Ensworth's Mary Taylor Cowles was hesitant to open up about MS diagnosis. Why 4-time champion changed her mind

Ensworth girls basketball coach Mary Taylor Cowles understands her limitations. The subtle awkwardness to her gait. The tired legs.

She's come to terms with it. She sits more than she stands on game nights. But she stands more than she sits during practice.

It's the physical manifestation of the multiple sclerosis diagnosis the four-time state championship coach received in March of 2019 that took her by surprise, and sent Cowles and her family on a journey of clinical discovery but also an emotional one.

"I wanted to be so angry when I was first diagnosed, but I was too scared because I didn’t know anything," Cowles said. "I went a year and didn’t tell anybody. My husband knew and our three kids knew. But it’s been more of an emotional journey than I’ve ever imagined.

"The emotional and mental side, I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t realize that would be the case."

What is MS and what are the symptoms?

With MS, the immune system attacks the protective sheath (myelin) that covers nerve fibers and causes communication problems between the brain and the rest of the body, according to the Mayo Clinic. Symptoms vary widely between patients and depends on the location and severity of nerve fiber damage.

Some with severe MS may lose the ability to walk independently, others may experience long periods of remission without any new symptoms depending on the type of MS. Cowles was diagnosed with primary progressive MS. For her, the condition affects primarily her legs, sapping the energy, leaving them feeling heavy and tired at the end of the day.

According to a 2019 study funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, nearly one million people are living with MS in the United States. There is no cure.

How Mary Taylor Cowles' coaching journey began

Caroline Cowles has heard stories about her mom all of her life. But she's never seen her play. Caroline, 24, is a part-time assistant on her mom's staff at Ensworth. She soaks up stories of how her mother grew up a Kentucky high school basketball legend from Marshall County. She was named Miss Basketball in 1987 and later became a Western Kentucky basketball star before eventually the Lady Toppers coach from 2002-12.

"I've never seen my mom play, but you grow up knowing how active your mom is," Caroline said. "All my life she's been that way. Whether it was coaching or staying physically fit, through running."

Cowles' diagnosis had its origins in an incident about 15 years before her 2019 diagnosis. A few years into her tenure as WKU's coach, Cowles awoke one morning, preparing for a morning practice at Diddle Arena in Bowling Green, Kentucky. She tried to get out of bed.

"I fell," Cowles said. "I had some back pain that I had attributed to me falling."

A trip to an orthopedic doctor resulted in injection shots to help with the back pain that eventually subsided. For the next decade there were occasional flare-ups. It wasn't until Cowles began having trouble completing her afternoon runs - 6 to 10 miles several times a week - that she decided to investigate further.

"I was out running in February (2019) and the right side of my leg went numb," she said. "I was like ‘what is going on?’ and kicking my leg out, trying to shake it off. After a while the feeling returned and I finished my six-mile run. I also started noticing that when I would get into a vehicle, I needed to use my hand to pick my leg up to get in."

Cowles's 2019 doctor's visit included MRIs and a brain scan that eventually pinpointed the problem.

Cowles' family absorbs the news of MS

Caroline, her sister Catherine and brother Corbin — who all were attending Oklahoma State — sat in stunned silence at a restaurant in Wilmington, N.C., as their mother and father, Gil, explained Cowles condition two weeks after receiving the diagnosis. The family was enjoying spring break on the coast.

"We were unfamiliar with MS, but of the three I'm the only one that works in the healthcare field," Caroline said. "So I had a lot of questions. I was very inquisitive. My brother got very quiet and my sister started crying."

Caroline wondered out loud what was the larger meaning of her mother's diagnosis.

"The rest of dinner was spent trying to figure out 'is this her end?'," Caroline said. "To be completely transparent we were trying to gather as much information as we could. Of course that wasn't about her end. It was about her beginning."

Cowles played at Marshall County High School from 1983-87, scoring over 1,900 points and leading the school to four straight state tournament appearances. The program captured the 1984 state championship with a 34-0 record and the three-time all state selection was inducted into the state's high school basketball hall of fame in 2017.

She starred at WKU from 1987-91. The Lady Toppers advanced to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 her senior season and she joined WKU's coaching staff in 1995 under Paul Sanderford and took over the program in 2002. She was involved in 10 of WKU's 20 NCAA Tournament appearances as a player or coach.

"Mary is very in touch with her physical fitness and her physical self," Gil Cowles said. "She knows her body better than anyone but when that diagnosis hit, it hit hard."

Love of coaching brought Cowles back to the sideline

Western Kentucky decided not to bring her back following the 2011-12 season and Cowles was miserable working in the pharmaceutical business during her time away from coaching. She found solace in the 300-arce cattle farm she owns with Gil outside of Bowling Green. She eagerly returned to coaching in 2015 when Ensworth called.

In two years, Cowles captured a TSSAA Division II-AA state title followed by crowns in 2019 and 2020, just before the COVID pandemic shut down the Division I boys and girls tournaments. The Lady Tigers captured another in 2022 and finished state runner-up in 2023. She's won four of the program's seven state titles.

It wasn't until last year that Cowles decided to open up about MS.

"There’s a feeling of not wanting people to look at me differently," she said. "But five years down the road, I walk different. I’m just different because of its physical effects. So it’s like, 'You know what, the world knows. The world can look at me and tell that something’s different. Why not tell the world?'"

A daily routine to conserve energy

Cowles paces herself. As the assistant athletics director at Ensworth, she spends much of the morning and afternoon sitting. It conserves energy in her legs for practices and game nights.

While her legs won't allow her the range of motion she was once accustomed to, her voice is still strong. During practice she stands far off the court to avoid potential collisions with her players but operates practice without a hitch.

"There's a little reinventing of myself," said Cowles, who plans to participate in Nashville's Walk MS in April. "I'm still the same person, the same coach. I may not move quite like I used to, but MS isn't who I am. It's just what I have. Standing or sitting, It's still Mary."

Reach sports writer George Robinson at georgerobinson@theleafchronicle.com and on the X platform (formerly Twitter) @Cville_Sports.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: TSSAA basketball: Mary Taylor Cowles opens up about MS diagnosis