PHOTO COURTESY UTRGV ATHLETICS
Erin Maguire is a fifth-year guard from Belfast, Ireland. During the 2025-26 season, she played in 33 games and helped the team secure the winningest season in program history while competing in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament and the Southland Tournament. Maguire is the leader and one of the oldest players on the women’s basketball team, with more than 100 games under her belt, averaging 8.2 points and 3.2 in assists per game.
Q: How does your familial connection to basketball— your mom being a coach and sisters playing basketball as well— impact your own relationship to the sport?
A: “I think it really impacts everything with my view of basketball. They’ve pretty much taught me everything I know. Obviously, I’ve learned lots with other coaches, but my mom was my coach my whole life, and my two older sisters were less of coaches, but they were two huge role models for me, so they’ve really taught me how to work hard and how to have great work ethic from every single day and everything I approach. So, yeah, with everything, they’ve really helped me shape such a love for basketball.”
Q: What is the best advice you’ve received about basketball?
A: “The best piece of advice is probably to remember that it’s just a game. I think that when you get wrapped up in college basketball, it’s so serious, and it feels like you put so much work into it ever since you were so young. So, sometimes people put a lot of pressure on themselves. I know I do, and that can make you stop enjoying it. So, one thing that my mom, as my coach, always reminded me was to remember that it’s just a game, and that you need to have fun, and just go out there and control what you can control, and just give it your best.”
Q:What clicked for you about South Texas and UTRGV compared to Belfast, Ireland or New Jersey?
A: “Oh, literally everything is different about those places. Belfast is this teeny, tiny little city compared to here and New Jersey … literally everything’s different. The facilities are amazing over here, the opportunities are amazing over here. Obviously, we know that. We do what with what we can in Belfast and in Ireland, but we don’t have a whole lot, so a lot of it’s just a lot of heart and hard work over there, and not that it’s not over here, too, but, you know, we have a lot more going for us and a lot more given to us over here that we wouldn’t have at home, so I’d say those were the biggest differences.”
Q: What is at the top of your pregame playlist?
A: “Ooh, this is kind of weird, but I love country music, so I would say, like, right now, the top of my playlist would be either ‘Dying Breed’ or ‘Hell at Night.’”
Q: What is your favorite thing about Ireland?
A: “My favorite thing about Ireland is definitely the people. The people, I can’t stress as enough, the people over there are literally the nicest people on earth. I would argue that every single day of my life. They are so funny, and they’re so fun, and it’s a really energetic country, I think. Everyone’s always down to have fun. Everyone always will rally behind everyone who’s successful or doing well, and I think that’s really cool. We have a really great community that way. And so, yeah, definitely the people are awesome.”
Q: What got you into basketball?
A: “Pretty much my family, both of my parents played, and then they coached, and then obviously my two older sisters also played. I was able to play with Enya when I went to Houston Christian, but, yeah, definitely my family. My parents were the type of parents that kind of just threw us into every sport and let us pick what we wanted, and we all ultimately ended up choosing basketball, ‘cause it was just super fun, you know?”
Q: Who’s your favorite basketball player of all time?
A: “My favorite basketball player would be my sister, Enya Maguire. I think she is awesome. If my sister Anna was still playing, I would pick her, too. It would be hard to pick between the two, but right now, without a doubt Enya Maguire is my favorite basketball player.”
Q: If you didn’t play basketball, what other sport would you play?
A: “Ooh. I mean, honestly, I would probably be doing track and field. I did track and field all the way up until I had to go to college and I had to pick between basketball or track and yeah, so probably track and field, which I just don’t think is as fun as basketball personally.”
Q: We talked about you playing the 3×3 tournament in Ireland in the summer, do you prefer 3×3 or 5-on-5?
A: “Oh, wow, that’s a really hard question. I would say … I think, obviously, it depends, but I love 3X3. 3×3 is super fun because … not that it’s less serious, but it’s, like, a lot more you can play a little bit more loose. It’s just a different way to play basketball, and I’ve been playing 5-on-5 my whole life, so since being introduced to 3X3, it’s been fun to, like, branch out and do something new, so I’d say, at this point in time, I love 3X3. But, also, I love 5-on-5. It’s a hard one.”
Q: What does the downtime after practice look like? I read you play pickleball, do you play any of your teammates?
A: “Yeah, so I am really, really bad at pickleball. I play pickleball with [Elizabeth Romer] and [Gianna Angiolet,] and then we’re really good friends with some of the UTRGV baseball players, and we’ll go play with them. [Romer] and [Angiolet] absolutely cook everybody. They’re really, really good. So, yeah, outside of a lot of homework and a lot of assignments while I was studying, we will take our opportunities to play some pickleball, yeah.”
Q: When you wrap up your career here at UTRGV, what do you want the legacy of Erin Maguire to be?
A: “I just hope that I’ve come in and made some form of impact. Like, I love working with the kids when we get to do those for community service days, and I love my teammates, so I’m hoping that I can have left an impact of being as good of a leader as I possibly could. And being there for my teammates, and always wanting to, like, have their back and rally behind them when they do well, and pick them up when they do, when they don’t. So, yeah, I’d say, the impact of just being,the best possible teammate and leader I could be.”
–Compiled by Tiana Meza
