MIAMI (August 4, 2017) -- The FIU women's basketball program added Georgia Tech transfer Chelsea Guimaraes to the roster this summer. The incoming junior will sit out this upcoming season due to NCAA transfer rules. Guimaraes comes from Portugal by way of Atlanta, where she made 10 starts out of 54 games played in two seasons for the Atlantic Coast Conference institution.
Guimaraes played for the Portuguese National Team U18 squad at the Euro Championships in 2013 and 2014. She also joined the U20 squad for the Division B Euro Championship. As the fates would have it, Guimaraes played club basketball as a youth for Coach Nuno Manaia, one of the coaches that FIU Head Coach
Tiara Malcom played for when she was a professional international abroad after college.
Guimaraes is thought to be the first FIU student-athlete to enroll in FIU's Accelerated Masters of Architecture program, a program which starts graduate-level classes in the third year and leads to the Professional Master of Architecture degree. She began classes in the summer of 2017 and starts the difficult third year this August, with no pressures of traveling to games this upcoming school year. The fourth and fifth years of the program allow for a more flexible schedule, allowing her to fit in her work around the rigors of being a student-athlete.
"All you have to do is meet with the young lady once and you can see how intelligent she is," said Malcom. "We don't have a player that size right now and that will make a big impact for us once she is eligible to play."
Standing at 6-3, she is the tallest member of the program, and the only center on the roster currently for the 2018-19 season. She has worked out with the team while enrolled in summer classes and is impressed with the young talent already on the roster.
"We have a lot of players who can play at multiple positions, which will make us a tough team to match up with," said Guimaraes. "I will just add another option to the team when I am able to get on the floor with them."
Her journey to Miami was carefully researched.
"I have a mentor in architecture and wanted to find the right balance between architecture and basketball," she said. "She gave me a book that rated the architecture schools in the United States and on my own, I looked into the basketball programs. FIU was one of the best and I was intrigued by the basketball here. I feel like this is the right choice in where to go to study and play. My parents stress school work and sports, so I want to try and do both, no matter how difficult the work load is."
Her mother is a cook and her father works in the oil industry. Both of her parents are from Angola, where she was born. She grew up in Portugal and speaks English and Portuguese, though she dabbles in Spanish and French. A well-rounded and creative talent, she writes poetry and likes to turn them into songs while playing guitar.
She pushes the roster number to 11 for the Panthers, who will begin the season in November.
For women's basketball ticket information, contact the FIU Ticket Office at 305-FIU-GAME or log onto
www.FIUSports.com.
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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in eight different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including Lime Court at FIU Arena and Riccardo Silva Stadium.
About FIU: Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a "R1: Doctoral Universities - Highest Research Activity" and recognized as a Carnegie Community Engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy and is ranked second in Florida in Forbes Magazine's "America's Best Employers" list. FIU graduates are consistently among the highest paid college graduates in Florida and are among the leaders of public and private organizations throughout South Florida. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission with multiple state-of-the-art research facilities including the Wall of Wind Research and Testing Facility, FIU's Medina Aquarius Program and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute. FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, the Miami Beach Urban Studios, and Tianjin, China. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.
