Addie Grace Porter always expected sports to be part of her story beyond high school.
Basketball just so happened to be the avenue taken by Porter, a 5-foot-4 freshman guard for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who stayed in state after starring for Nashville-area program Lebanon during her prep days.
If it wasn’t basketball, Porter said recently she likely would have chosen volleyball, a sport in which she was a district MVP as a libero and helped Lebanon to three district titles. If neither of those worked out? She was also an all-district player in softball.
“Big sports girl,” she said.
But basketball became the answer to collegiate athletics for Porter, who helped lead the Devilettes to a TSSAA Class AAA runner-up finish in 2021, earning all-state honors in the process. And it was her spunky, tough nature that caught the eye of UTC coach Katie Burrows and her staff.