Lady Coyote eyes cybersecurity career after basketball

By Rick Mauch 

Deja Lumsden is a good basketball player and knows how to protect the ball. 

But it is protecting the world that she has larger sights on. Lumsden, a freshman for the Weatherford College Lady Coyotes, is majoring in cybersecurity. 

"With how the world is today, this is a good skill to know," she said. 

Her father was involved in security in the Army, not the cyber kind, but still enough to help her get interested. Even more so, she has an aunt who is in the very same field she wants to enter. 

"It's fascinating what she does. It's hard to describe, but she's making things safer for people and that's what I want to do," Lumsden said. 

Lumsden has herself been the victim of cybercrime. 

"A couple months ago I had Amazon purchases on my card and I didn't know where they came from," she said. "It's frustrating, and even though those are taken care of most of the time by the credit card company, it's still a scary moment." 

As for making the world safer, Lumsden said she'd like to create the ultimate security system that eliminates all possibilities of hackers and viruses. Sure, there are protections out there, but she's thinking of one that no one could ever penetrate in any way. 

"You have to think of all the hackers out there and that's all they do is try to break through," she said. "How great would it be to come up with a program that prevents any way around, no matter how hard they try? 

"I don't know if that can be done, but I would love to be the one to create it." 

Lumsden said she realizes an obvious place for her skills would be to follow her parents into the military (they are both retired from the service now), but it would conflict with her desire to play college basketball, she said. 

"I know I could still play, but not in the way I want to," she said. "Also, my parents discouraged it because they know I want to play at a school where basketball is a higher priority than the military. They know how much I love the game." 

Lumsden, who played at Keller Timber Creek High School, said she chose Weatherford College because she wanted to stay close to home and because of the feeling she got when she visited. 

"I came to visit on a school day and I just fell in love with all the people here," she said. "And I liked the team. And who doesn't love Coach Bob (McKinley)?" 

She plans to keep playing at a higher level after her time at WC. She wants not only a school where she can play basketball, but also one where she can continue to pursue her dream of cybersecurity. 

Though just exactly what part of cybersecurity she plans to enter she hasn't decided yet. 

"There are so many things I can go into," she said. "But they all have one thing in common, everybody needs security."