Tower-Winter-2018

WINTER 2018 | TOWER 13 Kutztown University alumna Monique Boykins has built a successful career in science and as a basketball coach. She loves both. Boykins studied microbiology, cellular and molecular biology at KU, graduating in 2007. She currently works on product development, both clinical and commercial, for Quotient Sciences Pharmaceutical, Philadelphia, a manufacturing facility. She is also the head girls’ basketball coach at Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, Pa. and a school board director at William Penn School District, Lansdowne, Pa., her alma mater . “I save lives every day. We manufacture life sustaining cancer medications and I’ve had the opportunity to work in this field because I continued to go with my dream and I didn’t let a ‘no’ stop me from moving forward. For every no that you get, there’s going to be 10 yesses, you’ve just got to find them. That’s what I teach the kids I coach and the kids in my youth organization.” “Coach Mo” as she is known to her players, lives to inspire and empower youth and women through basketball; however, science is never far behind. “I’m utilizing science and my sports mind together to impact lives,” she said. “When I meet kids and tell them I’m a scientist and I’m also a basketball coach, they look at me like I’m crazy.” Boykins credits KU and the variety of courses offered for her success in the sciences. “If it wasn’t for Kutztown University, I wouldn’t be a scientist. In seventh grade I knew I wanted to work in science but it all came together when I got to Kutztown,” she said. “It allowed me to expand the way I think. I thought science was this little box, but it’s a plethora of different things you can get into.” In particular, Boykins credits former biology professor and current provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, Dr. Anne Zayaitz, for encouraging her to stick with her biology studies after Boykin’s grandmother passed during her senior year. After graduation, Boykins, who ranks on three KU women’s basketball leader boards and was on the 2004 All-PSAC Second Team, went on to play basketball for Global Sports Academy in Belgium, Holland and France. Boykins created an organization called Team SUCCESS – Sustaining Unbelievable Character through Challenge Empowerments Sacrifice and Support – a basketball organization open to local youth in grades four through 11. “Basketball alone is about life. How do I get through a challenge? How can I empower someone? How can I support someone? How can I support myself? All of those things are characteristics that we need,” Boykins said. Many times when she is coaching she is watching body language and personality. “Being a coach, all of that is so important. That’s where my science brain kicks in. We critique a lot. We want answers. We want goals. We want facts. And that’s what I do. If a kid can’t get this, there’s a reason why. We drill and do experiments and figure it out. I don’t believe in the word ‘can’t.’” While coaching, Boykins wears a T-shirt that reads, “They say I CAN’T, I say I CAN, I WILL and I AM.” Boykins has expanded her coaching to adults, starting a women’s basketball league in the local community. “We come in all different shapes and sizes and attitudes and character and we need to empower one another. I ask women, ‘what stops you from playing?’ And they say ‘life takes over, I’m a wife, I’ve got kids, I work.’” So Boykins tells the women to bring their children to practices. While the women are playing basketball, someone’s teaching the children spelling and reading. She teaches players to let basketball be their vehicle to wherever they want to go. Boykins believes you have to be healthy inside in order to shine on the outside. She credits receiving God’s blessings because she helps others. “So many people focus on the word ‘I’ and ‘me’ but what they don’t understand is at the end of the day, it is ‘us’ that is important,” she said. “You don’t worry about what’s coming back to you; worry about helping somebody else and that’s how I live my life. If enough of us would do that, we could change the world.” Boykins ranks on three KU women’s basketball leader boards and was on the 2004 All- PSAC Second Team. Boykins gave the keynote address at Convocation welcoming the class of 2021 in August.