Empowered Women Series: Bianca Littleton

Bianca Littleton played tennis, volleyball, basketball and ran track and field growing up. She started with tennis where she was actually taking classes to really learn the sport. It wasn't until she was around eight when she was put into the Oceanside recreation basketball league.

"My parents were those parents," Littleton said. "They wanted to put me in everything. I was doing basketball. I was doing volleyball. I was doing track and field and they wanted me to just stay active as a young girl."

She continued to play everything, except tennis, into high school. When the time came to look at colleges, no one came knocking on her door wanting her to play for them.

"Coach [Leigh] Marshall came to one of my games against Escondido High School," Littleton remembers. "And I thought I played horrible, and she came up to me after the game and was talking to me about Palomar and her being their new coach."

At that time, Marshall was only in her second year at Palomar and was looking to truly begin building her program. Littleton was still running track at the time and she received a scholarship offer from Wichita State University, but she chose Palomar because she believed in Marshall and she loved basketball.

Littleton was a part of the team that won Marshall's first Pacific Coast Athletic Conference title. Her sophomore season at Palomar she really got to improve on her skills. She no longer ran track and focused solely on basketball. And her hard work paid off. Littleton received a scholarship to play basketball at California State University, East Bay.

"I played there two years finishing it out," Littleton said. "I stayed an extra year and got a degree in kinesiology with an emphasis in nutrition and wellness."

After graduation, she moved home because she missed it. She would go to Palomar in the summers to workout with Marshalls' summer class. Former players occasionally come back and work out with the new team during that period.

"I just remember being out there on the floor and just getting a nice workout in for fun and I was like, 'I could really see myself coaching.'," Littleton said.

Marshall allowed her to be one of her assistant coaches on a walk-on basis, but Littleton didn't care about that, she just wanted the experience.

One day at practice, Marshall asked Littleton if she would be interested in helping the athletic department out at the college. Littleton said yes, so she quit her day job and became the athletic department assistant.

"I absolutely fell in love with the job," Littleton said. "Just being an interim, I got to be around great coaches, who I grew up being around. And I got to see all angles of how the athletics business works. And I never thought that I would love this job so much."

The position officially opened up shortly after. Littleton remembers feeling confident after her interview and she was offered the full-time position. Since being in the position, she has pursued a master's degree in athletics administration. She spoke with another coach about which programs would be good ones to apply to. She decided on Concordia University in Irvine and she graduates this year.

"Something about the athletics business and helping our student-athletes and being around some motivated coaches just really piqued my interest," Littleton said. "It drew my attention to the point where I wanted to become an athletic director and that's still my dream."