Here is the latest BearShare, this time with Reshanda Gray. I hope you enjoy it, and that it makes up for me not covering the Illinois game. I was out of town, and I couldn't find anyone to fill in.
Great article, pearbear! As fans, we sometimes focus too much on the student-athlete's on-court performance only while knowing very little about the person's background. Thanks for enlightening us on Reshanda and her family, and I wish her all the success at Cal as well as in continuing to be a role model for her younger sisters. Go "Too Tall"!
great interview. she really opened up and told her story. this is the type of player you just gotta root for.
Agreed, absolutely terrific story and so well written! It's very fitting that this article came out around Thanksgiving, when all of us reflect on the things that we are thankful for, as it is evident that Reshanda has many, many things in her life to be thankful for!
I agree with a prior comment that this takes the basketball critical mindset out of a fan (me) and makes them a fan of the person. On the men's side, or on the football team, everyone is posting all their inner thoughts of the players - both the quality of their play and their personality. Think about all the stuff that is said about our QB Maynard. He gets undressed, positively or negatively, after every contest. People analyze, people speculate, people rant... that's gotta be a lot for a kid. I myself do it on the men's basketball side....
But when you read an interview about a person's life story, what brought them to this school, about all the stuff that makes them human like the rest of us, then I think there's a tendency to think twice about the stuff we post as if these players were digitized figures in a video game that we can control with our game controllers (even though I don't play video games).
PearBear: Can we get Mike Montgomery's staff to hire you for this purpose on the men's side?
With a lot of the student-athletes on campus, in quite a few cases, the fact that they play sports is probably one of the least interesting about their lives - but from our seats in row 13 or Section 304 or wherever it's hard to see them as anything but.
Definitely one of your best!
"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."
Reshanda makes it so easy to root for her. Right after the interview, I turned to Melissa Dudek, the SID, and said to her, "This is what college athletics should be about--to give opportunities to kids like Reshanda." And for someone like me, who has worked in education for years, it gives me hope to see someone who changed the course of her life through her own hard work but also by accepting the help she was offered. And of course, kudos to all the people who were there along the way to lend her a hand.
Oh, jeez, pearbear, I am about ready to weep now. That's an exceptional interview, and an inspiring one; you clearly put Reshanda at ease and made it easier for her to talk about her life (although she's obviously pretty articulate as well).
Being from L.A. myself, I'm thankful to have homegirls like Talia and Reshanda to root for.
Oh, jeez, pearbear, I am about ready to weep now. That's an exceptional interview, and an inspiring one; you clearly put Reshanda at ease and made it easier for her to talk about her life (although she's obviously pretty articulate as well).
BearBint, if tears start, just run into the kitchen and pretend to chop some onions. "Some onion relish is exactly we need to round out this dinner!" LOL.
Individuals like Ms. Gray make me feel a million times better about the world. What a smile that interview put on my face. Happy Thanksgiving and Go Bears!
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