By Austin Edstrom
Holly Harris didn't even have UAH on her radar when she was finishing her basketball career at Tennessee's Franklin High School.  Nor was she on the radar at UAH. In fact, Chargers coach Andrea Lemmond didn't know of Harris until she received a call from an old friend.

Harris attended a basketball camp conducted by Wofford coach Jimmy Garrity, who believed she would be a perfect fit for the UAH program. He contacted Lemmond, who invited Harris for a recruiting visit, a visit that would all but guarantee Harris's involvement going forward with the women's basketball program.

"It was the main visit that I took, that I walked away from feeling like they were fully genuine," Harris said. She was accompanied by her mother, the former Ann Pendergrass, a star on Louisiana Tech's 1982 women's basketball team, which won the first-ever NCAA women's national championship. Holly was so excited, she called her other "big coach" in her life, her dad Wendell, who soon hustled to Huntsville for a second version of the recruiting visit.

The more Holly talked to parents, the more she felt like she had found her home for the next four years. 

And thank goodness she did because Harris, who reached the 1,000-point career mark on Feb. 14, has consistently been one of the Chargers' best players over her time in the Rocket City. Harris led the team in 3-point percentage over her sophomore and junior campaigns, and was second in the Gulf South Conference last season. 

Her offensive efficiency is rivaled by her defensive skills as well, although the defensive side of the ball was her weakness going into college. Harris said she remembers UAH assistants telling her she was the "weakest link" on the defensive end. 

The weakest defensive link for the Chargers became the steals leader in the conference last season and has continued to put up great numbers with her back to the net this season while being affected by a handful of injury issues.

In the final game of her junior year, Harris tore her MCL. That knee still causes issues for Harris as she combats the weakness that came along with the injury. This injury also led her to the decision of not taking the Covid year that is offered to student-athletes whose season may have been affected by the virus. Said Harris, "I think that was another sign of my body telling me that I don't have much left."

In her very next game, the 2021-22 opener, she suffered a concussion while taking a charge, forcing her to miss nine games – and even be restricted from practice by Lemmond. 

"Coach told me I wasn't allowed to come anymore because I couldn't be in the gym and not talk," Harris laughed. "I was screaming, talking to people the whole time and encouraging, telling everyone what plays to run or what they're doing, trying to bring energy to the gym. Coach said, you've got to stop coming in. This isn't helping you at all. But when I came back, she said it was so natural to slide back in because they heard my voice the whole time."

As fruitful as basketball has been for Harris, her academics at UAH have been better. Through her first three years at the university as a biology major, she made the GSC Academic Honor Roll three times and she found herself on the GSC All-Academic Team just a season ago.

Going into the final few games of her collegiate career, Harris said her goal was to "enjoy every single moment, really make the most memories that I can with each person on my team, because it's not the stats or the record I will remember in five to ten years, it's going to be the people and the memories I made and the relationships I've formed."

Without UAH, she said, "I never would have gotten this growth anywhere else."