First-Year
Makes the Most of Playing College Basketball
By
Lily Samuels ’11
In her first
season, she started 26 of 27 games, led the Smith Pioneers
basketball team in scoring (12.1 points per game) and rebounding
(6.8 per game). She scored in double figures 18 times. She
ranked tenth in the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic
Conference (NEWMAC) in both scoring and rebounding. And when
she stepped to the free-throw line, she shot 85.1 percent,
the highest mark in the league.
Rosa Drummond ’14 |
Partly for these achievements,
Rosa Drummond ’14 was named
the NEWMAC Rookie of the Year, the first such honor for a Smith basketball player.
Beyond Drummond’s impressive statistics, it’s the first-year player’s versatility
that her coach appreciates most. “She’s a 6-foot post player who led us in 3-point
perimeter shooting!” exclaims Lynn Hersey, head basketball coach, who guided
her team to the NEWMAC championship game in February. “She was a force defensively
and offensively.”
If you ask Drummond, she will
likely credit her teammates for her success in her first
season. “The biggest part of my receiving this award was our team,” she
says. “It is impossible to become a better athlete without your teammates pushing
you and beating you, so I think the nature of our team was the biggest factor
in my recognition.”
Hersey knew she had a special
player when she recruited Drummond. “Consistency
and composure,” she says, “those are the two key words that come to mind when
I think of Rosa and her performance. She very rarely had peaks and troughs in
her game. She just maintained a high standard of outstanding performance, day
in and day out. Normally, you don’t see that in a young player.”
The Basketball NEWMAC Rookie
of the Year award is a huge achievement for Smith, says Lynn
Oberbillig, director of athletics. “Smith athletics has had several
other Rookie of the Year winners but never one in basketball,” she explains. “The
fact that Rosa won this award meant that the other coaches in the conference
recognized her importance to our team, but also, more notably, that our team
was good enough to have a Rookie of the Year.”
 Drummond was also named to the
NEWMAC All-Conference Second team, and recently received
the New England Women's Basketball Association (NEWBA) and
ECAC New England Rookie of the Year awards.
Despite the honors
and attention, Drummond keeps sports in perspective. “I play sports to have fun,” she says, “and I always
try my best. It is a privilege to play basketball at the college level, and I
want to make the most of it.”
“She’s a very quiet worker,” Hersey says of her rookie star. “She’s humble and
doesn’t like the showy part of the game.”
For Drummond, the principles
of competitive sports go beyond the gym. “I link
working hard on the court to working hard in the classroom,” she says. “If I
am not going to give 100 percent effort, then there is no reason for me to do
it.”
She knows she will need such
discipline to succeed as a neuroscience major and in a medical
career. “I have recently decided to go pre-med,” she says. “I would
like to become a doctor and practice in areas with high poverty rates that do
not have a lot of good medical care.”
There is no doubt, however,
that basketball and the teamwork it involves bring out her
innate talents. Though her technical skills made her a huge
asset to her team, Drummond was more than just a scoring
machine, Hersey emphasizes. “Off
the court, she’s very laidback, has a great sense of humor, and gets along extremely
well with every single player on the team,” she says.
Oberbillig is optimistic
that Drummond’s presence on the team and the recognition she has already received
as a first year is only the beginning of good things for Smith basketball.
“The team had only one senior and two juniors with the rest being sophomores
and first-years,” she says of this season’s strong team. “This year they played
in the championship game. Next year, they have a real chance at winning that
championship game and going to the NCAA tournament. That would be a first for
Smith basketball.” |
