Hard knocks and hardwood all part of the US experience
I’m here for the four-team “Holiday Classic” — an annual showcase for women’s college basketball — and parking has been a nightmare.
It’s the night before New Year’s Eve so, naturally, I’m making familiar, swear-laden resolutions for 2012: always make sure there’s enough time to allow for acts of god and resident permit parking.
Somehow I’ve managed to arrive just in time though. As I swing open the doors to the spacious gym, Cork-born Orla O’Reilly has drained a three-pointer in the middle of a sudden hot streak. It’s just before half time and her seven points in a row give upstate New York’s Binghamton Bearcats a 24-21 half-time lead over the University of Dayton Flyers (Ohio).
“She’s on fire!” shouts the heavy set Binghamton fan in front of where I take my seat in the sparsely populated stand. Hoping for a reaction, he turns his head to the right to catch the eye of Tony O’Reilly. Anyone who knows anything about Cork basketball will know Tony’s face. He and his wife Anne are loyal overseers of a talented family and Tony has made the trek across the Atlantic to see his twin daughters represent their college in their fourth and final year as students in the US.
Orla and Sinéad are the younger sisters of Cheshire Jets player Colin and UCC Demons stalwart Niall (full disclosure, a best friend and valued/harsh critic). Orla collected an Irish Examiner Junior Sports Star in 2008, just months before the twins took up their scholarship offer in New York. It was an award that capped off an incredible year for the then Glanmire players, who formed a potent partnership with another New York-based Irish basketballer, Jessica Scannell.
When these three played together under Scannell’s father Mark, they won the U18, U20 and SuperLeague Cups in 2007. Leaving Cert commitments restricted the trio to merely retaining the U18 and U20 cups the following season.
Scannell, who attends Iona College 20 miles north of Manhattan, was among the spectators on Friday night. In between enjoying the action on the hardwood in front of us, we discussed life in the States as a scholarship athlete.
Sadly, it hasn’t exactly gone according to plan but, as is the way with college sport in America, even the darkest clouds have silver linings.
“I’ve had the opportunity to study half an hour from New York city,” she tells me when I ask her about her speech and language therapy degree. “I’ve enjoyed my time here and I love what I’ve studied. My coach has been very good to me and I’ll always be grateful. But I didn’t manage to play as much as I would have liked.”
As we talk, the second half is starting to turn against the Binghamton players. Despite Orla’s best efforts, steadily making her way to 16 points, Dayton capitalise on a couple of errors and make their superior resources count, taking the title with a 60-50 victory.
Scannell, a 22-year-old point guard, can only watch on in envy as her two good friends play out their final season, fourth-year veterans nearing the end of a life-changing experience.
During a training session in October, she was challenging for a ball when she clashed heads with a teammate so forcefully that she landed badly on the other side of her head.
“I was out for five weeks,” she recalls. “I had to sit in a dark room as much as I could and do as little as possible. No television, no reading. I came back too early and that didn’t help either.”
She can laugh now when she recalls retaking the baseline test which all players must complete at the beginning of their careers so as to provide a benchmark to examine the effects of head trauma.
“I was supposed to count back from 25. I remember thinking ‘this is so stupid, why are they making me do this?’ So I counted backwards... 25, 21, 22, 23, convinced that I’d got it right!” Frightening but she’s back to full health now. And ironically, this has proven to be a rewarding season academically. Her injury means that she will benefit from being red-shirted, a system which allows a student athlete to forego a year of competitive action while still being allowed to train. This in turn results in an extra year of scholarship eligibility tacked on at the end.
Scannell has a lot to offer but she’s more than happy that, during her journey to this point, she has given everything that she has.
john.w.riordan@gmail.com Twitter: JohnWRiordan
