Fourth-year public relations student Jasmine Mauldin returned to the basketball court in October—after a 20-year hiatus.

Mauldin is 43.

Mauldin, a forward for the Riverhawks women’s basketball team, last played on Philadelphia’s YouthBuild Charter School’s men’s team when she was 19.

Mauldin, who wears the jersey No. 25, credits her 17-year-old son for pushing her to get back on the court.

“My son told me, ‘Mom, you always wanted to do it,’” Mauldin said. “And he put me up to the challenge. … I put in an application to see if I would make it.”

However, she has found this season is going much differently from her previous time spent on the men’s high school team.

“It was a different time,” Mauldin said about being the only female player to ever play on the YouthBuild men’s team. “Basketball was a little different then.”

This season Mauldin has become a “big sis” figure to her teammates, according to Mauldin, who said she appreciates how welcoming all of the young women have been.

“On the court really, just seeing, you know, [Mauldin] work hard and do what a lot of people can’t do at her age [is inspiring],” Ayannah Gorham, a second-year business student, said. “And then off the court again.”

Holly Wall, a second-year communications student, called Mauldin fun and impressive.

“You see [Mauldin] working hard,” Wall said. “It’s like you don’t have an excuse to not work hard.”

When Mauldin is not at school or on the court, she works as a cosmetologist and barber to the disabled and elderly.

“That’s my passion,” Mauldin said, reflecting on her efforts off the court.

Mauldin said she is proud of her defensive playing and her ability to push her teammates to do their best.

“Not like your mother figure, but you know, someone that you definitely can look at as that,” Gorham, a forward, said. “You know, someone to talk to and ask [questions].”

Mauldin plans to graduate in May, and said she is unclear where her basketball journey goes from here.

“Considering my age, I won’t know if I’ll be going to another college or even playing,” Mauldin said. “But I will just for fun. I’ll try. It does the body good.”