VT Basketball Bio

Rayna DuBose returns again this year to the Hokies as she continues her remarkable recovery from a near-fatal illness in April, 2002. DuBose will primarily work with Tech's post players.

DuBose was hospitalized at Montgomery Regional Hospital with meningococcal meningitis on April 2, 2002, just over a week after the Hokies had completed the basketball season. This rare disease is a bacterial infection that leads to inflammation of fluids surrounding the brain and spinal cord. The next day she was airlifted in critical condition to the University of Virginia Medical Center where she would remain for the next 97 days. She spent three weeks in intensive care before being upgraded to fair condition.

In early May of 2002, she underwent a series of surgeries in which doctors amputated parts of all four limbs due to tissue damage caused by the infection. On July 8, DuBose was transferred to Good Samaritan Hospital, a Baltimore rehabilitation facility near her home in Columbia, Md. Soon after, she returned to her home and began regular visits to the rehab facility where she later would be fitted for prosthesis for her arms and legs.

DuBose made her first visit back to Virginia Tech on Oct. 19, 2002 for the Hokies' homecoming football game against Rutgers. She returned to campus in the summer of 2003 and worked at the women's basketball camps then enrolled for the fall semester.

Her amazing recovery has garnered national attention including features on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, CBS Sports' Final Four preview program and the CBS Early Show. In April 2003, Rayna and her parents traveled to New Orleans, La., the site of the NCAA Men's Final Four, where she received the Most Courageous Award from the United States Basketball Writers Association. In June of 2005, she received the Wilma Rudolph Student-Athlete Achievement Award which is awarded annually by the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics (N4A) to student-athletes who have overcome major adversity in their lives to excel as students and athletes.

2001-02: A 6-3 center, DuBose played in 13 games ... Never missed a collegiate free throw attempt (15-15) ... Scored in double figures four times ... Had 10 points in collegiate debut against Northwestern State (11/24) in LSU Crawfish Classic ... Had 10 points and five rebounds at Radford (12/12) ... Tallied 10 points and seven rebounds in Lady Luck Classic against Gardner-Webb (12/28) ... Scored six points with six boards in Lady Luck Classic title game against Hampton (12/29) ... Tallied a career-high 13 points in only ten minutes against Vermont (3/20) in WNIT Quarterfinal.

High School: Averaged 15.5 points, 13.1 rebounds and 3.0 blocks her senior year for Coach Marcus Lewis at Oakland Mills H.S., in Columbia Md. ... Led the team in scoring and was the school's all-time leading scorer with 1,067 career points ... Was named one of the top 30 centers in the nation by All-Star Girls Report.

Odds & Ends: Rayna Lee DuBose ... Born 10/15/83 in Columbia, Md. ... Daughter of Andrea and Willie DuBose ... Major is apparel, housing and resource management.