Angel Reese became one of the most popular names in college sports, and it’s not just because of her on-court brilliance. Her NIL valuation hit $1.8 million by March, making her a standout in the world of college athletes cashing in on their name, image, and likeness. But, guess what? Reese almost didn’t end up at LSU. In fact, she was worried about the money factor, and she wasn’t exactly sold on the idea at first. So, what made her change her mind?

Reese’s longtime manager, Jeanine, recalls how the transfer to LSU wasn’t initially a no-brainer for the star forward. “So, you transferred to LSU, and you know what? The deals started getting, like, way more interesting at that point,” Jeanine explained. Reese chimed in, “Do you remember when I sat down and talked to them about the NIL part? Honestly, LSU wasn’t even my option. I was scared to commit.  I was going to go to South Carolina or Tennessee, I think.”

But then, fate stepped in. “Kim called,” Reese shared, referring to LSU’s head coach Kim Mulkey. “I was like, okay, bet—I’ll just go. But I can’t even imagine what my life would look like if I hadn’t made that decision.” And, well, the rest is history.

Jeanine described the decision as nothing short of destiny. “Like if he would have gone out anywhere else, it was really The perfect Storm, and it was just Destiny it was fate, it was God it was all the things like you believe in like you could never have dreamed it, but yeah, so you transferred LSU and the deals start getting bigger they were bigger bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger,” she said on Angel’s podcast Unapologetically Angel.