Continuing our Where Are They Now series, we highlight the remarkable career of former women's basketball player Lillian Chukwueze. We look at how Goldey-Beacom helped her achieve more than she had imagined before graduating in 2015.
Lillian brought her talent and work ethic to GBC after transferring from Rutgers-Camden as a two-year letterwinner. She ended her sophomore campaign second for the Scarlet Raptors with 13.7 points per game, led them with 9.5 rebounds per contest and started 23 of 24 games.
As a freshman, Lillian ranked third on the team with 8.5 points per game, started 15 of 23 contests and led the squad with 192 rebounds. She ended her two-year stay with 524 points.
Lillian's success did not stop there. For our Lightning, she was able to add to her many accolades. During her junior campaign, Lillian averaged a team best 16.0 points per game and was named second team All-Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference. She helped GBC reach the ECAC Tournament final and, during that tournament, scored her 1,000th collegiate point.
She added to this success during her final season in being picked first team All-CACC. Lillian closed eighth in the league with 15.5 points per game, 12th with 7.8 rebounds per contest and 24th with a .404 shooting percentage. She is eighth in school history with 904 points, seventh with 72 three-pointers and just outside the top 10 with 446 rebounds.
Off the court, Chukwueze found that GBC had a lot to offer for her academically. "My favorite thing about GBC is how close knit of a community it was. I kind of liked how I knew literally everybody on campus, everybody on every sports team and all the different coaches and all the different staff. And I especially liked the small classrooms because they gave me an opportunity to connect and really learn from my professors who also had the time to give to me if I needed extra help. Unlike huge schools with huge classrooms." Her hard work in the classroom paid off as she was picked to the CACC Winter Academic Honor Roll.
Post-graduation, Chukwueze took her athletic talent overseas, where she played in Spain for Syngenta C.B. Almeria. When asked what kept her going when she faced adversity, she stated, "The main thing that kept me going as a student-athlete when I faced adversity was looking at the bigger picture. And for me the bigger picture included a couple different things. I was grateful that I had received the scholarship because I came from a school where I had no scholarship (Division III schools offer no athletic aid). And I had big plans of playing professional basketball."
Some words of wisdom from Chukwueze for incoming students is "One piece of advice that I would give incoming student-athletes is to have discipline. College is fun and sometimes it can be overwhelming. You can lose focus easily, but it is especially important to stay on top of your studies and stay on top of your athletic commitments so you remain on the trajectory of where you would like to go after it is over. Because those four years go a lot faster than you think."
Currently, Lillian is a full-time entrepreneur focusing on her real estate business. "I have a lot of skills that I've developed over the years, but my focus is my real estate business. And I absolutely love it."
