Shay Doron in Town

We were really happy to get a visit from Shay Doron on Sunday. Shay and Maryland teammate Laura Harper had dinner with us and spent a few hours catching up. So many great memories and laughs were shared, as well as getting caught up on the latest from two Terps who have their names and numbers hanging in the Comcast Center. Shay has already signed a deal to play in Russia next season. She's 29 years old, which is hard to believe.

Laura is a new assistant women's basketball coach at American University. It's her first coaching job and she's fresh off of her first week of July recruiting. It was very interesting to hear her talk about the experience. For any coach, there is so much to learn and so many different things to navigate. What's great about Harp is that she's always so passionate and that will make her successful at anything she does. Within the last year, she made the decision to stop playing basketball, because she's already had something like seven surgeries and didn't want to have any more. Her last basketball ended this past season in Moscow, where her teammates included Kristi Toliver and Crystal Langhorne. Their Dynamo Moscow team won a European Championship.

Speaking of championships, one thing we reflected on his how as you get older, you appreciate even more that a special group of people was able to lead Maryland to it's first national championship in 2006. That's because as you get older you realize how difficult it is to do. Laura shared that to this day, her dad is still amazed that she and her teammates accomplished something so rare. Shay shared that her dad was, at first, really hoping she would choose Harvard during the recruiting process. Shay went on to say that at first, Maryland wasn't on her radar, but after playing in an event at Boo Williams, her mom suggested they go by Maryland. Shay agreed and once she met Brenda and everyone around the program, her interest grew quickly. The more she learned about the school, the more she saw the fit.

The most amazing part to me is that Maryland was not a winner at the time. Shay had come from a winning background, including Christ the King High School, a national power. So Shay had to have total self-confidence that she could come to Maryland and change the culture. She relayed to me that she felt at the time that if Brenda Frese could get Shay Doron to Maryland, she was going to get other great players to Maryland as well. Shay had the courage and risk-taking willingness that comes with being a teenager at the time and she was 100% correct in her hypothesis.

Shay's impact was felt immediately her freshman year. Maryland had gone 10-18 in Brenda's first season in charge. With Shay as a freshman, the record improved to 18-13 and extended into the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament. That tournament included one of the memorable wins in Brenda's time at Maryland, a first round upset of Miami, 86-85, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Miami was a #5 seed and had beaten Maryland by 31 points the last time they played. Of course, Maryland went on to win many more huge games while Shay grew to "rock star status" in the community. Shay also was the consummate teammate in the sense that as the elite talent in the program grew, she was willing to sacrifice some of her own game to help the team win.

We hold my wife's former players in such a special place. They are truly family members and it was way cool to have our five year old boys, Markus and Tyler, get to be around them for a little while. As they grow older, they will continue to learn and hear from us what a special role these players played in our family's life.