Building block

Reprinted from the Saratogian, January 25, 2008

By Nate Rider

SARATOGA SPRINGS?Though it has only been less than two years and around 200 miles, Skidmore College sometimes seems like light years and thousands of miles away from home for Sharlyn Harper. However, the self-professed 'city girl at heart' from New York has made quite a name for herself in the Spa City.

It has been years since Harper, a sophomore guard on the women's basketball team, dropped the ballet shoes and slippers for sneakers and the hardwood. Against her mother's wishes, Harper took the advice of one high school gym teacher and began to use her athletic abilities to their fullest?and Skidmore coach Darren Bennett couldn't be happier.

"We heard about her through another coach in her conference, actually," Bennett said. "Then we got video on her and once we saw the video I said that we had to get on the phone and get in contact with this girl because she was a steal. We made a couple calls to her coach and stayed in contact. Then we got her number and got in contact with her and she said she had heard of Skidmore. She had good grades, excellent in the classroom, a super attitude.

"We went to see her in an all-star game and we said we definitely have to have this kid, and we worked it out," he added. "She applied and the next thing we know, she's on campus and the rest is written."

Until the fifth grade, Harper had focused mainly on dancing, partly because her older sister, Tiffanie, had taken to it and partly because her mother didn't believe that girls should be playing basketball. Though she wasn't exactly the largest of tomboys growing up, Harper always wanted to be running around with the boys and doing all the "crazy" things that they were doing.

Thankfully for Bennett and the Skidmore program, those inhibitions grow into pure talent, though it took a while.

"I was pretty bad and our [youth] team was pretty bad, I should also say," said Harper. "I had this thing with the right side of the court. It was like a magnet. I was the point guard and I would come down the court and go right into that corner. So, there were a lot of things that I had to work on, but ever since then I've been playing."

Until that fifth-grade team, Harper had never been a part of a team sport, so the adjustment was something she definitely had to get used to. Eventually she wound up playing at Frederick Douglass Academy in New York for one year, where the maturation process began.

As a freshman, Harper got frustrated with the fact that she was constantly being told that she had to wait her turn to be able to show people the skills she had. Admittedly, there were players on the team, specifically one, who were good basketball players, but she figured she had waited long enough.

For reasons that included aspects of life other than basketball, Harper decided to transfer from Frederick Douglass to Holderness High School in Plymouth, N.H., where she spent the remaining three years of her high school career.

Before Harper arrived in Saratoga Springs, the Skidmore women's basketball team was never something that would have been confused with a powerhouse. The three years before her arrival, the team accumulated identical 10-15 records, while going only 4-10 in the Liberty League.

In her freshman year, which was also Bennett's second as head coach. Harper helped lead the Thoroughbreds to an improved 12-13 mark. However, the league record remained stagnant and the team didn't live up to either's expectations, and Harper was pretty down on herself as well.

"Last year, I'll have to admit that I wasn't the happiest camper or the easiest person to deal with," she said. "So watching that and seeing how things fell apart last year hurt because I thought we could have gone further than we did. After seeing that [I realized that] everyone needs to have a good attitude to win because we're better when we do.

"People do things from example," she added. "So, I figured that if people are going to watch me, I had better shape up because I wanted to give them something good to follow."

Bennett seconded that, in his own way.

"It's been a maturing process and it happens with every new player, whether a freshman or a transfer," he said. "You've got to be part of a team. You have to figure out exactly what your role is and where you stand. But on top of that, you've got to get used to a different culture at a different school and you've got to get used to the academics and it takes maturing. It's not easy."

From her numbers, it would have been difficult to believe that Harper struggled in her first year with Skidmore. The 5-foot-7 guard was second on the team in scoring with 9.8 points per game. She also added 3.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists, all while making a team-high 43 3-point buckets. She was also twice named as the Liberty League Rookie of the Week.

Coming into this year, four-year star Krystal Coke had graduated, leaving a large hole to fill in the Skidmore lineup, especially with only one senior on the squad, guard Danielle Gil. It almost would have seemed natural for Harper to step into the role of leader, despite her relative inexperience.

A hard-nosed player with an attitude, it would have been easy for her to take the reigns and lead the women's basketball revival that is happening this year. Yet, that is now how she saw it then, or even sees it now.

"I feel good about knowing that I can play a part in this [the resurgence of Skidmore women's basketball]," she said. "I've got to give credit to my teammates, though, because I was a freshman just last year and all the stepping up that the juniors have done this year, by taking leadership and everything ... we wouldn't be where we are without that.

"I wouldn't say that I am the leader," she added. "I feel like I am, kind of, the next one underneath all of the junior leaders. I just try and reinforce what they say about having a good attitude and all. I try to follow their lead."

As Skidmore has raced out to a 9-5 start, by far its best in the Bennett era, Harper has eme4rged as the leader, though, whether she likes it or not. Through the first 14 games, she's averaging a team-high 13.4 points per game, which places her fifth overall in the Liberty League.

What is more impressive, and what proves her worth to the team as a whole, she also ranks in the top 10 in the league in five other categories, including steals (sixth), assists (sixth)l, blocks (seventh), 3-point field goal percentage (10th), and 3-point field goals made (second, with 37). She also pulls down 3.6 boards per game, despite being one of the smaller players on the floor.

Yet, the business major, who would love to have a career in basketball after he collegiate days have passed, whether it be playing overseas or as a coach in New York, insists she doesn't know or care about any of that.

"I didn't know that," she said of her league rankings. "When I'm playing, I just kind of have blinders on and the only thing I am looking at is the clock. It doesn't really matter if I score 30 points and we lose the game, it all means nothing. You get no recognition when you lose games. If you think back, you can say she can score 30 points, but why couldn't she get her team the win? I don't care if I score two points, as long as we win."

With two more years remaining, Harper's future at Skidmore appears to be a bright one. She has already helped turn around a program in less than two years. She has risen out of obscurity at a small school to become one of the best women's basketball players in the area?at any level. Furthermore, she has helped to generate a buzz for a program that has long been lacking an identity.

As for the future, just ask Bennett.

"The light is tremendously bright, in fact it's high-beam lights," he said. "That's how much success that we know that we have, not only with Sharlyn, but with the rest of the players around her. Sharlyn is the type of player that, when people see her play, when recruits see her play, they want to come and play with her. They want to be on her team."

In Harper's eyes, she simply just wants a championship for Skidmore, or at the very least to contend for a championship. And after she's gone, as of now, her goal is definitely to play overseas, which is something that Bennett believes is well within her reach, given the talent that he has seen on many levels. However, he's not concerning himself with that now.

"She certainly has the tools and the talent and it is going to come down to the work ethic, which I think she has," he said. "I certainly think that the talent and potential are there, but we're definitely going to juice her for the next two years at Skidmore and then she can go and play somewhere else."

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2008 the Saratogian