NATCHITOCHES – Every athlete and every person faces their share of challenges and tough situations in life. Learning and growing from those situations is what turns those struggles into strengths.
 
In her three seasons at Northwestern State, senior guard Karmelah Dean has experienced her fair share of hardships. A two-time all-region player at the College of Southern Idaho, she was a highly sought after junior college player after helping lead her team to a Region 18 Championship and trip to the NJCAA National Tournament in 2020-21.
 
Her decision to come south to play for the Demons, more than 2,000 miles from her home in Seattle, boiled down to the connection she built with then first-year head coach Anna Nimz.
 
"Coach Nimz watched every single one of my games at CSI," Dean said. "Even when I didn't think she was going to watch she did. She would always tell me good game and all that afterwards and was always that kind of bird in my ear the whole season and was somebody that I couldn't forget about. She was there from the beginning and the only one that I felt like really truly seemed like they wanted me to come play for them."
 
Dean was a part of Nimz's first recruiting class that includes two other key players, Jordan Todd and Jiselle Woodson, that will be honored prior to Saturday's home finale against Lamar in Prather Coliseum. The game will air on ESPN+ with tipoff set for 1 p.m. as part of the final Demon basketball doubleheader of the season.
 
The fleet-footed guard acclimated quickly to her new teammates and the bump in competition level both in practice and in games even through the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic as she made the transition to Division I basketball.
 
Starting the first 10 games of the 2021-22 season, Dean averaged 7.5 points and 2.0 assists per game for as the Demons began the season 6-4, earning three straight non-conference wins for the first time in 33 years along the way.
 
She was an integral part of the resurgent Demons, until, two minutes into the final non-conference game of the season, Dean suffered a season-ending foot injury derailing her first year in Natchitoches.
 
"Growing up when you think of season-ending injuries you think of it being an ACL and things like that," Dean said. "Finding out it was my foot I was like, girl work on your bones or something. I was so irritated. 
 
"I remember there were times that I didn't want to go to practice and just work the scoreboard and watch everybody else play. But I knew the one thing I couldn't do was bring everybody else down with my feelings. Coming out with energy and cheering loud for my teammates was something Coach Nimz and I talked about. Being the presence I was on the court but from the sideline and help the team out however I could."
 
Dean spent the next 10 months during the rest of the season, through the summer and into the fall going through various rehabs and recovery processes to return to the starting lineup for the first four games of the 2022-23 season. Her final start of the season came against eventual National Champion LSU where she reaggravated the same foot injury from the year prior and missed the next two months of the season. 
 
Dean was able to return to play during the conference schedule following surgery but saw limited minutes and scored just 11 points over her final 14 games of the season. 
 
"That season was really hard for me," she said. "I felt like I wasn't the same player that I was before. I could feel it. I could see it. I heard it. I knew that I wasn't the same as I was. I was honestly ready to be done. Let the foot be done, let everything be done and just go home."
 
The connection and trust that Dean built with Nimz during her recruitment opened the door for a difficult but honest conversation between the two after the season that set the table for Dean to have one of her best seasons, on and off the floor, in 2023-24.
 
"Coach Nimz and I had a meeting after the season," Dean said. "And honestly, I had some animosity towards her about why I wasn't playing or going in the game. But that was all on me. My confidence wasn't there. I wasn't putting the work in and I know I wasn't and I wanted to blame somebody else for my issues. So after talking with her and really thinking about things I knew I had to get to work and get right."
 
Through both injury-riddled seasons and time spent in and out of the training room, it was also the relationship Dean had with her junior college turned NSU teammate Todd that helped carry her through. 
 
Following a stellar first year in Natchitoches becoming the first player to sore 200 points and grab 200 rebounds in the same year since 2016-17, Todd was sidelined for nearly all of 2021-22 campaign with a knee injury
 
 "I remember there were times during that second seasons when we were both injured standing in the kitchen both on crutches trying to cook dinner," Dean said with a laugh. "Being injured with her was more fun than being injured alone for sure. But it was also nice having those talks of how we were going to get through it and better ourselves and get back to play again this season. That's all we were thinking about was getting to play together this year."
 
Her conversation with Nimz coupled with the desire to return to becoming the player she knew that she was, Dean spent this past summer in the gym with every chance she had. She thrived on practices and offseason workouts all with the mindset of recapturing, and even exceeding, what she had done in her first 10 games as a Demon and in two years of junior college.
 
As if fate had directed her path, it was on her 23^rd birthday this season against Southern-New Orleans where Dean felt the all-region player had official returned to the court at Prather Coliseum.
 
She went 7-for-9 in the game for 15 with five assists and three steals after beginning the season making 10 shots from the field in the first five games. It was the third of now 14 double-digit scoring efforts on the season for Dean, the second most on the team this year.
 
During SLC play this year she scored 10 or more in five straight games, the longest streak of her career, including a career-best 22-point game at home against New Orleans. She is the Demons' top scorer against Southland opponents this year and ranks in the top five in the conference in assists at just over 3.0 per game.
 
"It's fun," Dean said about the season she has put together thus far. "I come to practice everyday happy and that wasn't always the case before this year. But now I come in with a really good mindset, smiling, talking with my teammates and think that just by having one person's attitude be good you can affect other people."
 
The shift in attitude and an increase in appreciation for the opportunity to play the game of basketball has led Dean to her best statistical season in the sport. But it has been the personal growth off the court for Dean that she says will stick with her once her final game is played for the Demons.
 
"Grateful," Dean said summing up her time at NSU. "I'm always grateful for the opportunity. For the injuries. For the surgery. For everything that helped me get to where I'm at. Grateful for my coaches, my teammates and every person that helped me and the team in general. Just grateful."