Making memories and making history: that's what Alex Gravel's five years at UTPA consisted of. Gravel, who has been UTPA's women's basketball all-time leading scorer for almost 10 years, looks back at her years with the Broncs as a period of learning and personal growth.
 
Without knowing it, her journey to UTPA began when she was only five years old. Her sister, Marie-Josee, who is three years older than her, also played basketball, so as every little sister would do, she said, she followed Marie-Josee's steps and started to play herself.
 
She hasn't stopped playing since.
 
Growing up in Chicoutimi, Quebec, she played in the city league while she was in grade school, and although she participated in other sports in high school, she never engaged to the level she did with basketball.
 
Gravel describes herself as a pretty good high school student. She was happy to be able to play her sport and invested most of her energy in being successful at it.
 
"Here in Quebec, there's not a lot of money put into sports. It is not as important as it is in the States in high school," she said. "It was fun for me because I was playing basketball."
 
When she finished high school in Quebec, Gravel moved on to Vanier College, where she played from 1996 through 1998. In Canada, students go to two years of something similar to the United States' junior colleges right after high school.
 
At Vanier, Gravel was recognized first team Provincial All-Star, led her team in scoring and rebounding with an average of 14.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, and made 37.4 percent of her shots from behind the arc. She was named to the All-Tournament Team at the Pre-Season Conference Tournament and Most Valuable Player at the Quebec Provincial All-Star Game. Gravel was also a member of the Quebec Provincial Team that finished fourth at the Canada Games for three consecutive summers.
 
After her two years at Vanier, she was committed to get a scholarship and play collegiate basketball in the United States. At the time, not many Canadian players were recruited to play in American schools, but this wasn't a reason for Gravel to stop trying.
 
"People made fun of me because they thought it was impossible," she said. "Nobody actually recruited me. I recorded my own thing. I made my own tape and I sent them out and one ended up there at UTPA."
 
After sending tapes to about 12 different schools, Gravel was contacted by UTPA. She came on a visit in April 1998, and enrolled at UTPA that fall. Gravel was one of the first athletes from Quebec to earn an athletic scholarship at an American university.
 
"My English was terrible. It was cold here (in Canada) and down there (in Edinburg) it was hot," she said. "But I couldn't let that opportunity go by, so I jumped on it and I really enjoyed the location. It wasn't too big, not too small. It was a little far from home, I have to say, but I liked the people there."
 
Coming to the Valley from French-speaking Quebec was not an easy transition for Gravel. Besides being away from her family, she had to get used to a different language.
 
"I couldn't be any farther from home than Texas, so it was hard because I didn't speak a lot of English. I was on my own trying to do my thing and listening to other people talk for the first time, but afterwards, once I got to communicate, it was nice," she said. "It's something that I wanted since I was a kid and my family knew that. I knew that. It was hard the first year, but after that, things just fell into place and it was okay. I'd do it all over again... the same thing."
 
During the five years that Gravel was part of the Broncs, the program went through three different head coaches – Kathy Halligan, Karin Nicholls and Tracy Anderson and DeAnn Craft. Although this could have been taken as a sign of instability, Gravel embraced the changes and took the opportunity to learn from each coach.
 
"There were a lot of changes. I think that's when things started to change at Pan Am, and it was very interesting to play there for four different coaches in five years," she said. "You learn about different ways of thinking, so that had an influence on me."
 
With the Broncs, Gravel was named first team All-Independent for the 2002-03 season and All-Independent second team for the 2000-01 and 1999-00 seasons. She was also the UTPA Female Student Athlete of the Year in 1999-00. That year, she finished the season ranked 11^th among all NCAA Division I players in three-point field goals per game at 2.8.  
 
To this day, Gravel's outstanding performances are remembered in the UTPA record books. She holds the highest single-season field goal and free throw percentages with .427 and .892, respectively.
 
She is also the highest scoring player in UTPA women's basketball history with 1,227 points and leads the charts in three point field goals made with 258.
 
"I can't believe that it's still there 10 years later," she said. "It was a lot of hard work and a lot of injuries I had to fight through. It's nice to know that I'm still up there in the records."
 
At the beginning of her senior year, Gravel fractured one of her feet, so she had to redshirt her fourth season. Her accomplishments, she said, wouldn't have been possible without Jim Lancaster, the Broncs' Associate Athletic Director for Sports Medicine, who has been part of the UTPA Athletics family for more than 30 years. Lancaster helped her recover from several injuries and was fundamental to allow her come to back and have her best season in her fifth year.
 
Being injured and observing the team play from the bench also gave Gravel the opportunity to experience another aspect of the game.
 
"That's probably what changed me the most because I got to sit there from the coach's point of view," she said. "That was very, very hard but at the same time, I got to meet Coach Anderson and Coach Craft afterwards, and if I hadn't gotten injured, I wouldn't have met these people. So for me, that year actually changed everything. My last year was by far the best one of the five."
 
Being out for one season also gave Gravel the opportunity to appreciate her college experience and realize that positive thoughts lead to positive results.
 
"You can't take things for granted. You're lucky when you get a scholarship and you get to be part of that experience," she said. "I actually got to see someone from the sideline that was on the team that year and she complained a lot. Looking at her, I told myself that never again was I going to complain or be negative. That's what I learned that year... to, in my life and even on the court, only go up and up. It's something that I learned and still apply today, so that was a very positive thing."
 
Moving more than 2,000 miles away from home to do what she had always dreamed of was a growing experience for Gravel. Even today, knowing that she was once able to overcome the distance and the language barrier gives her the confidence of knowing that there is no hurdle too high.
 
"What I learned the most is to be tough mentally because you can't go through life and have success if you're not tough mentally, and today it's something I can rely on a lot," she said. "When something's hard I look back and realize I've gone through harder things."
 
After earning a bachelor's degree in journalism in 2003, she spent two years as assistant coach at Norwich University in Vermont before she decided to step away from basketball and return to Canada. Today, Gravel plays basketball recreationally and hosts "Debout la Planète", a morning radio show on the station Planète Love based in Montreal.
 
RECORD HOLDER
 
Alex Gravel has been the top scorer in UTPA women's basketball history for 10 years. But the name Bianca Torre, a Harlingen-born Bronc who is only one point away from tying the record, is not strange to Gravel. She has been following the performance of the Broncs and knows about the player that will soon replace her at the top.
 
"I've been keeping up with that. Records are meant to be broken anyways, and what I'm most happy about is that she's a girl from the area and growing up she was looking at... maybe me. I don't know," she said."Maybe she looked at the Broncs her whole life and that's why she wanted to stay down there to play. I'm glad that it's someone from the area so maybe she can get people from the area to play and stick around for college."
 
To Gravel, Torre is now having the opportunity that she once had to do what she loves while getting an education. She's getting the opportunity to make memories and to make history.
 
"Pan Am gave me the opportunity to play at that level, get a degree and work hard. I can't be thankful enough because I never took it for granted," she said. "We travelled 15 hours in a yellow bus to go play a game, and for us, it's kind of surreal to get a scholarship and get the chance to travel around and I took that chance.
 
"It's something I will never forget. I'm very thankful for that."
 
For Gravel, being able to be play for UTPA was always a privilege, which she hopes carries on to the current and future generations of Broncs.
 
"The players should be proud because it's a good school. It's a great place," she said. "I was very proud to play for that team for four years. I hope that they're proud of that team."