---
title: From Bee to UMD
date: 2026-01-15T11:00:00-05:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://terp.umd.edu/from-bee-to-umd"
section: Articles
---
# From Bee to UMD

*January 15, 2026* — by [Annie Krakower](/authors/annie-krakower)


- *Photo by Dylan Singleton*

> Spelling Champ, Basketball Record-Holder Juggles Skills


**FOR ZAILA AVANT-GARDE ’29,** there’s more than one way to spell success.

One way is M-U-R-R-A-Y-A (a kind of tropical tree), which she correctly rattled off as an eighth grader in 2021 to become the first African American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Now, another way is U-M-D.


*Zaila Avant-garde holds Scripps National Spelling Bee trophy as confetti falls — Zaila Avant-garde won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee after studying 13,000 words for seven hours a day, helping her master about 99% of the dictionary. (Photo by AP Photo/John Raoux)*


> She has an amazing attitude toward learning and work, and she’s willing to grind.”

— —Tessa Montague, *Neuroscientist, Columbia University*


That set her on her own path to the bee. And while studying 13,000 words for seven hours a day around her homeschooling, she was keeping several balls in the air—literally. Also a basketball player, she worked on hand-eye coordination from an early age at Jawara’s suggestion: “Imagine if you could dribble two basketballs really well. Doesn’t that mean you’d be better at dribbling one?” he asked her.

“And then I was like, ‘Imagine if I could dribble three basketballs, or four or five!’” Avant-garde says.

She’s bounced her way to four Guinness World Records, two of which she still holds: most basketballs dribbled simultaneously by one person (six) and most bounce juggles in one minute with four basketballs (255). She’s eyeing more records, and hopes UMD’s Juggling Club can help her add pins and other objects to the mix.

That’s not all Avant-garde has spinning: She’s written five children’s books, with another on the way, about the magic of words and being “wonderfully weird.” She wants to one day work for NASA’s Human Research Program and help make life on Mars possible—even if that “makes me sound like an old guy sitting in the corner with a pipe talking crazy,” she says.

“She has an amazing attitude toward learning and work, and she’s willing to grind,” says Columbia University neuroscientist Tessa Montague, with whom Avant-garde interned after her bee success. “Being a scientist, as with a lot of careers, requires a lot of grind.”




**Issue:** [Winter 2026](https://terp.umd.edu/editions/winter-2026)


**Types:** [Campus Life](https://terp.umd.edu/category/campus-life)