Theresa is an amazing person and has been through so much.
Last week I emailed the newspaper, told them a little about her "story" and asked if it were possible if her picture made the paper. Afterall, she has been the leading scorer in Central Mass all season. Well, they called me, I told more of her story and they wanted to do a full out article on her! She was so excited.
Here it is:
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Net gain
Pickens picks up her game, on and off court
Paul Jarvey
Main South’s Theresa Pickens can make things look easy on the basketball court … (T&G Staff Photos/TOM RETTIG)
WORCESTER — There were January games of 35 and 40 points, and when the regular season ended, 17-year-old Theresa Pickens was the top girls’ basketball scorer in Central Mass.
But her story isn’t about how she averaged nearly 23 points a game for Main South with a lightning-quick release and a shot she can unleash with either hand. No, her story is about emotional growth, about trying to deal with everything that has been thrown at her, about the central role basketball has played in her life and about how the caring foster parents who decided to take her in last August have kept her on track.
Pickens has learned to become a better teammate and deal with the frustration that she says has always been the most difficult part of her game. But she’s not all the way there yet. She’ll be the first to tell you that.
Still, the positive steps are undeniable.
The day before the Cougars’ Central Mass. Tournament opener against Bay Path last week, Main South coach Chad Malone got on her in practice about not having a positive attitude and not embracing her role as a team leader.
“We left on kind of an uneasy note,” Malone said. “The next day, I saw a woman come back and respond in the right way. Against Bay Path, she was a team leader. She kept the entire team going. To me, that was a significant moment for everything we’ve been working toward in the classroom and on the basketball court.”
The 11th-seeded Cougars upset the fourth-seeded Minutemen, 62-41, in Charlton. It was the first tournament victory in history for Main South, a co-op team drawing players from Worcester’s two smallest public high schools, Claremont Academy and University Park Campus School.
“I cried, I was so happy,” said Pickens, who scored 26 points despite fighting double-team attention the entire game.
Even though the victory might not have resonated much beyond the Clark University neighborhood, it was a significant yes-we-can moment given that Main South had lost a game, 90-6, four years ago, the season before Malone took over, and was clobbered in the first round of the tournament last winter.
“A lot of these kids are so used to losing that when it happens on the basketball court, they think, ‘Oh well, that’s what’s expected to happen to us,’ ” said Malone, who teaches English at Claremont. “That’s a mind-set in the classroom and on the basketball court you have to do a lot to break.”
He has successfully been able to chip away at that attitude in what has been a breakout season for the Cougars, who advanced to the Division 3 semifinals with a 49-42 win over Parker last night.
Pickens, who led her team to victory yesterday with a game-high 29 points, has been a major part of the success, which is amazing given how her life was again turned upside down in August when she wasn’t sure if she would be able to come back for her senior year at Claremont.
Her parents abused drugs and alcohol and were incapable of caring for her, sending her into foster care when she was an infant. She was in and out of foster homes until her aunt adopted her when she was 5.
By the time she was 10, she was exhibiting some serious behavioral issues, and that’s when Ike McBride of the Boys & Girls Club steered her into basketball, hoping to turn all that negative energy into something positive.
Pickens isn’t sure if it’s the competition or what, but the game has become everything to her. It’s the one thing she has been able to rely on. Always.
“I don’t know what I would do without basketball,” Pickens said. “I feel like basketball has always been there for me.”
People have sometimes been another matter.
Pickens continued to butt heads with her aunt until things finally fell apart last summer. One month before her 17th birthday, Pickens was headed to foster care again, and who knew how that would work out, where she would end up.
Stephanie Rapa, who knew Pickens from the Boys & Girls Club, where Theresa was the Massachusetts Youth of the Year in 2007, decided she was well worth taking a chance on. Rapa and her fiancé, boxer Edwin Rodriguez, became her foster parents, a move that allowed Pickens to continue her education — and basketball career — at Claremont.
The stability has been good.
Malone believes this has been Pickens’ biggest year of growth. She admits that she has trust issues, but her coach said she has begun to figure out that she can’t do it alone and can rely on her teammates.
“There were times last year when she wasn’t willing to take the risk, to put herself out there,” Malone said. “That’s the change. She’s willing to put herself out there in a public way and risk failure. I think in risking failure she has met with tremendous success.”
Pickens is intent on continuing that success by playing in college.
She knows that going from a small school to the next level will be a huge adjustment, but the game means too much to her not to keep going.
“I know it’s going to be a big step, but I’m willing to do whatever I have to do to take that step because I love it,” she said.
And don’t doubt that she will successfully make the transition. Basketball isn’t nearly as hard with all that she’s had to deal with in life.
Paul Jarvey can be reached at pjarvey@telegram.com.
1 comment:
Theresa, that is incredible! I don't even know you but I am not only inspired but sincerely proud of you! With your determination to succeed, you will go so far in life.
Randi
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