The Next Chapter in the Life of Ayoka Lee

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Her first day as a mental health clinician for K-State Athletics was July 28. Ayoka Lee remembers it well, how she took her pet Bernedoodle, Bram, on a walk, then drove him to day care, and then how she showed up at 8:30 a.m. at the Mental Wellness Center on the second floor of the Morris Family Olympic Center. Nobody was in the main office yet. She was all alone. But she spotted a purple nameplate on her office door.

"I thought, 'Dang, this is my office now,'" Lee says, chuckling.

Later, Lee received her business cellphone, computer, keys, and she took a staff headshot. Then she participated in welcome-back meetings with members of the K-State soccer team. It all seemed perfect.

Wednesday morning, as she sits inside of her office, swiveling away from her desk and computer in the corner of the room, she details how she attended her first K-State rowing practice at 6:30 a.m. Then she reached out to some of her student-athlete clients. She has one client scheduled in the afternoon.

This is Ayoka Lee. And this is life.

"Who am I?" she says. "I'm a child of God, first and foremost. I'm a very compassionate person. I'm a trained therapist — that's something I do, and that I really enjoy doing. I really enjoy helping people navigate their own hearts and helping them show up authentically and congruently.

"And I'm a retired athlete now, which is kind of fun to say."

Not yet two months into her tenure at K-State Athletics, Lee knows one thing to be true.

"This position was my dream job," she says. "I knew I wanted to work in athletics with student-athletes, but I didn't think I'd be able to get into this until I was three or four years out of school. I heard that the former clinician was going to leave and that this position would open sometime in the summer. Fortunately, they were able to take me on."

Lee meets with student-athletes and builds a mental health clinician-client relationship, a slow build-up to a full caseload. She also presents to teams and builds relationships with student-athletes from various sports.

"Getting to go to practices and see things with a different perspective and a new lens has been really fun," she says.

Lee has been assigned to present to the women's rowing, men's track and field, women's track and field, men's golf, women's golf, and tennis teams this year. Thus, part of the reasoning behind Lee attending rowing practice before the crack of dawn on Wednesday.

"It was kind of fun to see everything," she says. "It was really cool to see how much goes into that sport and how to do everything the correct way."

Lee wears a gray K-State women's basketball sweatshirt and black pants and sits below hardware that tells of her academic and athletic success. Above a shelf rests two Academic All-America certificates and several crystal plaques — Big 12 Freshman of the Year, All-Big 12 Second Team, All-Big 12 First Team, Academic All-Big 12 First Team, and Big 12 Women's Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year — that along with an undergraduate degree in Psychology, and a Master's in Couple and Family Therapy, and a certificate in Financial Therapy, instantly catches the eye.

Not shown on the display is that the 6-foot-6 Lee was a member of the K-State women's basketball team for seven seasons, underwent multiple surgeries, and subsequent rehabilitation processes, and toward the end of her career received her temporary clinician license and then her full license, and she worked evenings at Andrews & Associates Counseling in Manhattan. And, oh, by the way, she also finished her K-State career as the third player in Big 12 history with 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 300 blocks, and her 2,533 points ranks fifth in Big 12 history, her 1,262 rebounds ranks sixth and her 356 blocks ranks fourth.

For those younger K-State student-athletes who might be unaware when sitting on the cushy purple leather couch for the first time, they will spend the hour-long session conversing with greatness, one of the most likable people in K-State Athletics history, one of the most determined student-athletes in K-State sports history, one of the most accomplished all-around student-athlete in K-State Athletics history, and one of the most recognizable faces in K-State sports history.

"I think some student-athletes definitely come in here and read all the awards," Lee says, smiling. "They're like, 'Man.' And I'm like, 'Yeah.' I think my experience being in college so long and then also with injuries is very attractive to an athlete, like, 'This is someone I know who's going to understand my experience.' Absolutely, there are clients who request me for those reasons. I'm glad I can be helpful in that way even though obviously everyone's journey is different."

Lee's journey began in Byron, Minnesota, a town of about 5,000 people nestled approximately five miles west of Rochester. Lee participated in track and field and played volleyball, but basketball, was, well, different. She grew up a member of the National Honor Society and was voted class president at Byron High School. She was a three-time letterwinner in volleyball and a two-time letterwinner in track and field. She was named a 2018 Miss Minnesota Basketball finalist. Her and her mother visited K-State in October 2016. She committed to K-State on January 1, 2017. Her first night in Manhattan? She was rehabbing a torn ACL suffered in her final high school game. She was young, anxious, wondering about the future — relatable topics in the world of athletics.

"Anxiety is a big topic," Lee says. "Anxiety around performance, and anxiety around identity, and how their identity is so intertwined with their sport. That's the biggest one I've seen. There's a lot of complexity in that. Who told you what you do is so closely tied to who you are and your identity being so tied to your sport, what has that provided you with? That's probably the biggest one."

From that young star from Byron, Minnesota, who sat out her freshman season, came greatness.

On January 23, 2022, Lee scored 61 points in a single game. It remains the most points scored in a game in NCAA Division I women's basketball history. The feat launched her into a stratosphere shared by only a few women's college basketball players.

She was the face of K-State women's basketball.

"I tried really hard to not let it be my whole identity," she says. "I really fought against it for a long time. And it's hard when you have such a great fan base, which is great, and it feeds into that. So many people know me only by being a great basketball player. So, it's about how I can in these spaces gently introduce myself as something other that, or bring other parts of myself into these spaces, and be OK if they don't want to see that but still being authentic to who I am and how I want to show up."

Lee was certainly authentic in the hours after a loss to USC in the NCAA Tournament in Spokane, Washington in late March. She wiped the tears. She knew it was the final game of her record-setting career. Shortly after, Lee explained that she was listening to her body, which had incurred a rash of injuries in seven years, and wouldn't purse a career in the WNBA.

"I'd been playing for so long," she says. "Oh, man. It was definitely sad. As to be expected, it was sad, like, this is a place and a space that I'll never be in again, or at least not within the same context. Not specific to that particular moment after the game, but the weeks after the season was over, there was a feeling like I knew it was going to be good, but it wasn't good yet. It was a grieving process. There was a part of me that I'm never going to experience in the same way. I took time to grieve that. I also knew there was so much more to life. I could book a flight for a vacation. I could go see a friend. Those were things I'd never been able to do because I'd been tied to the sport for so long. There was definite sadness and grief. There was numbness, too, just because it's a lot. I couldn't feel it all in the news conference.

"There was a sense of heaviness from grief, but there was a sense of lightness because this was all uncharted territory. This was all new. There wasn't any rush to experience everything that I could possibly experience or feel like I'd missed out on in the past seven years. It was a very slow pace of life. And it was just refreshing after the season. It was just really refreshing."

Then came summer. And then came Lee's opportunity to embark on a new chapter at a place she knows full well.

"I knew I wanted to stay in Manhattan because I was already somewhat established in my career here, and I didn't want to add one big transition on top of another big transition," she says. "I think there's no better place to get into a career path that I really wanted to be in. What better place to do it than within a system that I know so well."

She still remembers the first time a student-athlete — her first client — sat on the purple couch inside her office and began to talk.

"It was a little nerve-wracking and really exciting, but once the session got going, you get into a groove, and it's like, 'Yeah,'" she says. "It's fun to get to know student-athletes in a different way and to provide space for them to show up however they need to be. It's fun just to build that rapport."

On Wednesday morning, Lee sits in her chair inside her office that she's occupied for less than two months.

"Life is good," she says. "A lot of work, but I really enjoy working. It's an easier schedule, and I have more time to do what I want on the weekends."

This is Ayoka Lee. And this is life.

"I just like the small things," she says. "I have a lot of really great friends and people. Even working within this department brings me so much joy, just my co-workers and being in a space where there's room for collaboration. It's been really cool to develop new friendships after being done with basketball. The word that comes to mind is 'peace.' That slowness. There's no need to be in a rush.

"Everything I need I have."

She pauses.

"And that brings me joy."

Kansas State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Ayoka Lee

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