Carol Bailey-Sessums doesn’t remember which opposing team’s coach said it, but she’ll never forget what he said: “I can remember a coach screaming at one of his players, ‘We told you she was going to go over her right shoulder every time!’”

The frustrated coach’s admonition came after one of Bailey-Sessums’ patented fall-away jump shots the undersized post player used to help her score 1,121 points in just two seasons and earn multiple all-American honors while playing for the Wayland Baptist Flying Queens. The fact that opposing teams knew what Bailey-Sessums’ go-to shot was, and they still couldn’t stop it, speaks not only to the kind of talent she had but also to her intense focus and determination.

Though only 5-foot-11, Bailey-Sessums more than held her own while battling taller players.

“I played against a lot of big bodies, but I never felt undersized. I felt like I was strong enough to stand my ground.”

Much of that was due to her fierce competitiveness. Bailey-Sessums was described in the 1992-93 Flying Queens media guide as “incredibly aggressive.”

Then there was that fall-away jumper.

“It was hard for anybody to defend,” she admitted.

Bailey-Sessums came to Wayland in 1991 after winning three state basketball titles at Levelland High School under former Queens coach Dean Weese and after playing two years at South Plains College. At Levelland, Bailey-Sessums’ teams – from seventh grade through her senior season – lost only three of 150 games.

“All three losses were to Canyon (coached by former WBU Pioneer Joe Lombard) in the Queens Classic,” she said, recalling the longtime tournament hosted by Wayland over the Thanksgiving weekend. Levelland and Canyon also faced off in the playoffs at Hutcherson Center, and each time the Loboettes won the rematch en route to capturing their state championships. (Canyon dropped to Class 3A her senior season.)

“Those games were awesome,” Bailey-Sessums recalled. “It was a sea of purple (for Canyon) and a sea of red (for Levelland).”

Bailey-Sessums said the Queens Classic was one of her favorite things about Thanksgiving for many, many years.

“It was the top high school teams in the state as well as the top NAIA teams. You saw almost all the same teams at the state tournament as well as the NAIA tournament. It was the only way to have Thanksgiving.”

After high school, where Bailey-Sessums was the state’s Sophomore of the Year, Class 4A Player of the Year as a senior and became the Loboettes’ then all-time leading scorer (and also placed second in the state in the discus and sixth in the shot put), she signed to play basketball at the University of Texas-San Antonio. But homesickness took hold and after just a couple of weeks she returned to Levelland to play at South Plains College. About that same time another rising West Texas star, Sheryl Swoopes, left the University of Texas and enrolled at SPC to play under coach Lyndon Hardin.

“Our freshman year we went further than any South Plains team ever had, and we finished sixth in the nation,” Bailey-Sessums recalled.

After her two seasons at SPC she decided to become a Wayland Flying Queen under Coach Sheryl Estes.

“It was my first time since junior high to play for a female (coach),” Bailey-Sessums said. “Coach Estes had a passion. She was real intense and hard on us. Some players thought she was crazy, but I enjoyed that because I felt I was intense a lot of times.

“I loved how prepared she got us for games, along with her assistants, Jill Willson and LaDale McAllister,” she said, adding that not until she became a coach herself, starting with being a student assistant for the Queens while completing her bachelor of science in education degree, did she fully appreciate her own coaches’ dedication.
 
“They put a lot of time into game film and getting scouting reports for us to be the best we could.”

Bailey-Sessums’ first season saw the Flying Queens advance to the finals of the 1992 NAIA Tournament in Jackson, Tenn., needing an improbable win in the quarterfinals over hometown favorite Union University to get there.

“It was their home-court, and it was sold out,” Bailey-Sessums said of the close to 6,000-seat Oman Arena. “It was loud and crazy and almost felt unfair, but we beat them (87-73). That was fun.”

The Queens knocked off St. Edward’s, 84-61, in the semifinals before taking on Arkansas Tech in the title game. Riding a 16-game win streak, Wayland fell, 84-68.

“We were down 16 at the half, then played them even in the second half,” Bailey-Sessums remembered.

The Queens finished with a 29-6 record, then came back in 1992-93 and went 25-9, eliminated in the national tournament quarterfinals by top-seeded Southern Nazarene (Okla.)., 79-77, when a last-second 3-point shot just missed.

“That was a heart-breaker game,” Bailey-Sessums said. “We had called timeout and decided to go for the win. We didn’t quite get the shot we wanted.”

Bailey-Sessums, who was named Kodak All-American, American Women Sports Foundation All-American and NAIA First Team All-American both of her seasons, averaged 17.9 points and 6.5 rebounds her junior season and 16.6 points and 7.1 boards as a senior.

Her 1,121 points rank 31^st for the Flying Queens all-time, but among those playing just two seasons at Wayland it is second, behind only Gay Hemphill’s 1,209 points.

“I wish I could play now,” Bailey-Sessums lamented.

She attributed much of her success to her coaches and her teammates.

“We had some really good guards, and Coach Estes spent a lot of time teaching us positioning and where to get us the ball. Both Lisa Kolodziejczyk and I were very successful.” (Estes and Kolodziejczyk were inducted into the WBU Athletics Hall of Honor together in 2009.) Younger post players included two eventual 1,000-point scorers in Kristy Noble and Kristina Edwards, as well as Shannon Copeland.

“That made it hard for opposing teams to keep fresh bodies in on defense because we were so strong and deep down low,” Bailey-Sessums said.

After serving as assistant coach under former Flying Queen great Jill Rankin Schneider at Lubbock Monterey High School the past 17 years, Bailey-Sessums recently left coaching to focus on her family, including JayCee, 20, and Tanner, 15.

“That was real hard because Jill’s my best friend, plus I enjoyed teaching our players about basketball and about life,” she said. “But it was getting too hard to tell my son I couldn’t be there when he asked if I was going to be able to go to his games. Not coaching will allow me to do that.”

Bailey-Sessums, who continues to teach physical education at Nat Williams Elementary in Lubbock, said being inducted into the Wayland Baptist Athletics Hall of Honor is a thrill.

“I feel really honored because of some of the people I know that are on that wall,” she said. “When I go back (to Wayland), either for Harley’s birthday (former coach Harley Redin) or something else, and get to visit with the older Queens, I always walk away full of pride.”

Bailey-Sessums’ mother, Ruby, may have summed up her daughter’s feelings best about being inducted.

“When I told her,” Bailey-Sessums said, “she started crying.”