An Aussie's Redemption Tale

Oct. 8, 2014

Jessica Poole

Assistant Director Athletic Media Relations

When Ole Miss assistant women's golf coach Hayley Wilkinson takes to the links with the Rebels she is truly living out her dream - a dream nearly a decade in the making.

Wilkinson, a native of Australia, begins her first season with the Ole Miss women's golf team after spending the last four years with the Queensland Golf School of Excellence, most recently serving as director of golf. In her position, she was responsible for overseeing all decisions regarding the senior, development and junior golfers at the School of Excellence.

She also served on the Queensland High Performance Committee, helping to advise the Golf Queensland Board on the strategic development and evaluation of Golf Queensland's High Performance teams. Some of the responsibilities included identification and development of talented juniors as well as the development of elite amateur golfers.

Wilkinson is highly connected to the Australian golf community, but her goal was always to get back to the United States to finish something she started back when she was a collegiate golfer at Long Beach State

You see, Wilkinson was a highly accomplished collegiate golfer in her own right at Long Beach State. She helped to build the 49ers' team during her time there and was playing her best golf her senior season. A captain and first team All-Big West selection, she had the team as high as No. 19 nationally -- the highest ranking in school history. She helped lead Long Beach State to its first-ever NCAA Regional appearance in school history and a second-place finish at the Big West Championships, but Wilkinson had to enjoy both of those events from the sidelines after learning right before the Big West Championships that she had colon cancer - at 23 years old.

Wilkinson had been feeling ill in the fall of her senior season, but as most student-athletes do, she figured it wasn't anything serious. She went home to Australia and saw a doctor, but just thought it was the climate change that made her sick and forgot to share all of the symptoms she had been having. So she went back to California, but just didn't get better.

"I didn't tell anyone on my team," said Wilkinson. "I think I told them two days before that I needed to get some tests done and my coach found out that day before. I was the captain and I saw it as my job to keep everything together. We were having such an unbelievable season and I really wasn't thinking much about it."

Wilkinson recalls the night before, filling out a form for the appointment and some of her symptoms pointed to colon cancer and it was then that she had suspicions that might be what was going on.

"I remember our athletic mentor, who survived two bouts of cervical cancer, was there and they actually pulled her out of recovery to be with me, and the nurse and the doctor had tears in their eyes. I knew exactly what he was going to say."

The entire time Wilkinson was concerned about her teammates and how her diagnosis was going to affect them. They were in the midst of their best year in school history and were going to qualify for regionals and she just wanted to keep everything together.

"We were having such an incredible run. We were 19th in the nation and were playing well. I was more concerned about trying to schedule surgery around conference and regionals, but my team sat me down and said they couldn't play knowing that any moment I could get sick. So they made the decision for me to not play regionals and since we wanted to keep the team the same, I didn't play the Big West Championship either. It broke my heart because you come a long way and that's all you want and I didn't get to experience it.

Meet Wilkinson for five minutes and you know that she's nothing but a bundle of positive energy. She's never without a smile on her face and tackles life with a "Can Do attitude," an attitude that can be attributed to her battle with colon cancer.

"Life gets a whole lot easier when it becomes about fighting for your life and surviving," Wilkinson said. "The whole experience was really good for me mentally and actually made me a much better golfer afterwards."

Wilkinson believes in using your purpose, and her talent is helping young golfers reach their potential.

"Your purpose in life is to use what ability or talent God gave you to make the world a better place and I believe that I'm a good coach. I didn't make it as a player, but I believe that my talent lies in coaching and mentoring young athletes. Here at Ole Miss we have a great group of girls that come together as a really good unit. I love college golf because you play as a team and not as an individual. We might go out and play as individuals, but we're still a team and I'm really looking forward to creating that team atmosphere."

After winning her battle with cancer, Wilkinson has devoted her life to "paying it forward," using the game of golf, which has given her so much. Wilkinson's extensive involvement with Australian golf has prepared her to get back to the States and into collegiate coaching. A chance meeting with Ole Miss head coach Michele Drinkard at a tournament gave her an opportunity, and she said she's forever grateful to Drinkard and Ole Miss for helping her fulfill her dream.

"Ever since my senior year, I've had this fire in my belly that I need to come back to the States and I need to experience a postseason," Wilkinson said. "Not just for selfish reasons, but I want to help the girls and I want to give back. My purpose in life is to help women golfers, and if I can help them get to regionals it would be amazing. It's been an eight-year journey, but I'm back."

Wilkinson is back and redemption is within her grasp.

The Ole Miss women's golf team hosts the 2015 Rebel Intercollegiate at the Ole Miss Golf Course April 3-5 with the College AM on April 2. For more information email wgolf@olemiss.edu.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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