Chiney plays for the Connecticut Sun and also is a rising star in television.Each a former No. 1 overall WNBA draft pick, the Ogwumikes lifted their family name into basketball royalty. She’s still a student at Rice University, still taking online classes. It’s what families do.Start your day with the top stories you missed while you were sleeping. I’m glad I have it.”Glynn A. Hill covers Rice and Houston-area college athletics for the Houston Chronicle, joining the paper in September 2015. Rice is up there with schools like Stanford, so you can see the paths are kind of similar, but they’re catered to us. “And that feeling of getting drafted was still the same.”The sisters end the night with Martinelli’s apple cider. “In high school, we both had this intuition with each other,” says the elder Ogwumike of playing basketball with her younger sibling, a freshman. Chiney — who joined Nneka with the Sparks in a trade last year — interviewed Erica for SportsCenter. They don’t feel like they have to have basketball define them.”To that point, Olivia and Erica have developed a tradition of helping teammates at Rice. View Onyinyechi Jessica Ogwumike’s profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community. Copyright © 2020 Deseret News Publishing Company. They’re unique still when you look inside the story.”While Nneka and Chiney have used basketball as a vehicle to create other opportunities — Nneka serves as president of the WNBA Players Association and Chiney a sports analyst for ESPN — the younger Ogwumikes have used academics as their greatest means of achieving success.Olivia graduated from Rice in December with a major in psychology. They suggested specific professors and courses and provided an academic road map for guidance.“I’m blessed that they told me that because it definitely made my transition easier,” freshman guard Jasmine Smith said. Outside, the pandemic rages, jobs vanish and more people are getting sick. “We went to the high school five minutes away from our two older sisters. She’s pursuing her master’s degree in bioscience and health policy, with plans to attend physician assistant school. How much does the current pandemic resemble the pandemic of 1918? Olivia’s education is listed on their profile. But the younger siblings missed home and sought a school that better fit their goals and personalities.“It was a decision that came with time,” Erica said.
But as younger sisters Olivia and Erica near the end of their collegiate careers at Rice, they are adding to this impressive sibling legacy with their own accomplishments.“My mom has definitely been a huge influential perspective on us about how we’re all different individuals, and so that’s how Erica and I’s mindset has been our whole lives,” Olivia Ogwumike said. Ogwumike says fan got 'caught up in the moment' (0:23) Nneka Ogwumike discusses what happened when a fan took the court after her postgame interview, crediting security for being on top of it. This season, she brings another asset: her younger sister, Erica. But here, there is also hope. It’s what families do. These are just a few of the strengths sophomore Olivia Ogwumike contributes to the Pepperdine women’s basketball team. “We never really felt pressure to live in the shadows of our sisters because it was never really what we were taught.”Since Olivia and Erica transferred from Pepperdine to Rice in 2016, the Owls have hit the 20-win plateau three straight years under coach Tina Langley, totaling 68 victories in that period — the greatest stretch in program history. As her four daughters’ careers blossomed, Ify … They wore dresses and heels and did live interviews on TV. newsletter All Rights Reserved