The phone call from Dawn Staley came as DeLisha Milton-JonesÌýwas loading her bags into a bus. The Old Dominion women's basketball coach was preparing to take a flight to Spain, where she was to help coach the U.S. U19 World Cup team.
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The words she heard froze her in her tracks. "Dee, it's Dawn. Nikki's gone. Nikki's passed," said Staley, the head coach at South Carolina and former U.Va. star.
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She meant Nikki McCray-Penson, the 51-year-old former ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ head coach whom Staley and Milton-Jones had known for more than two decades. They'd been teammates, opponents on the court and had coached together.
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Milton-Jones and Staley won a gold medal with McCray in the 2000 Olympics, and they've been close ever since.
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McCray served on Staley's staff at South Carolina, where they won a national championship before she came to ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿. When McCray left ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿, Milton-Jones replaced her, in part because she vowed to bring the same work ethic to Norfolk that McCray had instilled.
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McCray had recently survived a second round of breast cancer. But then it came back.
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Milton-Jones did not know how sick McCray was. Few people did.
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"It was such a gut punch," Milton-JonesÌýsaid. "My world just stopped."
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McCray's death left Milton-Jones with a difficult choice.
"I knew if I got on that bus, I wouldn't be able to see Nikki's service," she said. "But if I didn't, I knew I wouldn't be able to serve, to coach, like I was supposed to do."
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She doubled over and began to sob. She made some calls, including one to ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ Athletic Director Wood Selig. Most encouraged her to get on the plane.
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"She was in tears," Selig said. "She was so broken up."
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"It was such a gut punch. My world just stopped." - DeLisha Milton-Jones, on learning about the death of Nikki McCray-Penson
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Yet she mustered her strength and made the trip to Spain. She returned to Norfolk hours after hoisting a championship trophy.
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Playing in MadridÌýbefore a partisan crowd of 7,023, Team USA defeated Spain 69-66 in the championship game to finish the two-week tournament 7-0.
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Milton-Jones said that everyone in the Team USA contingent, from the players to head coach Joni Taylor of Texas A&M and assistant coach Teri Moren from Indiana, knew she was grieving.
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"Everyone gave me space," she said. "But I needed to be around people.
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"I would go into my room and cry and try to get myself to the mental place where I needed to be to perform. Eventually, I told everyone, 'It's OK to come check on me.' Some of my toughest moments were in my room when I was alone.
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"I'm usually able to compartmentalize things. But it wasn't easy. Everything about USA Basketball reminded me of Nikki. She's deeply woven into the fabric of who I was as a player, as a coach. She had a tremendous influence on me in so many ways."
In her short time at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿, McCray also made a huge impact on the program and people here.
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She took a program in disarray and quickly built ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ into a winner. The Monarchs were 8-23 her first season, but ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ went 21-11 in 2018-19 and was clearly on the rise.
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The Monarchs were 24-6 and were in Frisco, Texas, preparing for the 2020 Conference USA Tournament when the pandemic shut down the nation. With a couple of wins in the C-USA tournament, Selig said he feels that team would have gone to the NCAA Tournament.
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McCray left shortly thereafter for Mississippi State but resigned for health reasons after a season. She was entering her second year as an assistant at Rutgers when she died.
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McCray and Milton-Jones often saw each other at camps or on the recruiting trail and had run into each other only a few months earlier.
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"She looked darker, thinner and the texture of her hair was different," Milton-Jones said. "She didn't want to talk about it. She wanted to put the best light on everything.
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"I know now she was taking a pill form of chemo. But she was always in good spirits. I never saw her down. Ever."
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Milton-Jones said the Monarchs will wear a commemorative patch in honor of McCrayÌýon one set of new uniforms this season.
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The team will also debut uniforms that honor former ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ All-American Anne Donovan, who died in 2018. Those uniforms will display Donovan's name on the back and will have a patch honoringÌýAll-American Medina Dixon,Ìýwho died in 2021 after a long battle against cancer.
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Milton-Jones is a Christian and a spiritual person who said she felt McCray's presence while she was in Spain, especially during the championship game.
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"I remember sitting on the bench right before tipoff saying to myself, 'Nikki's going to show up in here today,' " she said. "And sure enough, she did.
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"There was a point in the first half when we took a shot and there's no way that ball should haveÌýrolled in, but it did. At that moment I knew Nikki was in the building and making sure we had an angel watching over us.
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"Of the more than 7,000 people there, we probably had 50 people cheering for us. The most important one was Nikki."
Milton-Jones said she returned home exhausted and feeling sick but was grateful for the experience.
"Going through this entire process was heart-wrenchingly painful," she said. "Yet it was gratifying. I grew from this experience in many ways. I realize now that I have strength in me I never knew was there."
A longer version of this story is on the .