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Basketball standout Caroline Warden: "she’s got a big motor..."

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MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (Beasley)  --   If you're a fan of Middle Tennessee basketball, you know the name Caroline Warden. What you may not know is that she took an unconventional path to a starting position with the MTSU Lady Raiders.

Standing just 5-feet, 7-inches talk Warden was a high school basketball standout in Jackson County. But when MTSU head Coach Rick Insell came to call, it wasn’t to see Caroline.

“We were looking at another young lady that Jackson County had,” Insell recalled. “I just didn’t think she could play for Middle Tennessee and that I would help them go anywhere else that I knew some coaches at some programs I felt like she could play at.”

But Warden wasn’t interested in another school, and had confidence she could overcome Coach Insell’s reservations.

“I am small and I’m not, you know, the tallest player or the biggest. That’s just another obstacle that I’ve had to overcome is my size,” Warden said.

“She’s very confident about herself and at that point she just kind of looked at me and said, ‘Hey, Coach, I’m not interested in going anywhere else. If you’re not going to give me a scholarship, I’m going to walk on,'” Ensell remembers.

From that moment, Warden had a foot in the door for the tryouts upcoming in the fall. She proved she was good enough to make the team, her next step though, was showing coach through practice just how much she could play.

“When we started practice, I just didn’t look at her. It’s just one of these cases where you’ve got to take advantage of the opportunities. Caroline went in and hit about five “threes” in a row against our varsity defense,” Insell said.

Then, Caroline received the ultimate reward for her hard work -- a scholarship to play at Middle Tennessee.

“It was the day before practice. Coach took the time to talk to me. We were sitting there and he’s like, ‘We have a scholarship and I’m going to give it to you. You’ve proved yourself. You’ve worked hard.’ I wanted to cry just right in front of him because I just felt like all my hard work, everything I’ve done my whole life basically was happening,” Warden explained.

Eventually, Warden would start the last 11 games of her freshman season, and show everyone why she belonged in the Blue Raider uniform.

“The girls got to looking, saying ‘Hey.’ You could see their body language changing like, you know, ‘This kid is a winner.' She knows what’s going on. She knows the offense. She is small, but she’s got a big motor and she’s hustling,” InselI said.

Lady Raiders teammate Macenzie Sells says Caroline Warden earned her spot on the team.

“She did surprise a lot of people,” Sells said.  “When people said Caroline Warden was coming here to be a walk-on, I knew she would work hard and just prove everybody wrong.”

“All that’s happened and the games that I’ve been able to play in, you know, the championships that we’ve won and everything. I didn’t know that was going to happen, but I knew that I could help the team to get there,” she concludes.