MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Sometimes it takes until retirement for some people to figure out what they really want to do with their lives.
 
In the case of Georgeann Wells, women's basketball's slam dunk queen, her lifelong dream was to become a chef, at least that's what she once told her coach, the late Kittie Blakemore.
 
"I remember way back when I first came to West Virginia telling coach Blakemore that's what I wanted to do," Wells said recently. "She would say, 'Georgeann, what do you want to do?' I told her I wanted to be a chef, and she said, 'You do realize there is a lot of math involved in that, don't you?'"
 
Wells was not a big fan of math, so she opted to study education instead and that served her well when she returned to the United States after spending nearly a decade playing and coaching professional basketball in Japan, Italy and Spain.
 
She taught physical education and coached some AAU basketball in suburban Columbus where she grew up, but in 2018, she decided to retire from the school system and pursue her life's passion – cooking.
 
She started a mobile food service she called CMK Tall Chicks Smokehouse, LLC, the CMK representing the first letters of the names of her three children: Curtis, Maddison and Kasey. As the name suggests, her specialty is Southern-style barbeque and some of the dishes she is known for in Columbus will make your mouth water and your stomach growl.
 
Pulled pork and pulled chicken are her two specialties, but she said she recently slow-cooked a 14-pound brisket for her birthday for about 40 people to enjoy. She soaked it in an apple whiskey marinade and slow-cooked it for about 16 hours on low heat.
 
"You could really taste the apple, not too sweet, but a little on the sweeter side," she said. "I always tell people, 'You don't need barbeque sauce when you eat our smoked meats because the flavor is right there.' What I do is a little different than most, but it was well worth it."
 
Wells said she started out with a large serving crew but had to pare things back considerably when COVID shut down the country in the spring of 2020. She's now back to catering about two or three meals a week with a small crew of about six, but she can add workers for some of the bigger jobs.
 
One of her big clients is the United States Postal Service, whose workers she prepares meals for on a weekly basis. She also once provided a meal for about 200 people putting on a Marvin Gaye tribute concert in one of the smaller venues in Columbus.
 
"That one sort of caught me off-guard," she chuckled. "The guy said, 'Well, do what you do with small plates, but I do have VIP seating so if you could come up with something for them too.' I was like, 'What do you have in mind?' I was thinking he was wanting something really easy, and he was like, 'Can you do this, a baked potato, salad, cake, pulled pork, pulled chicken …' I was like, 'Are you going to stop?'"
 
Another time, she prepared a meal for an entire high school football team and their families, but her focus right now is mostly smaller local jobs.
 
"I do have a serving crew I work with if I need them, but it's not large; we do what we can if we need to be large," she said.
 
Wells plans on returning to her alma mater for Women's Basketball Alumni Weekend when the Mountaineers face Texas Tech Saturday afternoon at the WVU Coliseum. She got a personal invitation via text message from new coach Dawn Plitzuweit.
 
"I got a nice text from her, and I was like, 'This is cool.' I sent her a text back saying, 'Can't wait! Go Mountaineers!'" she said.
 
Naturally, any conversation with Wells also must involve her historic dunk made against the University of Charleston in the Elkins Armory on Dec. 21, 1984.
 
She's been asked about it so many times through the years that her response is almost rehearsed now.
 
"Yeah, I just sort of stick with the script," she giggled. "It's the same story they ask, and I just tell them how it happened and what happened. They are like, 'Well, can you still dunk?' I'm like, wait, wait, wait … This body inside says heck no to that! The knees are saying, no, no, no.'"
 
What she most vividly remembers is the dunk she made against Massachusetts at the WVU Coliseum that was waved off by official Bruce Clinton, a well-known local high school coach and former Mountaineer baseball player.
 
That was by far her most forceful and emphatic dunk, but it will forever be lost to history because Clinton called a foul on Georgeann's sister, Marva, which wiped out the play.
 
Retired official Bill Titus, who once worked a women's Final Four, never misses an opportunity to needle Bruce whenever he sees him. Titus was working the Charleston game in Elkins as the lead official when Wells made history, which means he will also forever be a part of history.
 
Titus knew Wells needed momentum to propel herself toward the rim, so he did take a look at her feet when she got the ball at midcourt ahead of the other players and took off toward the basket to make history.
 
"I got news for you; she was not going to travel. She could have taken off running and that dunk was still going to count," he joked.
 
An exhibit commemorating her famous dunk is on display at the Naismith Hall of Fame. Reed Albergotti wrote the definitive story on Georgeann's famous dunk in a piece published in the Wall Street Journal on March 20, 2009. 
 
His persistence led to the first public viewing of basketball history, decades after the VHS tape of the game was uncovered in a West Virginia barn following the death of UC women's coach Bud Francis.
 
Francis had no intention of sharing the tape with anybody, but his son Ford Francis, a Charleston attorney, found it, knew it represented history and got in touch with Albergotti.
 
"Reed did that story, and he came here, hung out and stayed," Wells said. "Of course, my kids were there and that was the best story that could ever come out about that slam dunk. He really did dig. Then, that Tyra Banks show I once did, and she was trying to play basketball in heels and I'm thinking, 'Really?' That was amazing putting it all together."
 
Wells, now a grandmother times two with Mia and Jaxson, admits it's nice being remembered for something so memorable.
 
"When I look back and think about it today, I'm like, 'Wow.' People say I'm a legend and this and that and I say, 'I'm still the same person' but I'm, also thinking to myself, 'Well, I did kind of pave the way a little bit for some other females to do it.' Some of the youngsters coming up today when you ask them who was the first woman to slam dunk in a game and they usually say Lisa Leslie or Brittney Griner.
 
"I'm like, 'Wait, what? You need to check your history. Go back a little earlier,'" she laughed.