On Tuesday night Fraggle looked ready. The stuffed cardinal sitting on the end of the bench sported a partial ‘fro with a fountain-top hairdo and some classy bling. Fraggle has emerged as a good luck charm for the women’s basketball team who never travels without him. Every year a sophomore is picked to be his caretaker and dress him up for both home and away games. This year the responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of Kiah McAndrew-Davis ’10.
“I probably got [Fraggle] because I’m a dork and they knew I’d take outfitting him and taking care of him really seriously,” McAndrew-Davis said.
McAndrew-Davis knows that all her hard work pays off.
“We look really bad-ass walking into the gym with a stuffed animal,” she said. “He likes to travel with me to away games inside my warm-up jacket with his head poking out.”
Fraggle’s presence helped lift the Cards in an away game over St. Joseph’s College Tuesday night in what was a 65-43 rout. McAndrew-Davis, who had her first career start for the Cards scored 12 points, part of a balanced scoring attack for the cards in which three players were in double figures.
When Coach Kate Mullen told McAndrew-Davis right after Thanksgiving break that she’d be starting on Tuesday night she was very excited.
“It was exhilarating,” McAndrew-Davis said. “But I tried not to think about it too much. We still had a game to play and that’s more of what I was thinking about.”
McAndrew-Davis, who shot 50 percent from the field, including going one-of-two from behind the arc, was certainly focused on the task at hand. McAndrew-Davis added two steals in a stellar defensive effort.
McAndrew-Davis, who hails from Durham, N.C., is a big Duke University basketball fan. Beyond going to games though, she’s been directly touched by the Duke pedigree. Both her high school and Amateur Athletics Union (AAU) coaches have had ties to Duke. Mark Zeillmann, her AAU coach, has been a trainer for both the men’s and women’s teams while Sheana Mosch, her high school coach and assistant AAU coach, played for Duke and is currently playing overseas in France.
McAndrew-Davis cites Mosch as her all-time favorite player.
“She was an amazing role model as far as how to play the game,” McAndrew-Davis said.
McAndrew-Davis has also had the opportunity to play in the legendary Cameron Indoor Stadium of the Duke Blue Devils, one of the most feared places in the country for opposing teams to play.
“It was great to play in Cameron,” McAndrew-Davis. “It’s a great gym. It’s actually kind of small but it just makes it all seem more personal. I only played a few games there in a tournament called the Deep South but I think everyone was playing a bit harder than usual.”
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