Iowa State women's basketball team helps family mourn the loss of a 13-year-old super fan

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Iowa State women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly sat in his office on Feb. 2 and made one of the toughest phone calls of his career.

Fennelly had learned about the Jan. 31 death of 13-year-old Iowa State super fan Mia Schwieso, so he decided to call her mother, Ann, to offer his condolences.

"I just felt like I needed to do something," Fennelly said.

For about 10 minutes, they talked about Mia and how big of an Iowa State fan she was. Ann cried. Fennelly cried. They tried to keep talking through the tears.

“When both people are crying, there are not a lot of people talking,” said Fennelly, whose team opens Big 12 Tournament play Friday vs. Baylor.

It’s been more than a month since that conversation, but the Iowa State women’s basketball team is still helping the Schwieso family. They’ve provided a helping hand and have become a much-needed distraction and a source of inspiration during the grieving process.

“The events that have followed are more than I (could) ever imagine,” Ann Schwieso wrote in a message to The Register.

From basketball lessons with Lyndsey Fennelly to Lexi Donarski’s camp, Mia was a Cyclones fan through and through

Mia Schwieso was raised to be a Cyclone fan.

Her parents, Chris and Ann, attended Iowa State from 1998-2002 and had season tickets to women’s basketball games while they were students. They later became football season ticket holders when they got married in 2003. The Harlan couple made it back to some basketball games as well. When their three daughters − Aubrey (15), Mia (13) and Kendall (9) − were born, Chris and Ann introduced them to Iowa State sports as well.

The parents enrolled them in the Jr. Cyclone Club and signed them up for basketball clinics. The clinics turned into a getaway for the family; the Schwiesos would rent a hotel room and spend some time in Ames. They were also on hand for some huge wins in program history. Aubrey, Mia and Ann were at Iowa State’s 2015 win over Iowa. Chris and Ann took Aubrey and Mia to the 2020 victory over Baylor.

Aubrey and Mia received basketball lessons from Fennelly’s daughter in-law, Lyndsey, a former Cyclones star. All three girls attended Cyclones guard Lexi Donarski’s camp last October. Mia gravitated toward the basketball players. She watched games on television with her parents and snapped photos with Cyclones stars Chelsea Poppens and Bridget Carleton over the years.

“She had a lot of energy to her,” Donarski said. “She loved basketball. She just wanted to get better and get better every day.”

Feb. 4 was going to be another huge weekend for the Schwieso family. They planned to come to Ames for Iowa State’s doubleheader that day. The men played Kansas earlier in the day and the women took on Baylor in the evening. They booked a hotel room like they had many other times and would attend both games.

It never happened.

Five days before the games, Ann got a phone call that Mia was sick on the school bus. Ann, Chris and Kendall were planning to go to Atlantic to watch Mia play a seventh-grade game. Chris and Kendall went home. Ann went to Atlantic to pick up Mia.

As she drove, Ann received updates on Mia's condition. She was getting sicker and less responsive. The bus driver took Mia to the hospital in Atlantic. When Ann got to the hospital, the ER staff was tending to Mia. She kept pointing to her head that something was wrong.

Doctors decided to airlift Mia by helicopter to a children’s hospital in Omaha, Neb. A CT scan determined Mia had blood in her brain, likely from an aneurysm. Surgery was needed.

Surgery began around 9:30 p.m. and ended around midnight. Doctors couldn’t save her. The family said their goodbyes. Mia died on Jan. 31. She was just 13.

“Every step since then has been a challenge,” Ann wrote.

They’ve gotten some unexpected help.

Iowa State women's basketball team provides some much-needed help during the grieving process

After Mia died, Ann couldn’t sleep. All she could think about was her daughter.

One of the things that kept creeping into her mind was the doubleheader weekend and how much Mia was looking forward to it. Ann wanted the team to know that they had lost one of their biggest supporters, so she texted Lyndsey Fennelly in the early-morning hours to pass along the heartbreaking news. She figured Lyndsey could help pass along her daughter’s story to the team.

As soon as Fennelly got the message, she went to work on ways to help out. Fennelly remembered the family from basketball lessons and Mia from Donarski’s camp. The young fan had made a big impression on Fennelly, and she wanted to help.

Fennelly quickly reached out to Donarski and touched base with Bill Fennelly and told them the news. She reminded Donarski about how Mia attended her camp and explained to the coach what a big Iowa State fan she was. When the Cyclones coach learned about the young fan dying, he called Ann.

When Mia's mom answered, she was shocked to hear the iconic coach on the other end.

“When he called, I could tell it wasn’t just a gesture,” Ann wrote. "He spoke with compassion.”

The two chatted and cried together. Fennelly told Ann the family was welcome to come to Ames for a game or a practice anytime. He was willing to do anything to help them during the tough time. So were his players, who recorded a message for Ann, Chris and the kids. When the family finally got some time to visit Ames earlier this month, they got a tour of the facility and watched some of the team’s workout.

“When you’re part of the Iowa State family, you’re connected, and if part of Mia’s connection to the university was our team, then we wanted to be part of it (helping),” Bill Fennelly said.

Mia has become an inspiration for the Cyclones. They dedicated their play during the Feb. 4 Baylor game to her. That was the weekend Mia and her family had planned to be at the games. It’s created a bond that they hope will last forever.

When Ann, Chris and the kids came to Hilton Coliseum, Lyndsey Fennelly ran over to hug them. Bill Fennelly has kept in close contact with them to make sure they’re doing OK while also continuing to lend a helping hand.

“The smiles the ISU team and coaches provided us that weekend help to show us that we need to find the smiles, do things that Mia used to love and find a way to move forward in her memory,” Ann wrote.

Tommy Birch, the Register's sports enterprise and features reporter, has been working at the newspaper since 2008. He's the 2018 and 2020 Iowa Sportswriter of the Year. Reach him at tbirch@dmreg.com or 515-284-8468. Follow him on Twitter @TommyBirch.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State women help grieving family after death of 13-year-old fan