In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on a Thursday afternoon, Mallory Eubanks walked onto a stage, put a scarf on and became the highest draft pick in Mississippi State University soccer history.
Eubanks, a senior from Lexington, Kentucky, was born in Greenville and grew up a life-long MSU fan. She was drafted by the Washington Spirit.
“Mal has dedicated and sacrificed so much to earn this extraordinary opportunity,” MSU soccer head coach Tom Anagnost said. “She has been a consummate professional since day one. She has set the standard for our program and is a role model for every current and future student-athlete at Mississippi State. Our Bulldog family is incredibly proud of her.”
Eubanks said the Spirit took a timeout with the 16th selection in the draft, so she thought they were going to try and trade the pick.
“I got super excited and my heart was going 100 miles an hour, and I took a long walk to the stage and it was a dream come true,” Eubanks said. “To go up there and get the scarf and know that I was selected by a professional team.”
After being drafted she did media interviews, met her new coaches and another player who was drafted by the team. She then celebrated with her family and MSU teammate Catalina Perez.
Eubanks talked about the way her phone blew up with celebratory text from friends and teammates after the news broke.
“My teammates were really excited,” Eubanks said. “I got a lot of congratulatory texts. Everyone has been so supportive and I am so thankful for all of them. Hard work has really paid off, and I could not have done any of this without them pushing me every single day.”
However, the celebration was short-lived as she had to return to Starkville the next day.
Eubanks was a player who excelled off the field as much as she did on it. She was the soccer program’s first player to be named the SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year when she received the honor in 2017. She is a kinesiology major and has a 3.91 GPA. With her commitment to school never wavering, she came back to Starkville to take the one class this semester she needs for her major.
She said she will hopefully not have to worry about life post-soccer for a long time, but wants to go to physical therapy school. She did an internship this past fall, fell in love with pediatric physical therapy and said she could follow that path post-soccer.
As of last Saturday, she did not know when she was going to Washington, but with the season starting on Feb. 9, she expects to be up there training in the next few weeks.
“My goal is to, obviously, get on the team and start making a difference,” Eubanks said. “To get some valuable minutes and hopefully have a huge impact on the Washington Spirit. Hopefully, I can get on the field and make a big impact on the team.”
She said she is anxious and nervous as she faces tougher competition at the next level.
“It is a new challenge and every challenge will just push me, and I think it is exciting that I will be able to push myself to see how far I can go and how much better I can be,” Eubanks said.
As a player who played forward, midfield and defense at MSU, she said the Spirit’s coaches talked about using her versatility at the next level.
“He talked a lot about me being on the flank, on the outside in a lot of one-on-one situations,” Eubanks said. “He said I could be anywhere on the outside, like an outside mid or outside forward creating things, but there is also an opportunity for me to go in the back and play an outside defender, which is exciting.”
She talked about the value she got from playing some defender this past season.
“I actually got to go in at outside back in the Ole Miss game,” Eubanks said. “Which was a good experience to see that I could do it and give myself confidence.”
She said she is excited about joining the Spirit, and feels like the team is a good fit for her and her style of soccer overall.
“The formation that Washington plays and the style of play is a good fit for me,” Eubanks said. “It is how I see myself as a player liking to play.”
She is the second player in MSU soccer history to be drafted, and the highest pick the program has had. As a life-long MSU fan, she talked about how her selection showed how far the program has come.
“Just being able to do something like that for Mississippi State is awesome,” Eubanks said. “It shows how the program has grown a lot. From my freshman year to last year, with the new coaches and everything coming together, it shows the growth and formed the starting point for where this program can really go.”
MSU has had a huge part of her story and her life. She grew up wanting to come here and spent four years here as a player. She talked about what she will take away from her time in Starkville.
“Just all of the memories from my time with my teammates,” Eubanks said. “Just the experiences I had here, mostly off the field. When you look to your time with soccer, you don’t look at all the wins or the losses. Sometimes you don’t even remember the soccer on the field. It is all about the people and the process, and I think Mississippi State is really special. When I look back, I will remember every single person that was a part of it.”