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Gallup basketball star signs with Texas college

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By Steven Hughes
Sun Correspondent

Gallup High School celebrated the senior captain of the Lady Bengals basketball team Rylie Whitehair by decorating the school's gymnansium on Nov. 23 for her letter of intent ceremony. Whitehair will attend the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in the fall to play basketball.

“[Whitehair] is a natural-born leader,” Todd McBroom, Whitehair’s coach, said. “People can feed off her when things aren’t going our way. It’s nice to have a kid like [Whitehair] who can step up and weather the storm and not just help herself overcome, but the whole team overcome tough situations.”

Whitehair did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment on her high school basketball career.

HYPING UP THE TEAM

High school basketball offers students the chance to embrace the heat of competitiveness and an opportunity to create a bit of legacy. For McBroom, one notable moment of Whitehair’s was when the Lady Bengals won the 2023 Nusenda Credit Union Girls Basketball State Championship.

Gallup fought against Kirtland Central High School for the championship title with seven out of 14 of Gallup’s team as seniors, with Whitehair as a sophomore.

A March 2023 Facebook video by Del Ray Photography documented a deeper look at Gallup’s victory that night, showing Whitehair, 34, running up and down the court and hyping her team up by yelling, “Let’s go!” while the scoreboard’s clock ticked down. The final score of the championship game was 57-47. McBroom said Whitehair showed the team a taste of her leadership style that night.

Then came the 2023-2024 season, bringing changes to the team’s roster that had newer players at the time. McBroom saw Whitehair push the team to a rank of second in their District 1 league and he credits her with the growth this 2024-2025 season as they prepare for Gallup’s next rounds of championship title-earning games in 2025.