UK's Watkins balances motherhood, hoops, studies

By Jennifer Smith / jsmith3@herald-leader.com

Mark Cornelison

Jaylen has helped Watkins stay focused. The senior will graduate on schedule in May.

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Lydia Watkins, on and off the court

Lydia Watkins has just left an intense, draining afternoon practice.

After wind sprints and seemingly endless defensive drills, her University of Kentucky basketball teammates are ready to go back to their quiet apartments to unwind, take a nap, maybe watch some television.

Not Watkins.

She keeps running.

The senior forward has a boy with big brown eyes and a wide smile waiting for her.

He's 9 months old and beams as she walks into the apartment they share off campus. He wants to play, so they roll around on the carpeted floor for a while.

"He pulls up on me and starts laughing," she says. "Every time he does that, I can't stop smiling."

Jaylen was an early crawler, climber and walker, so his mom now chases him like she chases Southeastern Conference forwards.

As her teammates relax, Watkins is unscrewing a jar of sweet potatoes and preparing a bottle for Jaylen.

"He's a big guy," she says. "He eats a lot. ... Baby food doesn't fill him up. You have to feed him and feed him and feed him."

Jaylen wasn't planned or expected — Watkins didn't even know she was pregnant until she was 21 weeks along and had played nearly half of last season — but he has changed her life forever.

He keeps her running.

But now the always-energetic senior is running with a real purpose.

"After I leave practice my work isn't done," she says. "I have to go home and be a mother. ... I definitely have had to grow up and mature just so he can grow up to be a great man. Lead by example: That's what I'm trying to do."

Matthew Mitchell, coach of the 20th-ranked Wildcats, sees the changes in Watkins nearly every day.

"She is an example to the other players in practice," Mitchell said. "I can point to her and say, 'This is how hard we need you to work every single day.' ... Lydia has practiced with incredible effort, intensity. I couldn't be prouder of her at this point in time. ... She's been a model player and mother."

'I just froze'

Just before the holiday break in 2008, Watkins went to the doctor with discomfort in her lower back that she figured was a urinary tract infection.

Other than that and a nagging stress reaction in her shin, Watkins felt perfectly normal.

The doctors ran some basic tests and came back in the room to tell her she was pregnant.

"When they came in and told me, I just froze," she said. "I didn't know what to do."

Watkins flashed back to the Western Kentucky game a few weeks before when she had taken a hard charge.

She thought about all of the diving on the floor she does in every game.

"I was definitely nervous throughout the whole pregnancy because I had played physical basketball, had a lot of contact, X-rays, still lifting weights, everything you shouldn't be doing," she continued. "Full practices every day. I wasn't sleeping. There was school, basketball, all of that stuff. I was definitely nervous when I found out."

Doctors worried that she had never felt any movement, that she hadn't gained any weight. Like many female athletes, she didn't have regular periods and couldn't use that as an indicator.

Other than the positive test, there were no other signs that she was pregnant.

A battery of tests revealed that her baby boy was fine, and Watkins felt relief wash over her.

But she worried, still, as most mothers do. Now she was one.

"I prayed several times, 'Please just let my baby be OK,'" she remembered.

A whole new world

What a Christmas present this is for my parents, Watkins remembered thinking sarcastically as she made the trip home to Hopkinsville for the holidays.

On Christmas morning she broke the news to her mother, Mary. A little bit later she nervously went outside to tell her father.

Harley Watkins, a minister, didn't believe his daughter at first.

"When I told my Dad, he said, 'Well, you're grown now, so there's not much I can do other than teach you.'" she recalled. "Even now if I have a question about something, I call my parents and they help me out. They definitely weren't mad or anything."