AUBURN - A small, high voice rings in the gymnasium whenever a women's basketball player at Cayuga Community College steals the ball and steams up the court.
Lanetra Williams has returned to the Cayuga women's basketball team after months of rehab after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee.
Devon DelloStritto / The Citizen
"Go Briana!" 6-year-old Javon Reese will shout. Or "Go Kuiona!" or "Go Shakimba!" and so on. Javon knows every Spartan's name and jersey number, and he is certainly a leading candidate as the team's No. 1 fan.
Javon is a sweet part of the package that comes with having Lanetra Williams as a teammate.
Williams, 25-years-old and the mother of two boys, Javon and 3-year-old Elias Agee, is not your typical junior college basketball player. She does have one older teammate, 23-year-old LaMonda Baker, but most of her fellow Spartans are 18 or 19. One is still 17.
As you might expect, there's a story behind what brought Williams to play basketball for Cayuga.
The operative word here is "basketball." Of the eight Williams children, seven of them played the sport for Auburn High School
Lanetra, a slender 5-foot-8 forward, played for Auburn too, but as a junior she decided she couldn't co-exist with one of the Maroons, future WNBA player Leigh Aziz. So she left the team, determined to make up for it in her senior year, after Aziz was gone.
But before she could play for Auburn in the 1997-98 season, Williams became pregnant with Javon, and it was on to Plan B: motherhood.
Fast forward to the fall of 2003. Williams had been a mom for five years, and hadn't played the game she loves for six. More importantly, she wanted to finally go to college.
"I waited a long time (to go back to school) because I had two kids, so I thought it was time to do something for me," Williams said with a giggle. "And actually for my sons, too, because I plan on getting away from Auburn so I can actually do something. There aren't many jobs here, anyway, especially for a single parent like me.
"I've been playing basketball since fifth grade. I like other sports, but basketball became personal, and ever since then I've been playing. It took me five years to get back in school, and whenever I go to school, I just have to play basketball."
Cayuga head coach Jim Alberici's assistant, former Auburn High coach Jack Cunliffe, recommended Lanetra as a good fit for a successful basketball program.
"Jack had all good things to say about her, about what a great kid she is, what a hard worker," Alberici said.
How unwittingly right on Cunliffe was.
Williams was still shaking off her five-year rust when the Spartans reconvened for the second semester of play in January of 2004. Within 10 minutes of the start of the first practice back, Williams blew out her right knee, tearing her anterior cruciate ligament.
So began an unwanted wrinkle in the complicated life of a single mother.
Two or three hours of rehabilitation with physical therapist Barry Moochler for three days a week replaced playing any basketball throughout the winter, spring and summer.
At the season-ending Spartans banquet, she signed the team card to Alberici with a message about how she planned to do whatever she had to to return to the team.
"I ran into Barry Moochler and he told me, unsolicited, that it was unbelievable how hard she was working," Alberici said.
With help watching Javon and Elias from family and friends like her roommate Ebony Farrow, who played for the Spartans the last two seasons, Williams worked herself into playing shape again, and is getting minutes as a forward for the 7-5 Spartans.
"That kind of rehab is tough for any college athlete with no other responsibilities, and then when you pile on all the other responsibilities that she has, of being really in an adult situation already, I just think it's a great story of perseverance," said Alberici. "She wanted to play at least one more year here, and she's one of our captains and she's been great, a great leader. I'm so happy for her that she did what she set out to do, and I'm so proud of how hard she worked."
With both Javon and Elias at every home game, Williams doesn't forget for a moment that she's a mother of two - even when she's on the floor.
"They're on my mind all the time, all the time," she laughed. "I'm always making sure they're OK. Most of the time I'm probably looking over there, telling them to be quiet, because they're always yelling my name.
"They're good, though. They know not to come on the floor, unless it's halftime. Then you can't get them off the floor."
Wearing a brace around her scarred knee, Williams is averaging about 2.5 points and five rebounds per game, including a team-high 11 boards in a win against Clinton. Still, neither her level of play nor the strength of her once-atrophied right quad muscle are where she wants them to be.
"I think we'll be better in the second half, because we'll be better adjusted. And me too - I'm trying to work on this," she said, flexing her right leg. "I really want to play and show what I can do, you know? Trying to come back off this, it's hard."
But whether or not she realizes it, Lanetra Williams' hard work has yielded dividends already, just by the example she's shown her younger teammates.
"She could've easily just stopped playing basketball totally, but she kept going with it," said Kuiona Graham, one of Javon Reese's favorite players. "So I think that's kind of an inspiration, to keep on going."
Staff writer Andrew Walter can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 257 or
citizensports@lee.net
Javon is a sweet part of the package that comes with having Lanetra Williams as a teammate.
Williams, 25-years-old and the mother of two boys, Javon and 3-year-old Elias Agee, is not your typical junior college basketball player. She does have one older teammate, 23-year-old LaMonda Baker, but most of her fellow Spartans are 18 or 19. One is still 17.
As you might expect, there's a story behind what brought Williams to play basketball for Cayuga.
The operative word here is "basketball." Of the eight Williams children, seven of them played the sport for Auburn High School
Lanetra, a slender 5-foot-8 forward, played for Auburn too, but as a junior she decided she couldn't co-exist with one of the Maroons, future WNBA player Leigh Aziz. So she left the team, determined to make up for it in her senior year, after Aziz was gone.
But before she could play for Auburn in the 1997-98 season, Williams became pregnant with Javon, and it was on to Plan B: motherhood.
Fast forward to the fall of 2003. Williams had been a mom for five years, and hadn't played the game she loves for six. More importantly, she wanted to finally go to college.
"I waited a long time (to go back to school) because I had two kids, so I thought it was time to do something for me," Williams said with a giggle. "And actually for my sons, too, because I plan on getting away from Auburn so I can actually do something. There aren't many jobs here, anyway, especially for a single parent like me.
"I've been playing basketball since fifth grade. I like other sports, but basketball became personal, and ever since then I've been playing. It took me five years to get back in school, and whenever I go to school, I just have to play basketball."
Cayuga head coach Jim Alberici's assistant, former Auburn High coach Jack Cunliffe, recommended Lanetra as a good fit for a successful basketball program.
"Jack had all good things to say about her, about what a great kid she is, what a hard worker," Alberici said.
How unwittingly right on Cunliffe was.
Williams was still shaking off her five-year rust when the Spartans reconvened for the second semester of play in January of 2004. Within 10 minutes of the start of the first practice back, Williams blew out her right knee, tearing her anterior cruciate ligament.
So began an unwanted wrinkle in the complicated life of a single mother.
Two or three hours of rehabilitation with physical therapist Barry Moochler for three days a week replaced playing any basketball throughout the winter, spring and summer.
At the season-ending Spartans banquet, she signed the team card to Alberici with a message about how she planned to do whatever she had to to return to the team.
"I ran into Barry Moochler and he told me, unsolicited, that it was unbelievable how hard she was working," Alberici said.
With help watching Javon and Elias from family and friends like her roommate Ebony Farrow, who played for the Spartans the last two seasons, Williams worked herself into playing shape again, and is getting minutes as a forward for the 7-5 Spartans.
"That kind of rehab is tough for any college athlete with no other responsibilities, and then when you pile on all the other responsibilities that she has, of being really in an adult situation already, I just think it's a great story of perseverance," said Alberici. "She wanted to play at least one more year here, and she's one of our captains and she's been great, a great leader. I'm so happy for her that she did what she set out to do, and I'm so proud of how hard she worked."
With both Javon and Elias at every home game, Williams doesn't forget for a moment that she's a mother of two - even when she's on the floor.
"They're on my mind all the time, all the time," she laughed. "I'm always making sure they're OK. Most of the time I'm probably looking over there, telling them to be quiet, because they're always yelling my name.
"They're good, though. They know not to come on the floor, unless it's halftime. Then you can't get them off the floor."
Wearing a brace around her scarred knee, Williams is averaging about 2.5 points and five rebounds per game, including a team-high 11 boards in a win against Clinton. Still, neither her level of play nor the strength of her once-atrophied right quad muscle are where she wants them to be.
"I think we'll be better in the second half, because we'll be better adjusted. And me too - I'm trying to work on this," she said, flexing her right leg. "I really want to play and show what I can do, you know? Trying to come back off this, it's hard."
But whether or not she realizes it, Lanetra Williams' hard work has yielded dividends already, just by the example she's shown her younger teammates.
"She could've easily just stopped playing basketball totally, but she kept going with it," said Kuiona Graham, one of Javon Reese's favorite players. "So I think that's kind of an inspiration, to keep on going."
Staff writer Andrew Walter can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 257 or
citizensports@lee.net
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