She calls this "the most awesome year of my life," which likely comes as a shock and maybe even a disappointment to those who did their level best to make it one of her worst.

It wasn't exactly an epiphany for Gabrielle Ludwig to discover that life is good. The 52-year-old transgender basketball player who is playing her second year for Mission College, a community college in Santa Clara, Calif., had experienced far too much of the other side to not recognize the difference.

No, the shift came more subtly and it was mostly in others. Not that the idiots have gone away, because they are always lurking no more than an Internet click or a random jeer away. But somehow things are different than they were one year ago, when her story captured headlines and drew reaction that was often anything but accepting. That change, she says, has indeed made her a different person.

She recalls Mission's game last season at Ohlone College and the outright hostility in the gym as one of many examples.

"I had brought my sixth-grade girls [AAU basketball team] to watch their coach play," Ludwig said. "They had no clue I was once a man. I was just Coach Gabbi to them. But they sat behind one belligerent guy, who brought that to their attention. It was hard for them to hear that, and I had to explain to them when all I wanted to do was make it such an amazing time for them to watch a women's basketball game."

If that were all that had happened, it would have been bad enough. But making it truly disturbing was that another man ran down from the bleachers to accost Mission coach Corey Cafferata, shake a finger in his face and tell him among other things that he was despicable, disgusting and a disgrace to women's basketball for allowing Gabbi to play.

A year ago, Gabrielle Ludwig often found herself the target of outrage. AP Photo/Noah Berger

"And he just took it," Ludwig said of her coach. "He told him, 'I don't care if she's a transsexual. She's a woman and a student who works hard in school and on the court...'"

Cafferata recalls that the man had his hands in his jacket, which made it especially concerning.

"He asked what was wrong with me," Cafferata said. "I said, 'What are you talking about?' and just walked away."

Mission returned to Ohlone on Veterans Day, and spectators were asked by the public address announcer to observe a moment of silence in honor of all those lost and to honor the veterans present, one in particular.

"Then they announced my name and everyone applauded," said Ludwig, who served as Robert Ludwig in the Navy for eight years beginning in 1984, including in Operation Desert Storm.

"After all the hate I saw last year in that gym and for me to see that, I'm human -- I broke down and cried. I'm choked up now just thinking about it."

All Ludwig really had in mind originally, she said, was to play the game she loved but left after one year at Nassau (N.Y.) Community College more than 30 years ago.

In the ensuing years, Robert married and divorced twice, had a daughter and gained two stepdaughters, and suffered through what Gabbi called the "abyss" of taking hormones but not being fully transitioned to a new gender.

Finally, in the summer of 2012, Ludwig had gender-assignment surgery, emerging as Gabbi but continuing as a systems engineer [designing robots that assist with DNA research], a dedicated parent, and a coach who passionately leads a nonprofit youth basketball program as well as the sixth-grade AAU team.

She met Cafferata in May of last year, when he was refereeing a basketball tournament in which she was coaching.

"She was a whiner and a complainer and she said something sarcastic to me and I said, 'You know what, if you ever want to learn how to play ball, come to one of my practices and you can learn from me.'

"She called me at work [in August] and said, 'I want to play for you.' I didn't remember who she was and I told her, 'School starts in three days and I already have my team.' Then she said, 'And, oh, by the way, I'm 6-6,' and I said, 'Why don't you come on over?' "

Ludwig enrolled in 12 credit hours of online courses, got the proper approval from the California Community College Athletic Association and joined the team.

Winning the acceptance of her new teammates was never a problem, she said. Getting past the daily abuse she took from opposing fans and even media was considerably more difficult until, she said, she began to realize it took away from what she ultimately wanted to accomplish.

"Originally I just wanted to play some basketball," she said. "But I owe it to the people in the LGBT community who said, 'You can be a positive role model out there.' "