Haley Nichols attended a UAH basketball camp as a young player – and now the sophomore transfer from UT-Martin leads the Chargers in scoring and rebounding as they go into Sunday's game against Columbus State. She sat down recently with assistant athletic director Mark McCarter for a wide-ranging conversation, from a nagging injury to her summer job to the saga of her arrival at UAH. (LIGHTLY EDITED FOR LENGTH AND CLARITY)

Q. You've been dealing with an ankle injury. How is it doing, and what's the frustration level?

Haley: It's better. Jess (athletic trainer Jessica Brunetti) has been taking really good care of me, so I'm very appreciative of that. It is frustrating just for the fact that you get a new opportunity and you really want to try to help the team out. Going through an injury is just hard, but you get through it. And Coach (Andrea) Lemmond, man, she's done everything to get me here and I couldn't be more thankful for her.

Q: What did Coach Lemmond do to make that happen? You initially came her for a camp, right?

Haley: I think it was my freshman year of high school and she had me come down for a camp, and I loved it here. Then some stuff happened, and they lost all their paperwork or something on me. They were going to some new system. I didn't have any contact with Coach Lemmond for, I want to say, like, a year or two. Then she found me at an AAU tournament in Kentucky. She came running over to my court to find me, because she knew who I was. And then she saw me playing and then got back in touch with her, but it ended up not working out the first time around. 

Q: You signed to play at UT-Martin, played some as a freshman and then got hurt. And you decided to transfer.

Haley: When I looked in the transfer portal, (Coach Lemmond) was instantly the first person I saw. Just the next day after I was in the transfer portal, instantly, it was just a great opportunity. My AAU coach (J.D. Stein) was helpful in the whole process, and he asked me, do you want me to reach out to anybody? And I was like, oh, definitely: Coach Lemmond from UAH. I was, like, 100%. And she got a hold of me, and we got in contact, and then she brought me down here on a visit. Got to hang out with the girls, kind of got to meet them. She kind of showed me around again, and I knew this was the place for me.

Q: What struck you then about this place?

Haley: When you go through the recruiting process, it's kind of like where it feels like home. It's like when you step on campus somewhere, it's where do you see that you fit in? Do they have your major? Is it a good school? Do you like the area around? And I felt like this was it. It feels like home. 

Q:  All right, now you're here, you're leading the team and scoring and rebounding. Just assess the season you're having while you're playing.

Haley: As a team we're getting a lot better. We're doing a lot of stuff in practice. We're working on a lot of different things. I think we have some younger kids that are really stepping up right now, which is really helpful.
We have girls playing positions that they're not used to playing just because we do have injuries, which is very unfortunate, but we're kind of just ready for anything at this point. 

Q: How are you with your own performance this season?

Haley: I'm okay with it right now, I'm not necessarily happy. I obviously have a lot of areas I need to improve on. Trying to work with some different stuff right now, especially for rebounding stuff, better scoring. I've had some decent games on percentage-wise and then some, not so much. On defense, you can't ever be satisfied with how you're playing.

Q: Coming here for academics was important to you. What's your major and what are your plans?

Haley: The professors I've had have just been amazing so far. I love all the professors I have this semester.  For a professor to care about outside of school. I feel like that's a really, really big plus to have as a student athlete.
I'm majoring in Business Management. I landscaped back home (Avon, Ind.) in the summers, so I think I'm going to try to have a landscaping business. I was mowing yards, making the flower beds. Rock installations, mulch installations, things like that. And a really cool one with a fire pit in the backyard. They kind of let me design something on my own. And that was really really cool. It's hard work. But it's fun. I enjoy it. I worked with one of my best friends back home. We do it together. Nothing's better than working with your best friend all summer.