DENVER – When Vanessa Edwards came to MSU Denver in the summer of 1994, she put up a wall around herself.
 
It was a pattern she had followed in her first two years as a college basketball player, at Panhandle State (Okla.).
 
"I saw the girls here, and I said, 'Here we go again with all these white girls," said a laughing Edwards, who hails from Trinadad and Tobago. "I was in my own little world. But I changed my senior year. I loved, loved, loved my teammates. All the girls on my team I loved."
 
The funny thing about Edwards, who admits to being "an ass my junior year," is that even when she was difficult to deal with, she was still the Colorado Athletic Conference Player of the Year. And, when she changed her perspective as a senior, she was once again the Colorado Athletic Conference Player of the Year, a first-team All-American, and led MSU Denver to its first-ever NCAA Division II National Tournament.
 
Nearly 30 years after her playing days ended, Edwards' name still dominates the MSU Denver women's basketball record book, despite playing only two seasons as a Roadrunner.
 
She's still ninth on the program's all-time scoring list with 1,159 points (everyone ahead of her played at least four seasons), and she's easily the all-time leader with a 20.7 points per game scoring average for her career. She's the all-time leader in field goal percentage (56.9) and ranks fourth in rebounds per game (8.8). Her 683 points and 24.4 points per game as a senior in 1995-96 are still the program records.
 
Finally, on Sept. 28, Edwards will take her rightful place in the MSU Denver Athletics Hall of Fame.
 
She'll be inducted along with volleyball star Julie Green, men's soccer All-American Scott Grode, men's soccer star and longtime women's soccer assistant coach Dave Morgan, and former women's soccer All-American Rachel Zollner Tabbal. The 7 p.m. ceremony at the Springhill Suites at MSU Denver follows a 6 p.m. social hour. Tickets are still available.
 
Edwards averaged 17.0 points and 8.3 rebounds in her first season with MSU Denver, but it was a strange dynamic: the Roadrunners were 2-12 in non-conference play before ripping off 12 straight CAC wins for the league title. They finished 15-13 after losing in the CAC Tournament.
 
"We were 2-12," said Darryl Smith, MSU Denver's coach at that time and a member of the Roadrunners Athletics Hall of Fame. "I'm not going to say it was because of her, because she was a great player, but we had friction."
 
After the season, Smith and Edwards had some frank discussions. Smith wasn't sure Edwards would be coming back.
 
"But right before the next season started, she put a piece of paper on my desk, and she'd written down some things," Smith said. "She wrote, 'I want to be a team leader. I want to go to the NCAA Tournament. I'm going to practice hard.' … She said, 'I only have one request. I don't like to run. Don't make us run any more.'"
 
Smith thought about that.
 
"I said, 'If you do these things, if you change your attitude and work hard every day, we won't run," Smith said. "I didn't think she could do it. But I'll be darned if she didn't change her whole perspective and become beloved by her teammates. … She carried us."
 
Said Edwards: "He actually listened. I don't like running and all that type of stuff, but on the basketball court I would go all out. We bumped heads a lot. I was strong minded and outspoken, and back then I didn't know how to articulate how I was feeling – and I didn't care if I did or not. That's something that has changed, thank God, about me."
 
Edwards started making that change before her senior year.
 
"I told myself that I've just got to do better my senior year," Edwards said. "I played horribly my junior year, and even though a lot of people thought it was great (remember, she was the CAC Player of the Year), it wasn't me. I wanted to show people who I really was. I was depending on my talent, and I knew how much better I would be if I practiced harder and got in shape. I wanted to show people who Vanessa is."
 
To understand who Vanessa is, go back to Point Fortin, in southwestern Trinidad, where she grew up.
 
She played netball, a sport similar to basketball in that it has a 10-foot high basket, but dissimilar in that it has no backboard. She honed her shooting ability in netball, then starting playing basketball and never went back to netball.
 
Muriel Mitchell, a friend and national team teammate, had two incredibly impactful moments in Edwards' life.
 
First, when Jerry Olson, then the head coach at Panhandle State, tried to recruit Mitchell, Mitchell wasn't interested and suggested that he recruit Edwards instead. Edwards wasn't interested initially either – where exactly was Oklahoma again? – but eventually agreed with her father that a free education was worth it.
 
At Panhandle State, Edwards closed herself off from her teammates that first year, after she heard them talking about one another. As the only black player on the team, Edwards wondered, what might they be saying about her when she wasn't around?
 
But she opened up her sophomore season – the pattern she would repeat at MSU Denver – and averaged 23.4 points and 10.3 rebounds, was named most valuable player of the region, and led the Aggies to the quarterfinals of the NAIA National Tournament.
 
After the season, though, Olson left and Edwards decided she didn't want to go to school any more. She moved to Denver with a friend, and got out of shape by not working out. Olson, though, had known Smith for years and eventually the connection was made. He knew Edwards could handle Edwards, and he knew Edwards could play.
 
"Jerry told me, 'Darryl, she can play for anyone in the nation," Smith said.
 
She proved that over the next two seasons.
 
Smith laughs when recalling those early days.
 
"She said, 'Look, I just want to play basketball,'" he said. "'I don't do team functions. I don't want to lift weights. I just want to go to practice. I don't want to hang out with my teammates. … And she was true to her word.'
 
"We would front the post (defensively). And I'd say, 'Vanessa, you've got to front the post.' And she would say, 'I don't need to. They won't throw it in here if I'm guarding them.' And she was right."
 
In 1995-96, the Roadrunners were 20-8 and won the CAC Tournament by avenging two previous losses to crosstown rival Denver with a 76-58 finals victory to earn an automatic bid to the NCAAs.
 
"Coach Smith and I got along better, and I started understanding that he realized what he needed to do to get the best out of me," Edwards said. "And all the accolades I have are not just me. My teammates and my coach all contributed to my success in my senior year."
 
After her Roadrunners career ended, Edwards considered playing professionally – she had played for her national team for five years – but didn't pursue it.
 
Fast forward to 2018, and Edwards sensed that something was wrong with her physically.
 
"I was feeling short of breath," she said. "I told my co-worker, 'I think I'm dying.' I live on the third floor with no elevator, and just walking up the stairs it felt like I'd been running suicides (a frequent basketball conditioning drill). I drove to the emergency room and there was fluid in my lungs and heart sac."
 
She was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and was at Stage 4, and she was preparing herself to possibly begin chemotherapy, though she had been told about other potential treatments. Though she was at peace initially, eventually she broke down.
 
"I went to my cousin's and I bawled my eyes out," she said. "I cried to the Lord and said, 'God I don't want to die, please help me.' And God spoke to me and said he's got me."
 
And sure enough, Muriel Mitchell called that day.
 
"She told me to talk to an herbalist that she knew," Edwards said. "He told me to forget the chemo and radiation, go to a plant-based diet, cut my sugar and alcohol, eat grains and greens."
 
Edwards took the advice and, remarkably, her cancer went into remission as her physical condition improved. She lives in Orlando, Fla., and has worked in the home health care industry for the past 10 years.
 
She hasn't been back to Denver in about 15 years, and is looking forward to the chance to reconnect with teammates and her coach.
 
"It was shocking news, but great news," Edwards said of the call to join the Hall of Fame. "I didn't expect that. It's the biggest honor an athlete can have. And I thank God, because the first thing I thought about is that the devil tried to deny me from getting this honor. I could have died, but God had different plans."