AUDI CROOKS SLAMS into her mom. She bounces the basketball onto the cramped and cracked driveway and backs her means towards the ring planted in her tiny aspect yard. A discarded shovel not more than 13 toes from the basket serves because the 3-point arc. Piles of snow mark the out-of-bounds traces.
Audi, simply in center college, will get to the ring with a drop step she realized from her opponent. Michelle Cook had been a high-scoring back-to-the-basket heart who wore No. 55 at Bishop Garrigan, the Catholic highschool of their tiny city of Algona, Iowa.
“We had a lot of bonding moments and arguments in the driveway,” Cook says. “But it gave us something to do that we were in full control over. We were very competitive, and we had a lot of fun with it. No matter what time of year it was.”
Audi makes the bucket over her mother, however she is aiming for one thing extra.
In that driveway, Audi found tips on how to maneuver her massive body via tight areas. She realized tips on how to keep mild on her toes and end gracefully via contact, even when that contact was a block try from her mother.
“When I started beating her, she didn’t want to play anymore,” Crooks says.
“Yeah, it’s not as fun anymore,” Cook says.
Crooks is now a 6-foot-3 junior heart at Iowa State and the nation’s second-leading scorer. The Cyclones struggled down the stretch this season, however Crooks has commanded consideration. She shall be one of probably the most dominant forces within the ladies’s NCAA event beginning subsequent week, if Iowa State sticks round. She averages 25.5 factors, whereas taking pictures 64.7% from the sphere, and 7.8 rebounds per sport. She’s second on Iowa State’s all-time scoring record. She has scored 30 or extra factors in eight video games this season and surpassed 40 in 4.
But her success is met by greater than a smattering of boos. Some individuals criticize her physique. They say she’s out of form. They say she would not play protection. The opinions are all over the place — on-line, in arenas, and, generally, to her mother’s face.
“Being strong is something that I’m proud of. Being big is something that I’m proud of,” Crooks says. “I’m not going to shy away from those things.”
Crooks will get her energy from her mother, from her late dad, from the teachings she realized on that cracked and cramped driveway, from the love she offers and receives in tiny Algona.
SIX GIGGLING MIDDLE SCHOOL GIRLS sit within the entrance row of a big and in any other case empty classroom at Algona Middle School. They all play basketball, and on this unseasonably heat February day, they’re right here to speak about Audi Crooks.
“Inspiring.”
“Powerful.”
“Awesome.”
“Generous.”
“Kind.”
“Caring.”
They keep in mind her from earlier than. They see her now.
Ashton Rummel recollects seeing Crooks play when Rummel was in fourth grade. Bishop Garrigan was enjoying within the 2023 1A state championship sport for the fourth consecutive season. Crooks scored a file 49 factors that day to guide Bishop Garrigan to a 68-57 victory and a second straight state title.
Twins Alyshia and Addison Berte bumped into Crooks whereas they have been out to dinner celebrating their birthday — there’s debate, however they comply with disagree that it may have been their eleventh. They went to Cinco de Mayo, often called simply Cinco to the locals. Crooks was again residence and consuming dinner there. It’s her favourite restaurant (she describes it as “f—ing gas”). The Bertes walked over to her desk and requested for an image. Crooks fortunately obliged.
“If you’re in a small town, your options are kind of limited,” Addison Berte says. “But she defied that and she did what she wanted to do with her life. And I think that’s really cool.”
On Feb. 15, this group of ladies — and their coach — traveled two hours all the way down to Ames to observe the Cyclones tackle Kansas State. Hilton Coliseum rocked with 10,746 followers that afternoon. From their seats behind one of the hampers, they cheered and watched as Crooks scored 20 factors and grabbed 9 rebounds and Iowa State received.
“She’s gotten a lot better,” Alyshia Berte says.
“She doesn’t have a bad attitude on the court,” Rummel says. “You always notice that about Audi. No matter what, she’s always going to have a smile on her face and keep working.”
Though Crooks was unable to greet the group, she feels their love.
“It’s like a tight-knit community, slash like family,” Crooks says. “Without a doubt, [Algona] has supported me in high school and throughout my college career so far. That’s fun.”
Crooks usually makes it again to Algona three or 4 instances a yr. A neighborhood clothes retailer known as Threads has carved out a couple of quarter of its house for an Audi Crooks show, stocked with Iowa State shirts and gear sporting her embroidered signature and No. 55. After a giant sport, orders spike. Owner Tricia Garry says she has despatched merch as distant as France.
“I can hardly go anywhere in Ames,” Crooks says. “But I definitely can’t go anywhere in Algona without somebody saying hey or stopping to chat.”
CROOKS CALLED HIM POPS. As a child she usually traveled 40 miles south down U.S. Highway 169 to go to her dad, Jimmie Crooks, in Fort Dodge. Audi, who lived together with her mother, stepfather and stepbrother, cherished the time together with her dad. Every different weekend, Michelle met Jimmie midway between Algona and Fort Dodge with Audi. When Jimmie’s well being declined, Michelle drove Audi all the way in which to his door.
Audi describes her dad as her finest pal. He performed basketball in highschool and school. Like Audi does at this time and Michelle did earlier than, he wore No. 55.
“Whenever he was at any of my sporting events, I would know he was there because I could hear him,” Crooks says. “He always had the deepest and the loudest voice in the room.”
Crooks and her dad bonded over music and religion along with their shared love of sports activities. After church, she’d stick with him and play the piano. He inspired her to attempt different devices. Today Crooks additionally performs guitar, drums, bass and trumpet.
Audi and Jimmie would speak on the cellphone as they watched basketball video games, particularly the Cy-Hawk video games between Iowa State and Iowa. Often they’d place bets: generally it was $5, different instances it was for who would do the dishes. Her love of the sport was cultivated on these cellphone calls and in discussions with Jimmie about basketball as a lot because it was within the driveway showdowns together with her mother.
Jimmie suffered a coronary heart assault when Audi was 8. Just a few years later, his leg was amputated. He was diabetic. He was hospitalized with pneumonia when Audi was 14. She was 16 when he died in August 2021.
“Changed my entire life, changed my world,” Crooks says. “It was hard for me to play basketball again. I didn’t know if I was going to play basketball again because it was so deeply rooted in him.”
The phrase “Pops,” flanked by angel wings, is tattooed on her proper wrist. A halo rests over Pops and beneath is written “Proverbs 3:6.” “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path,” Crooks says.
“I’m right-handed,” Crooks says. “So every basket that I shoot, he’s with me.”
She carries his spirit, too.
“I watched him go through a lot of hard things, but never once did he lose his faith,” Crooks says. “He had every reason in the world to be angry, sad, mean. But he just showed his love for life and the talents that God gave him. And so I try to do the same thing.”
THEY CALLED HER the Shaquille O’Neal of ladies’ basketball in the video that propelled Audi Crooks past Algona, past Fort Dodge and past Iowa. Crooks had been enjoying in her driveway, for a small highschool, and then a small journey group. She had attended camps at Iowa State. But when she dominated for the CY Select Wolves AAU group, scouts and followers throughout the nation chimed in.
In the YouTube video, Crooks blocks a shot. And then two extra. She catches the ball deep within the paint and lays in a simple bucket. She fires an outlet cross three-quarters of the court docket. She helps an opponent up after knocking her to the court docket.
“I grew up watching the little Shaquille O’Neal Gold Bond commercials and seeing Shaq as like the idol … that was super cool,” she says. “So to be compared to an iconic center that was in the NBA was cool.”
Most of the feedback applauded her footwork, her gentle contact and her huge potential. But even then, some viewers centered on her body.
“It was hard for me to process and kind of understand at that age that, like, those people are so far removed from what I’m doing, yet so heavily opinionated,” Crooks says. “But I think over time I just kind of learned that, you know, I’m doing something right. To be on all these platforms and to have all these people taking time out of their day to say something good or bad, I must be doing something right.”
Even then, Cyclones coach Bill Fennelly noticed an entire bunch that was proper in her sport.
Crooks dedicated to Iowa State after profitable her first state championship as a junior. She made the choice in her bed room after writing a pro-con record. She appreciated that Fennelly and his employees cared about her past basketball. “They were always in my gym or at my AAU stuff. They were really just relentless, in a good way, about me going there.”
Crooks felt energized on her visits to Hilton and excited that she’d get to play in entrance of a crowd nearly twice the dimensions of her hometown.
“All through high school [people said] she was good because she played at a small school,” Bishop Garrigan coach Brandon Schwab says. “Out of high school, everyone was saying that, ‘Oh, her game won’t translate to the college level.’ And now look what she’s doing. Anytime you’re going to tell Audi she can’t do something, it’s going to ultramotivate her.”
Says Fennelly: “We found quickly that that transition was not going to be as hard as most people thought.”
IT LOOKED FOR all of the world that Crooks was all the way down to the ultimate 20 minutes of her freshman season. Iowa State had trailed Maryland by as many as 20 factors within the first spherical of the 2024 NCAA event, and they huddled within the halftime locker room down 16.
Crooks will always remember the dialog.
“[Assistant] coach Emily Hatfield looks at me and goes, ‘Well, why don’t you have 30? Like, why don’t you just score 30?'” Crooks says. “I said, I’ll make it better, I’ll score 40. And that actually happened.”
She completed with 40 on the nostril after taking pictures 18-of-20 from the sphere and 10-for-10 within the second half. She set the file for many factors in a single sport by a freshman in NCAA event historical past. She additionally had 12 rebounds in Iowa State’s seven-point win.
“I am somebody that tries to be a woman of my word,” Crooks says.
Iowa State misplaced to Stanford within the second spherical of the 2024 NCAA event, however Crooks had cemented herself as a breakout star.
As a sophomore, she averaged 23.4 factors and 7.5 rebounds per sport, however the Cyclones misplaced within the first spherical of the NCAA event to Michigan after beating Princeton within the First Four.
The feedback about Crooks on social media adopted her from the Maryland win to the Michigan loss. They are a mix of admiration and admonishment of her dimension. A put up celebrating a dominant efficiency could be adopted up by an individual saying she feasted, and not kindly.
“Nobody can depreciate the numbers that I put up. Nobody can depreciate my play,” she says. “So then they come after me personally, and it’s like, that’s not what I’m here for. I didn’t sign up for that.”
Crooks is a giant, sturdy particular person, and she is not trying to make herself smaller to suit different individuals’s expectations. She has all the time been tall and all the time been sturdy. Teachers usually requested her to get issues off the upper cabinets when she was a child. She makes use of her physique successfully whereas enjoying a sport that may be a chess match of bodily attributes.
“My family, we’ve always been bigger, stronger people,” Crooks says. “Like tall, big humans. That’s just kind of who we are. That’s our identity. I’ve utilized that as more of a tool because this body has gotten me so far in life, and it enables me to do what I do on the court.”
Sometimes the negativity spills over from the web. Cook has been approached by individuals asking her in regards to the meals she fed Crooks rising up or when she would “get healthy.” There was one street sport this yr the place Cook may hear a fan heckling her daughter, referring to her as a “hog” and a “pig.”
“If I hear it, she’s hearing it,” Cook says. “Everybody’s hearing it. And everybody knows it shouldn’t be happening. … It’s not easy, and it hurts as a mom.”
Crooks, nonetheless, would not lash out. She would not get into fights on social media. She would not return hearth at hecklers. She defaults to a smile.
“I think she was listening when I was raising her, and I think she leans on her faith, and I’m glad that she has that,” Cook says. “I always tell her, you have two choices, and the choice is up to you on how you respond. … Not everybody’s going to be your cheerleader. But as long as you’re proud of yourself and your relationship with God is where it needs to be, then that’s all that matters.”
Fennelly says there are days when he worries that the eye and negativity are dragging Crooks down.
“She deals with it a hell of a lot better than I do,” Fennelly says. “She handles it with amazing grace, amazing maturity. For her as a young student-athlete, the social media presence is part of her brand. So you can’t just get rid of it.
“We reside in a world now the place psychological well being is such an enormous deal. And, you recognize, you are concerned about that. You know, we fear about the place is she mentally? We attempt and present assets for all of our youngsters, however definitely Audi, and the factor about Audi, too, is she’s prepared to ask for assist if she desires it and she wants it. She’s not afraid of that.”
Her teammates marvel at her ability to keep a smile on her face while faceless critics try to bring her down.
“She’s capable of finding the enjoyment in something,” senior ahead Sydney Harris says. “And that may be exhausting generally.”
ADDY BROWN AND CROOKS dangle their feet over the water as they sit on the dock. With their lines cast into the lake at Ada Hayden Heritage Park, the basketball stars wait for the next bluegill or bass to take their bait.
They wait some more.
“It makes us each work on our endurance,” Brown says, laughing. “We normally do not catch an entire lot of fish after we’re on the market, however we now have an excellent time simply hanging out collectively and chatting.”
Brown grew up in Derby, Kansas, and often fished with her family. When she packed up for Ames, her fishing poles made the cut. Crooks spotted them immediately. She grew up fishing in Algona, learning on her maternal grandfather’s knee. The first fish she remembers catching on her own was a 20-inch catfish at the pond behind the Pioneer plant where her grandfather worked.
The next time Crooks went back home to Algona, she grabbed her fishing gear. “It lets us bond collectively whereas additionally doing one thing that we grew up doing,” Brown says. “It simply offers us, like, a way of residence.”
And a sense of silence, of peace.
“It’s type of an area to go to clear your thoughts,” Crooks says. “The world is so busy. The life-style being a student-athlete is so busy and so hectic. To be capable of sit down someplace and be in nature, suppose and fish, it is enjoyable.”
Crooks has taken to keeping fishing poles in her car year-round. Her mom has suggested she take them out, but Crooks likes to be prepared. “Well, you by no means know,” Cook recalls her daughter telling her. “We may go.”
Every offseason, Crooks and the Cyclones head up to Clear Lake for a retreat at Fennelly’s lake house. Part of the tradition is karaoke, which, of course, turned into a competition.
Brown, Crooks, and Arianna Jackson — their group goes by Triple A — have competed together the past two years.
“We take it very significantly,” Brown says. “We’re undefeated.”
They make costumes and prepare choreography. No one else is that serious. But Crooks wanted to show out and keep the winning streak alive, even if the jury is just the coaching staff and teammates. They picked “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5 and lifted some choreography from the Nickelodeon show “Victorious” they all grew up watching.
Spoiler: They won.
“She was like, ‘We received to go off this yr,'” Brown says of Crooks. “‘Got to get costumes. Step our sport up.'”
TWO HOURS NORTH of Ames, the low structures of Algona, population 5,500, pop up along the horizon of flat farmland. The world’s largest Cheeto, about the size of a Cadbury egg, graces a purple pillow at Emerald’s Fine Food & Libations. It’s the town’s main tourist attraction. The nearest major hospitals are 143 miles away at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, or 129 miles away in Des Moines.
Like many of her neighbors, Crooks didn’t grow up wealthy. She always had what she needed, but she wasn’t drowning in extras. Cook is a social worker, and she shares some of what she experiences with her daughter. “We have it fairly good in comparison with what I see throughout the day,” Cook says.
Crooks began giving back to her community as soon as she went to college, and she formalized the Audi Crooks Foundation in 2025. The foundation focuses on supporting young people in need. It helps with musical instrument rentals, sports fees and settling negative balances on school lunch accounts. The foundation has provided gas cards for hospital trips and shoes for kids. Community members can request support through the foundation’s website. The foundation strives to deliver help with urgency.
“We by no means wish to make anyone really feel embarrassed,” Cook says. “Loads of it is no questions requested. And I’ll say to Audi, ‘Well, what in the event that they’re abusing it?’ And she’ll say, ‘Well, that is on them. That’s between them and God.'”
Days before Crooks opened her junior season with an exhibition against the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that SNAP benefits — commonly referred to as food stamps — wouldn’t be issued on time in November due to the federal government’s shutdown.
Cook was worried. Local food banks were already struggling. Families in the area would suffer. She shared her concerns with her daughter.
“I defined to her, simply as a social employee, that there is a lot of individuals out of their meals advantages earlier than the following month begins,” Cook says. “They could not make it stretch.”
Crooks heard her mother’s concerns and created Knock N Dash. The program delivered food to families in Kossuth County who requested support through the foundation’s signup form.
Crooks led the shopping effort at the Sam’s Club in Ames. She helped fill shopping carts with pasta, bread, canned vegetables, hot chocolate and Easy Mac. She helped load the food onto trailers alongside volunteers who hauled the food two hours up the road. Back in Algona, volunteers packed black bags in the back room at Threads. It was important to Crooks that the bags not be see-through. Volunteers delivered the food by ringing doorbells and dropping the bags outside the door.
“She believes there must be no face-to-face contact, as a result of that’s embarrassing for some,” Cook says.
Crooks’ foundation did three rounds of deliveries in November.
“It was actually a neighborhood coming collectively,” Cook says.
CROOKS DABBED HER watery eyes with the back of her wrist. Standing on the free throw line with the opportunity to ice the game for Iowa State, she couldn’t hear her dad’s booming voice, but she felt his presence. Before the game, she had written “Pops” with a heart on her shoe.
It was Iowa State vs. Iowa on Dec. 10. Both teams were undefeated. And the Cyclones clung to a three-point lead with 15.2 seconds left. Crooks took a deep, shaky breath before the referee bounced her the ball.
Crooks dribbled, lifted the ball into her shooting pocket, and flicked it toward the bucket. It clanged off the front of the rim. She shook her head in disappointment. Fennelly, who was standing on the sideline, pointed upward. He didn’t have to say anything. Crooks knew what he meant. Their dads were watching.
Fennelly’s own father died before the 2019 Cy-Hawk game. He wrote a note to his late father on the play sheet in his hand. It read, “Love you dad. This one’s for you. Beat the Hawks.”
Crooks made the second free throw, her 30th point, and Iowa State won the game.
“I used to be simply pleased. I simply felt rather a lot of pleasure,” Crooks says before considering what her dad would have said. “Probably complained that I wanted some extra rebounds. But then after complaining, he would inform me that he was proud.”
Crooks scored 30 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. More than 14,000 rocked the stands at Hilton, including Hawkeyes fans. It was intense. It challenged Crooks. But most importantly, “We received a dub,” Crooks says.
That moment ended up being one of the final highlights in Iowa State’s season. After starting the year 14-0, the Cyclones have struggled to recapture the form they had against the Hawkeyes. They hobbled into the postseason at 22-8 and crashed out against Arizona State — a team they beat 90-64 on Feb. 18 — in the second round of the Big 12 tournament. The Sun Devils swarmed Crooks in the paint and held her to four first-half points. She finished with 21 in the 77-68 defeat. The Cyclones are now projected as a 9-seed in ESPN’s latest Bracketology.
After all the points, after all the rebounds, after all the praise and after all the criticism, Crooks isn’t sure what’s next. She knows she wants to play professionally, but she plans to finish college first. When asked if she will play at Iowa State, she pauses. She takes a breath. And doesn’t answer the question.
But she does have an answer for all those who still doubt. For those who said she couldn’t make it out of her driveway to a big-time college. For those who still say she can’t make it in the WNBA. For those who are saying Iowa State can’t make a deep tournament run.
“The folks that criticize me for that definitely could not cease me within the paint,” Crooks says. “It’s one thing that you simply see, you hear, however you have to wash it off your again. Because right here I’m on ESPN, and right here you might be watching.”
