St. Cloud basketball star dies in crash

Tim McMullen spent eight joyous hours on Thursday watching an elite high-school basketball tournament with his daughter, Jessica, just as the two did every year.

It was their pilgrimage to Walt Disney World, dedicated to the sport the longtime St. Cloud High School coach and his athletic daughter built their relationship around. They had no idea the time they had left would be short.

"It was a day we got to hang out together, and it was just a great day before all of this happened," Tim McMullen said Saturday.

Jessica, 16, a point guard and leading scorer on her father's high-school team, died Friday night as she and two friends traveled home from a day at the beach. Witnesses told the Florida Highway Patrol that she flipped her Toyota pickup while passing another car at about 100 mph on County Road 532 in east Osceola County.

The two passengers were airlifted to hospitals. Brett Collins, 17, of St. Cloud, remained in critical condition Saturday at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne. His cousin, Travis Power, 17, of Indiana, was listed in stable condition at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

On Saturday, phone calls and family members began streaming into the McMullen family home in St. Cloud, where they waited for an elder brother of Jessica's who is being called back from active duty in Iraq.

Basketball is a family passion of the McMullens'. The two older brothers and their little sister all played for their dad at St. Cloud High.

"She was my best friend," Tim McMullen said. "She was a daddy's girl."

He gave up a college coaching career that would have taken him away from his family to coach his three children at St. Cloud. About four years ago, he switched from the boys team to the girls team.

The two jokingly planned that one day Jessica would become a coach herself -- with her father working the sidelines as an assistant. Those plans developed during hours at the gym and in one-on-one games in the driveway.

Two years ago, in one of her first games as a varsity player at St. Cloud, she recorded 24 points but graded her performance only a C.

The following week, when the Orlando Sentinel named her Osceola County's Athlete of the Week, Jessica set her goal high -- a state championship in her senior year.

"If she was Coach Mac's daughter, she was competitive," said Tom Greer, Osceola County's School Board chairman, who has known Jessica since she was born.

"There was a special bond between Jessica and Coach Mac," said assistant coach Steve Landram, who has known the family for 19 years. "Special maybe isn't the best word. It sounds so inadequate to say that, but it's as good as I can come up with."

Before Jessica left for the beach Friday morning, the coach gave his daughter a standard lecture on safe driving and told her he loved her.

He said it was a favorite family joke that he spoke those words frequently to ensure that his children could never "write a book later on in life and say I didn't tell you I loved you."

On the way home at 7:48 p.m., Jessica's truck slipped off the edge of the road while passing another vehicle, FHP Trooper Shannon Scott said. She overcorrected and lost control of the truck, which flipped near Taylor Woods Road about 20 miles from St. Cloud. She was dead at the scene.

Longtime, active members of the community, the McMullens found themselves surrounded by a strong support network during the weekend. Teammates began arriving at the house late Friday night.

Jessica's brother Travis has been serving in the Marines in Iraq, where the Red Cross reached him Friday night with news of his sister's death.

Tim McMullen said they were arranging to fly Travis home this morning, after which the family would begin making plans for a memorial.

"This is just every parent's worst nightmare," St. Cloud Athletic Director Vic Lorenzano said. "All of our hearts are broken right now."

Melissa Harris and Emily Badger of the Orlando Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
 

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