – to keep playing the sport she loves at a higher level once her Polk County career ends.
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Tuesday morning, Staton’s quest led her to the stage in Polk County’s auditorium, where family, friends and teammates watched as she made her dream a reality, signing an athletic grant-in-aid to continue her career at Converse University.
The large smile that never left Staton’s face showed how much the morning meant.
“It feels amazing,” she admitted. “It’s like so much pressure is off my body. It’s been my dream since I’ve literally been a baby. It’s all I ever imagined.
“So, to finally just know where I’m going, to finally know all the hard work and all the hours, so, so many hours, finally paid off, it’s just amazing. I feel free.”
Staton’s on-court accomplishments certainly merit college attention. Her career scoring average is nearing 18 points per game, and she’s averaged nearly four assists and two steals per game. She already owns a handful of Polk County records and is on track to become the school’s all-time leading scorer, a target she set for herself as a freshman.
College interest, though, was slow in coming, in part because of her 5-foot-5 stature. There were times when Staton wondered whether the opportunity she so dearly coveted might never arrive.
“The roughest part was just not knowing if the work was going to pay off,” she said. “Just that feeling of, OK, is all the time, all this discipline, all the motivation that I have in me, is it going to take me somewhere?”
That somewhere proved to be Converse, one of a handful of schools that offered Staton an opportunity to join their program. The Division II Valkyries, based in Spartanburg and a member of Conference Carolinas, are currently led by interim head coach Kevin Lyons, who worked with programs at both the University of South Carolina and Newberry College before joining the Converse staff.
“When I went there, it just felt right,” Staton said. “I felt like I could be a huge player there and I could see myself making an impact. The coach, he’s super. He wants to win and I love that. He has that mentality that I do, and I looked for that when I was in the recruiting process.”
Newberry College is also the alma mater of Polk head coach Brandy Alm, who played for the Indians after beginning her career at Mars Hill. At Tuesday’s signing, Alm recalled seeing Staton for the first time as an elementary school player, seeing even then the traits she expects to serve her senior guard well at Converse.
“She’s going to bring a tremendous amount of talent to that program,” Alm said. “She’s going to bring aggressiveness, a high basketball IQ. She’s one of the hardest workers that I’ve ever coached. She’s just tenacious and she makes everyone around her work harder, too.
“I think she’s going to make a difference. She’s worked her tail off to get there, and I think she’s going to be very successful.”
Staton wanted to sign before her final season at Polk began, and the commitment she made earlier this month to Converse allowed her to largely do that – the Wolverines opened their schedule Monday evening with a win over East Rutherford. Tuesday’s paperwork officially took care of things, and now it’s just “the final ride,” as she called it, to be her focus.
“I know this team can do a lot, and I just didn’t want to have anything holding me back for them and for us,” Staton said. “I just wanted to feel comfortable and know where I was going so that I can go out with a good year and leave my mark on Polk County.”
