Angela Aycock


Angela Lynette Aycock, later known as Sister Paula, is an American former professional basketball player. She played for two seasons in the Women's National Basketball Association before retiring to a monastic life in 2002.

College career

Aycock was recruited in 1991 from Lincoln High School in Dallas, Texas to play college basketball for the University of Kansas. At the time she was touted as the second-best player in the country by the Women's Basketball News Service, and was the USA Today and Dallas Morning News Texas Player of the Year.
In her sophomore year, she was named team captain. As a junior, she was the Big Eight Conference co-player of the year. In her senior year, she made several All-America teams. By the end of her college career she had scored 1,978 points for Jayhawks, the third highest total in the team's history.
She also turned out for the USA Women's U18 and U19 teams, in 1992 and 1993. Her U18 team won the silver medal at the COPABA Junior World Championship Qualifying Tournament in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Kansas statistics

YearTeamGPPointsFG%3P%FT%RPGAPGSPGBPGPPG
1991-92Kansas2930047.5%0.0%63.3%5.21.31.80.910.3
1992-93Kansas3048947.1%25.0%67.8%6.92.02.80.516.3
1993-94Kansas2847344.6%14.3%69.8%8.73.22.80.516.9
1994-95Kansas3171641.3%32.8%74.4%7.33.43.00.423.1
Career118197844.5%31.0%70.7%7.02.52.60.616.8

Professional career

Early in her professional career, Aycock played two full seasons and part of a third for the Seattle Reign in the now-defunct American Basketball League. She also traveled overseas to compete in Italy, Greece, Spain, France and South Korea. In her short stint with the WNBA she saw game time with the Phoenix Mercury, the Minnesota Lynx and the Seattle Storm. Overall, she featured in 98 games for the ABL, and in 12 for the WNBA.

Post-basketball

In 2002, Aycock moved on from professional basketball to become a nun of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. She took the name Sister Paula, and was subsequently cloistered at the Protection of the Holy Virgin Mary Convent in Bluffton, Canada. In mid 2003 she transferred to another convent, the location of which is not known.

Other honors

In February 2003, Aycock made the journey from her Bluffton convent to the KU campus in Lawrence, Kansas to see her jersey retired. It remains the last time she has made a public appearance.