And then he found them:
“I can tell you, she’s gonna go down as the best player in Horizon League history. And it’s not even close that she’s the best player — men or women — in Wright State history. When you consider everything, that can’t be disputed.
“And when it comes to education, consider that at the beginning there were people saying, ‘She’ll never get into college, she’ll never pass a class, she’ll never graduate.’
“Well, she already has graduated and when she finally leaves here after five years, she’ll have her master’s degree, too.
“But most important is the way she’s overcome anything she’s faced. There’s her determination and her high energy and most of all that high character and continually striving to do things the right way.
“I just love her to death.”
And this season that lovefest will continue for the fifth and final year of Demming’s career. The 5-foot-8 guard has returned from the broken left foot she suffered 90 seconds into the season opener last year at Austin Peay. The injury sidelined her for the season and sent shock waves through the program.
She had been voted the preseason Horizon League player of the year. She had won that same award at the end of the 2013-2014 season after she led the league with a 22.4-point scoring average (sixth best in the nation), was third in the conference in 3-pointers made, third in steals and also was one of the league’s best in free-throw percentage, blocked shots and rebounds.
She had led the Raiders to a 26-9 record that year and their first bid to the NCAA Tournament. Coming into last season she was 79 points from eclipsing the Raiders’ all-time career scoring mark: 2,055 points by WSU Hall of Famer Jodi Martin.
And following last season it was thought Demmings might become the first WSU woman to play in the WNBA.
But then came that fateful moment at Austin Peay.
Others told her she jumped and came down wrong. She thinks she simply planted her left foot on a drive and “something popped.”
“I felt the ‘crack… crack’ and I knew something was wrong,” she said. “I couldn’t put weight on it and then the tests showed I suffered a Jones fracture, that’s the fifth metatarsal, the pinky toe.”
She had surgery Nov. 20 and it wasn’t until late January that she could try running again.
Although unable to play, she remained very much a part of the team. She’d sit at the far end of the bench each game and passionately urge the others players on when they were on the floor, then offer private tips and encouragement when they came into the sideline huddle or to the bench.
“Sure I had that itchy feeling about wanting to be out there helping the team, but I knew I couldn’t,” she said. “And they were doing fabulous without me. At the end of the day I knew I was just a small piece of the team. You’ve got to understand this is all a lot bigger than just you.”
That side of her is something many didn’t see when she was coming out of Richmond High School in Indiana. After a couple of troubled prep seasons, she headed toward college with lots of baggage and few Division I offers after several big-time schools had shied away.
“A lot of people say first impressions end up being the last ones,” she said. “But you can’t make assumptions, especially when you really don’t know a person.
“I wanted to prove to everyone you can’t judge a book by its cover.”
WSU took a chance
Demmings has a fraternal twin, Kelly, who is married, has two sons and lives in Indianapolis, where she’s in the medical field.
“Growing up, she liked being Miss Prissy, all dressed and girlie and I was always the tomboy and liked getting dirty,” a grinning Demmings once told me. “But I did go to church each Sunday and my mom would have me get all dressed up. I’d wear a nice little dress, frilly socks and those little black shoes. But as soon as church ended, I’d change clothes and get over to the park.”
She said she soon became a regular at the West Side Lions Park at Northwest J and Ridge streets:
“Right from the start, I threw my shots up from the side or overhead, never underhanded ‘granny style.’ And once I really got hoopin’ out there and proved to the older boys that I could hang with them, they started making me one of the first picks in their games.
“I had one spot in the corner where I could really light ‘em up from there. I didn’t miss much from there.”
When she was about 14 she said she teamed with her older sister, Ana, and friend Michael Potter in the park’s annual 3-on-3 tournament:
“We played three guys who were older and I crossed the one dude over — his name was Cameron — and he fell down and I hit the shot over him. Everybody was out there at the park and saw it and that helped build my reputation.”
Away from the game, she was tearing down her rep. She hung with the wrong crowd and soon was looking and acting like someone she was not.
As she once described it to me: “People saw me as nothing but young and thuggish — I had this ‘You can’t tell me nothin’ ” attitude and it got me in a lot of trouble.”
She had enough transgressions that she didn’t play as a high school sophomore and junior year she got kicked off the team. Regardless, her mom, Yolanda, made her show up at every game after that and cheer for her former teammates.
As a senior, Demmings returned to the Richmond team, averaged 19.9 points and 10.2 rebounds and won second team All-State honors. But by then, the top Division I programs had moved on.
WSU previously had shown some interest, but then came Senior Night when Bradbury and an assistant showed up at a Richmond game — to watch a rival player from Marion.
Instead, Demmings dominated, scoring 34 and prompting the Raiders to reconsider.
“We focused on the good side of her,” Bradbury said. “She had made mistakes, made some poor choices, but nothing really bad. She didn’t have a lot of guidance. She needed structure.”
The Raiders offered Demmings a scholarship and the skeptics shook their heads at what they saw was a wasted pick.
“Right off I just put it in my head that I was gonna prove ‘em all wrong,” Demmings said. “I was going to buckle down and not let anybody else determine who I was going to be.”
‘Life has blossomed’
Asked about the old Kim, the one who spent so much time in the doghouse back in Richmond, Demmings just smiled:
“I don’t even know if I’d know that person any more. I’ve changed 180 degrees.
“Wright State was the perfect outlet for me. It became my home away from home and people here motivated me to want to do better.
“I was able to get away from the situation I was in and it gave me a different perspective. I was able to see a different side of the world that I didn’t know existed, or at least didn’t know existed for someone like me.
“My life has blossomed at Wright State.”
After getting her undergrad degree last May, she’s now taking grad courses in sports management. On the basketball court, she’s steadily returning to old form.
The team recently played three scrimmages in Canada and while she again scored well, she said she’s still working on getting her quickness and jumping ability back.
“It’s been a tough rehab, but along with being our most talented player, she’s our hardest worker,” Bradbury said. “The best thing is that hopefully her attitude and work ethic will rub off on our new players. Right now what we can really use is her leadership.”
This year’s team, which opens the season Nov. 13 against the Miami Hurricanes in Florida — looks almost nothing like last year’s 25-9 bunch. Five talented seniors, led by Horizon League player of the year Tay’ler Mingo, graduated and four others, three freshman and a transfer who never played, have moved on.
“It will be tough, but we won’t shy away from the challenge,” Bradbury said. “I’m sure the expectations are high. We’ve kind of created a monster here and that’s OK.”
The team has added 6-foot-1 Antania Hayes, a transfer from Kennedy-King Junior College in Chicago, who scored 1,066 points and grabbed 708 rebounds in her two seasons there. Her 21.3 scoring average last season was seventh among the nation’s junior colleges. Her 12.6 rebounds ranked 10th.
As for the six new freshmen, Bradbury called them his best recruiting class in his six seasons at WSU.
Demmings, though, is the key.
She will provide the leadership and within the first few games of the season she’s likely to set the all-time scoring mark.
“You always want to leave a program better than you found it,” she said. “And setting that record would definitely mean something. You want to set a mark that players in the future could shoot for and try to beat. You want somebody to come in here and be the next Kim Demmings … and maybe a lot better.”
That last thought, though, is pretty hard to fathom.
And that’s something for which Bradbury had no trouble finding the words:
“When we first signed her, we had it right on the basketball side — we knew she could play — but we had no idea she would turn out to be this kind of high-character person. Over the past five years she has taught me so much about what a person truly can become.
“She’s what coaching college basketball is all about.
“Kim Demmings is why all of us coach.”
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