In-depth storytelling: Longform content
Grad transfer Carlik Jones was never supposed to play sports - but became U of L's man
Shannon Russell Sept. 20, 2021
(EXCERPT from story in the Louisville Courier-Journal.)
His free-throw routine starts with the chop-chop of sneakers close to the line and a downward glance at the basketball in his hands. That’s when Carlik Jones prays.
Few know — maybe just his mom — that while staring at his feet, he silently recites scripture. He likes Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Three dribbles, a release, then usually a make. He shot 81.4% from the line last year at Radford, good for second in the Big South Conference, but that’s not the main reason fans adored him.
The clutch shots? Now those resonated.
With games at stake and the clock clawing toward zero, Carlik has always slipped into a calm state steadied by the confidence he developed for those very scenarios. He used to count down in his head during imaginary game-winning scenarios at the hoop behind his grandmother’s house in Evanston, about 5 miles northeast of downtown Cincinnati, winning game after game with his heroics until she’d fuss at him to get out of the sleet or rain.
He sat with his father, Carl Jones, in gyms and spoke the language of last-second strategies. His mom, Felicia Rosemond, tired of Carlik lingering after junior high AAU practices just to shoot repeatedly from half-court. Practice something you’re going to actually do in games, she said then. She laughs about that now.
Picking his best buzzer-beating shot would be like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. There was his deep 3 to lift Purcell Marian over Georgetown High his freshman year. The AAU game-winner before his senior year at Aiken High that yielded seven Division I college offers in the 45-minute drive from the gym to the hotel. A half-dozen pivotal field goals at Radford, including two in a 2019 triumph over Hampton (one to force overtime and one to win the game). The last-second 3 over Liberty that won the 2018 Big South Championship and clinched Radford’s first NCAA Tournament bid in nine years.
Youth ministers at Felicia’s church, Corinthian Baptist, were ecstatic about the latter heart-thumper. They replayed the shot and Carlik’s ESPN interview on a video screen at an ensuing service before a congregation of more than 100. Felicia called her son soon after to share the news. “They showed that in church?” Carlik asked.
ESPN named Carlik the No. 1 grad transfer in the country for 2020 after a final campaign at Radford where he averaged 20 points, 5.5 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 1.4 steals. Fifty programs swarmed after he entered the transfer portal. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound guard who likes to be called “Leek” — he even wears a chunky necklace spelling out the nickname — chose Louisville and Chris Mack, who grew up near Carlik's home in Hartwell, to compete for a national championship and so his family could make the easy drive from Cincinnati to see him play.
Play. The free throws, the ice-water-in-his-veins shots, the history, the potential: Carlik Jones doesn’t take any of this for granted, not after the diagnosis he received at age 2. His parents ached for him, knowing how much he loved sports. Before he could walk, Carlik rolled a basketball around a gym where his dad coached as if there was no reason he shouldn’t. Carlik later commandeered his older brother’s football pads, dropped into a 3-point stance and yelled, “Mom! Look! I’m ready!”
But a neurologist said Carlik would never be able to play sports at all.
Shannon Russell Sept. 20, 2021
(EXCERPT from story in the Louisville Courier-Journal.)
His free-throw routine starts with the chop-chop of sneakers close to the line and a downward glance at the basketball in his hands. That’s when Carlik Jones prays.
Few know — maybe just his mom — that while staring at his feet, he silently recites scripture. He likes Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Three dribbles, a release, then usually a make. He shot 81.4% from the line last year at Radford, good for second in the Big South Conference, but that’s not the main reason fans adored him.
The clutch shots? Now those resonated.
With games at stake and the clock clawing toward zero, Carlik has always slipped into a calm state steadied by the confidence he developed for those very scenarios. He used to count down in his head during imaginary game-winning scenarios at the hoop behind his grandmother’s house in Evanston, about 5 miles northeast of downtown Cincinnati, winning game after game with his heroics until she’d fuss at him to get out of the sleet or rain.
He sat with his father, Carl Jones, in gyms and spoke the language of last-second strategies. His mom, Felicia Rosemond, tired of Carlik lingering after junior high AAU practices just to shoot repeatedly from half-court. Practice something you’re going to actually do in games, she said then. She laughs about that now.
Picking his best buzzer-beating shot would be like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. There was his deep 3 to lift Purcell Marian over Georgetown High his freshman year. The AAU game-winner before his senior year at Aiken High that yielded seven Division I college offers in the 45-minute drive from the gym to the hotel. A half-dozen pivotal field goals at Radford, including two in a 2019 triumph over Hampton (one to force overtime and one to win the game). The last-second 3 over Liberty that won the 2018 Big South Championship and clinched Radford’s first NCAA Tournament bid in nine years.
Youth ministers at Felicia’s church, Corinthian Baptist, were ecstatic about the latter heart-thumper. They replayed the shot and Carlik’s ESPN interview on a video screen at an ensuing service before a congregation of more than 100. Felicia called her son soon after to share the news. “They showed that in church?” Carlik asked.
ESPN named Carlik the No. 1 grad transfer in the country for 2020 after a final campaign at Radford where he averaged 20 points, 5.5 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 1.4 steals. Fifty programs swarmed after he entered the transfer portal. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound guard who likes to be called “Leek” — he even wears a chunky necklace spelling out the nickname — chose Louisville and Chris Mack, who grew up near Carlik's home in Hartwell, to compete for a national championship and so his family could make the easy drive from Cincinnati to see him play.
Play. The free throws, the ice-water-in-his-veins shots, the history, the potential: Carlik Jones doesn’t take any of this for granted, not after the diagnosis he received at age 2. His parents ached for him, knowing how much he loved sports. Before he could walk, Carlik rolled a basketball around a gym where his dad coached as if there was no reason he shouldn’t. Carlik later commandeered his older brother’s football pads, dropped into a 3-point stance and yelled, “Mom! Look! I’m ready!”
But a neurologist said Carlik would never be able to play sports at all.
A better life through basketball: Sherwin Anderson a playmaker for his community
Shannon Russell Feb. 3, 2020
(EXCERPT from story in The Athletic.)
OVER-THE-RHINE – He’s in his element in this sanctuary, a small gymnasium with graffiti-sprayed backboards and a thick, automatically locking door pock-marked by bullet holes. Life outside Philippus United Church of Christ still bears the brambles of opioid use and prostitution, but on that basketball court adjacent to the 128-year-old church, Sherwin Anderson invokes confidence and happiness and pride.
The former Xavier basketball captain is 175 pounds of energy, his expressive visage curtained by ropy braids. His expertise is basketball. He’s a trainer by profession and a confidence-builder by practice. Sherwin’s gift has been fortifying the fragile egos of the kids who flock to Philippus in search of skills development or a boost on their school and AAU basketball teams. Sherwin is their friend, their mentor and sometimes even their father figure, and he thrives on their growth.
He is adored.
Jackson Buda, a regular since March, is a different kid when he’s in Sherwin’s gym — content and assured and not at all like his anxious alter ego that laces up for his eighth-grade team. But this November, with the season just underway, he’s been timid on game days, fragile and afraid to shoot. Sometimes his mother, Connie, wonders if he even likes the sport at all, and yet here he is, shooting around one Sunday afternoon at the Philippus gym, awaiting Sherwin’s instruction.
“Jackson looks sad today,” Sherwin says, glancing at the lean 14-year-old.
“He is,” Connie says. “He’s very sad. He hasn’t been scoring. He wants to so badly and yet he’s performing really poorly on the court.”
Sherwin approaches Jackson by the 3-point line and envelops him in a hug. The bouncing of basketballs muffles Sherwin’s voice, but Jackson is soothed by his message. Underneath your skin is bone and underneath the bone is the soul. Your soul is hurting and we’re going to fix it today. Life isn’t just about basketball. Your soul is broken right now.
Jackson bursts into tears. Another player notices the one-on-one session and nods, familiar with Sherwin’s brand of encouragement, as Jackson wipes his eyes and unloads a freight of fears.
The teen is all smiles about 10 minutes later, ready for shooting drills.
“He fixed my soul today,” Jackson says. “I get in my head too much and I know I can play better. He motivated me and helped me get through it.”
Sherwin isn’t so keen on talking about any of his quiet miracles. He hesitates during interviews for this story. His modus operandi is to work behind the scenes, whether that’s helping an underprivileged kid land a scholarship or studying iPhone footage of a teen’s game to offer feedback. There’s no talk about his past, the way Pete Gillen plucked him out of Brooklyn, or his college career at Xavier, or his year with the Harlem Globetrotters.
Connie Buda learned of 45-year-old Sherwin from a relative. She cobbled together the rest from Google and a water-damaged pamphlet lying around the gym. Sherwin prefers it that way.
“I don’t see my story as anything different from anybody who has struggled. That story is old. We all have our struggles. We need to overcome that,” he says. “There’s a lot of kids that need my confidence-building, my motivation, to get them out of their rut. I’m one of the only people in this world who can say from the bottom of their heart that I truly love what I do. I wake up with that mindset. I love my life! I love my work! I don’t want to tell people I’m doing good. I want to do good.”
But Sherwin’s altruism is also his weakness. Philippus’ seventh-year reverend Sam Wyatt worries about Sherwin’s big heart, that the second and third chances he affords to the nighttime crowd – the drug dealers, gangsters and their followers – put him in harm’s way.
His summer basketball league. That night in 2015. The hard foul, the dash for a weapon, the closed door, the pow, pow, pow.
“There were some people in that gym that were not worthy of a second chance,” Rev. Wyatt says. “And they proved it that night.”
Shannon Russell Feb. 3, 2020
(EXCERPT from story in The Athletic.)
OVER-THE-RHINE – He’s in his element in this sanctuary, a small gymnasium with graffiti-sprayed backboards and a thick, automatically locking door pock-marked by bullet holes. Life outside Philippus United Church of Christ still bears the brambles of opioid use and prostitution, but on that basketball court adjacent to the 128-year-old church, Sherwin Anderson invokes confidence and happiness and pride.
The former Xavier basketball captain is 175 pounds of energy, his expressive visage curtained by ropy braids. His expertise is basketball. He’s a trainer by profession and a confidence-builder by practice. Sherwin’s gift has been fortifying the fragile egos of the kids who flock to Philippus in search of skills development or a boost on their school and AAU basketball teams. Sherwin is their friend, their mentor and sometimes even their father figure, and he thrives on their growth.
He is adored.
Jackson Buda, a regular since March, is a different kid when he’s in Sherwin’s gym — content and assured and not at all like his anxious alter ego that laces up for his eighth-grade team. But this November, with the season just underway, he’s been timid on game days, fragile and afraid to shoot. Sometimes his mother, Connie, wonders if he even likes the sport at all, and yet here he is, shooting around one Sunday afternoon at the Philippus gym, awaiting Sherwin’s instruction.
“Jackson looks sad today,” Sherwin says, glancing at the lean 14-year-old.
“He is,” Connie says. “He’s very sad. He hasn’t been scoring. He wants to so badly and yet he’s performing really poorly on the court.”
Sherwin approaches Jackson by the 3-point line and envelops him in a hug. The bouncing of basketballs muffles Sherwin’s voice, but Jackson is soothed by his message. Underneath your skin is bone and underneath the bone is the soul. Your soul is hurting and we’re going to fix it today. Life isn’t just about basketball. Your soul is broken right now.
Jackson bursts into tears. Another player notices the one-on-one session and nods, familiar with Sherwin’s brand of encouragement, as Jackson wipes his eyes and unloads a freight of fears.
The teen is all smiles about 10 minutes later, ready for shooting drills.
“He fixed my soul today,” Jackson says. “I get in my head too much and I know I can play better. He motivated me and helped me get through it.”
Sherwin isn’t so keen on talking about any of his quiet miracles. He hesitates during interviews for this story. His modus operandi is to work behind the scenes, whether that’s helping an underprivileged kid land a scholarship or studying iPhone footage of a teen’s game to offer feedback. There’s no talk about his past, the way Pete Gillen plucked him out of Brooklyn, or his college career at Xavier, or his year with the Harlem Globetrotters.
Connie Buda learned of 45-year-old Sherwin from a relative. She cobbled together the rest from Google and a water-damaged pamphlet lying around the gym. Sherwin prefers it that way.
“I don’t see my story as anything different from anybody who has struggled. That story is old. We all have our struggles. We need to overcome that,” he says. “There’s a lot of kids that need my confidence-building, my motivation, to get them out of their rut. I’m one of the only people in this world who can say from the bottom of their heart that I truly love what I do. I wake up with that mindset. I love my life! I love my work! I don’t want to tell people I’m doing good. I want to do good.”
But Sherwin’s altruism is also his weakness. Philippus’ seventh-year reverend Sam Wyatt worries about Sherwin’s big heart, that the second and third chances he affords to the nighttime crowd – the drug dealers, gangsters and their followers – put him in harm’s way.
His summer basketball league. That night in 2015. The hard foul, the dash for a weapon, the closed door, the pow, pow, pow.
“There were some people in that gym that were not worthy of a second chance,” Rev. Wyatt says. “And they proved it that night.”
J.P.’s World: Ex-Xavier star Macura still one of a kind as he chases NBA dreams
Shannon Russell Dec 19, 2018
(EXCERPT from story in The Athletic.)
GREENSBORO, North Carolina – At long last he’s a bona fide professional, paid to play the sport he loves, but the blur in the purple Kobes looks a lot like the basketball player he was in a Xavier uniform. J.P. Macura hustles to the glass for a defensive rebound just 92 seconds into the Greensboro Swarm’s game against the Wisconsin Herd in the Swarm’s arena, The Fieldhouse.
A sparse Wednesday afternoon crowd reflects the time of day and the 12.8 inches of snow recently dumped on the region by Winter Storm Diego. The NBA Gatorade League game started as a sold-out kids’ day promotion for 2,100 fourth graders but the weather unraveled those plans, canceling school and robbing the Swarm players’ apartment complex of power for 15 hours two days before tip-off. Macura and his roommate, Columbia University graduate Luke Petrasek, didn’t mind much.
No, check it: It was miserable, Macura said with a grin, but the timing was good because they went to bed instead of playing video games into the wee hours of the morning. Video gaming is a shared hobby: Call of Duty, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Fortnite, you name it. Macura is obsessed with Fortnite. He has a dedicated chair and TV in their living room. His typical repose is shoeless, sprawled out on in the chair, a silver and black headset resting atop his tousled tufts.
“I’m just completely addicted to it. It’s bad,” Macura said with a laugh.
Seven months have passed since his college graduation and six months have elapsed since he signed a two-way contract with the Charlotte Hornets. Macura and Joe Chealey, the franchise’s other two-way player, can play up to 45 days with the NBA team but will spend most of their season with its developmental G League team. They haven’t been called up to the Hornets, situated 90 miles away, just yet. In the meantime, Macura the Minnesotan has made the most of the snowy diversion. He helped dislodge cars while wearing his favorite shoes, Crocs, and debated building a snowman as 23-year-olds with idle time are wont to do. Macura discovered a proliferation of dog poop atop the complex’s snowbanks and nixed the plan. He still managed to pack a few snowballs.
Anyway, after snaring that defensive rebound early in the Wisconsin Herd game, Macura pushed the ball up the court and whipped it to Dwayne Bacon along the perimeter. Bucket. The players acknowledged each other and played on seamlessly, a funky reversal of their first meeting as college players. Xavier upset Bacon’s Florida State team as an 11-seed in the 2017 NCAA Tournament in Orlando. Bacon scored 20 points in that game but Macura and the Musketeers rolled to a 91-66 win en route to an Elite Eight appearance. Last March, well after Bacon left school, was taken in the NBA Draft’s second round by New Orleans and traded to Charlotte, his Seminoles stunned No. 1 seed Xavier in Nashville. Macura and Bacon love razzing each other about those match-ups.
That’s actually what they discussed on the bench late in Wednesday’s outing. Bacon was in Greensboro on assignment from the Hornets and set to depart after the Swarm game, in which he scored 21 points with 10 assists. Macura played well too (11 points, six rebounds) and was the most engaged player on the bench. He stood with his fingers crooked into an OK sign for 3-point attempts and jettisoned to half-court to greet teammates during timeouts. With the 140-117 victory firmly in hand and the sound system blaring snippets of “Day-O!” and “Mony Mony,” Macura sat wedged between Bacon and Devonte’ Graham, cracking jokes.
“You’re complete trash,” Macura declared to Bacon. “Terrible.”
The basis for his allegations was statistical and farcical. Bacon missed a triple-double by three rebounds.
“That’s how he’s always been. He talks trash, tries to get in people’s heads. He always did anything it takes to make his team win,” Bacon said, smiling, after the game. “When I met him it was just like crazy because the connection was just so good. He’s a great guy off the court if you get to know him. He’s a good dude.”
Macura breezed past the media room about the time Bacon said that and swooped in to playfully pummel him. He’s an equal opportunity trash talker but it’s entirely more fun if you’re his teammate, Bacon said. He remembered Macura throwing off some of Florida State’s players in the 2017 NCAA Tournament with his yammering. Macura delights in stirring the pot. Xavier fans have seen it plenty: Gator chomping at Wisconsin fans, frustrating opponents and their supporters with his aggressive play. Drop him in the NCAA Tournament, Xavier’s Cintas Center or the Swarm’s intimate arena and he’s going to be the same person each game.
“I also (told Bacon) that our conference was better than his conference when we beat them by 25, 30 points in the NCAA Tournament that year. He continues to say that his conference is the best. But I’m not worried about that,” Macura said.
He has bigger fish to fry, namely rounding up his Swarm-provided post-game lunch.
Read the rest here.
J.P.’s World: Ex-Xavier star Macura still one of a kind as he chases NBA dreams
Shannon Russell Dec 19, 2018
(EXCERPT from story in The Athletic.)
GREENSBORO, North Carolina – At long last he’s a bona fide professional, paid to play the sport he loves, but the blur in the purple Kobes looks a lot like the basketball player he was in a Xavier uniform. J.P. Macura hustles to the glass for a defensive rebound just 92 seconds into the Greensboro Swarm’s game against the Wisconsin Herd in the Swarm’s arena, The Fieldhouse.
A sparse Wednesday afternoon crowd reflects the time of day and the 12.8 inches of snow recently dumped on the region by Winter Storm Diego. The NBA Gatorade League game started as a sold-out kids’ day promotion for 2,100 fourth graders but the weather unraveled those plans, canceling school and robbing the Swarm players’ apartment complex of power for 15 hours two days before tip-off. Macura and his roommate, Columbia University graduate Luke Petrasek, didn’t mind much.
No, check it: It was miserable, Macura said with a grin, but the timing was good because they went to bed instead of playing video games into the wee hours of the morning. Video gaming is a shared hobby: Call of Duty, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Fortnite, you name it. Macura is obsessed with Fortnite. He has a dedicated chair and TV in their living room. His typical repose is shoeless, sprawled out on in the chair, a silver and black headset resting atop his tousled tufts.
“I’m just completely addicted to it. It’s bad,” Macura said with a laugh.
Seven months have passed since his college graduation and six months have elapsed since he signed a two-way contract with the Charlotte Hornets. Macura and Joe Chealey, the franchise’s other two-way player, can play up to 45 days with the NBA team but will spend most of their season with its developmental G League team. They haven’t been called up to the Hornets, situated 90 miles away, just yet. In the meantime, Macura the Minnesotan has made the most of the snowy diversion. He helped dislodge cars while wearing his favorite shoes, Crocs, and debated building a snowman as 23-year-olds with idle time are wont to do. Macura discovered a proliferation of dog poop atop the complex’s snowbanks and nixed the plan. He still managed to pack a few snowballs.
Anyway, after snaring that defensive rebound early in the Wisconsin Herd game, Macura pushed the ball up the court and whipped it to Dwayne Bacon along the perimeter. Bucket. The players acknowledged each other and played on seamlessly, a funky reversal of their first meeting as college players. Xavier upset Bacon’s Florida State team as an 11-seed in the 2017 NCAA Tournament in Orlando. Bacon scored 20 points in that game but Macura and the Musketeers rolled to a 91-66 win en route to an Elite Eight appearance. Last March, well after Bacon left school, was taken in the NBA Draft’s second round by New Orleans and traded to Charlotte, his Seminoles stunned No. 1 seed Xavier in Nashville. Macura and Bacon love razzing each other about those match-ups.
That’s actually what they discussed on the bench late in Wednesday’s outing. Bacon was in Greensboro on assignment from the Hornets and set to depart after the Swarm game, in which he scored 21 points with 10 assists. Macura played well too (11 points, six rebounds) and was the most engaged player on the bench. He stood with his fingers crooked into an OK sign for 3-point attempts and jettisoned to half-court to greet teammates during timeouts. With the 140-117 victory firmly in hand and the sound system blaring snippets of “Day-O!” and “Mony Mony,” Macura sat wedged between Bacon and Devonte’ Graham, cracking jokes.
“You’re complete trash,” Macura declared to Bacon. “Terrible.”
The basis for his allegations was statistical and farcical. Bacon missed a triple-double by three rebounds.
“That’s how he’s always been. He talks trash, tries to get in people’s heads. He always did anything it takes to make his team win,” Bacon said, smiling, after the game. “When I met him it was just like crazy because the connection was just so good. He’s a great guy off the court if you get to know him. He’s a good dude.”
Macura breezed past the media room about the time Bacon said that and swooped in to playfully pummel him. He’s an equal opportunity trash talker but it’s entirely more fun if you’re his teammate, Bacon said. He remembered Macura throwing off some of Florida State’s players in the 2017 NCAA Tournament with his yammering. Macura delights in stirring the pot. Xavier fans have seen it plenty: Gator chomping at Wisconsin fans, frustrating opponents and their supporters with his aggressive play. Drop him in the NCAA Tournament, Xavier’s Cintas Center or the Swarm’s intimate arena and he’s going to be the same person each game.
“I also (told Bacon) that our conference was better than his conference when we beat them by 25, 30 points in the NCAA Tournament that year. He continues to say that his conference is the best. But I’m not worried about that,” Macura said.
He has bigger fish to fry, namely rounding up his Swarm-provided post-game lunch.
Read the rest here.
Wise fighter
Xavier volleyball player escaped violent past to become an inspirational leader
By Shannon Russell, The Cincinnati Enquirer
(Photo by Leigh Taylor)
Pretend for a moment you’re Amé White.
You’re a star player on Xavier’s volleyball team, an outside hitter with a fierce vertical jump, and every day you think about growing up in poverty in Salt Lake City where your anger was so deep and so wide that you got into trouble about every other time you walked out the door.
You’re part Tongan and part Caucasian and your parents split up when you were young and the man you considered your stepfather was subdued by police in a horrific incident on your front lawn.
You saw him die. You couldn’t stop it.
You cried and acted out and landed in trouble again and again and again, switching high schools after assaulting a boy who messed with your family. Nobody messes with your family. Not then. Not now.
You continued spiraling out of control until a teacher and coach changed your life. Your anger still simmered and your sadness remained but you finally saw your future beyond high school, and you were so damn tired being called a waste.
So you straightened out your academics and went to community college and on to Xavier, and in the spring you’ll be the first of your siblings to graduate from college.
You’re Amé White. And you’re a fighter.
'I was just a menace'
Now you’re back to being you and Amé is Amé, which is to say she’s undersized for her position and has an infectious smile and freckled cheeks and a life story so compelling that her teammate, Alex Smith, is filming a 30-minute documentary about her. Smith plans to pitch it to PBS.
“I think her story is one that everybody should hear because it’s so inspiring,” Smith said. “It shows Amé’s spirit and how she’s a great person and a great friend and leader, even though she’s been through things that are pretty intense and tragic.”
In 15 years of playing volleyball, Smith has never met a bigger fighter on the court – or anyone so grateful for what she has. Amé is the first to fawn over gear players receive in their lockers before the season, an event dubbed “Christmas.” When the team loses a match at Cintas Center, Amé reminds players how lucky they are to compete in such a fine arena.
“I’m grateful because I never had all these opportunities, all these things given to me,” Amé said.
Money was scarce growing up, especially after Penina White endured a lay-off. Because her mother had to work several jobs to make ends meet, Amé was alone a great deal of the time. Trouble became her hobby.
She was a smart girl, a trait that became her saving grace when appearing before juvenile court judges, but she said she was kicked out of three elementary schools, two junior highs and a high school for “fighting or getting caught doing bad things.”
The thing was, Amé was respectful at home to her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, Alvin Itula. She became someone else when she walked out the front door. She said she lived in a ghetto infiltrated by gangs and it was cool to be tough and important to be strong.
She was angry, too, about her surroundings and, Mrs. White suspected, her limited relationship with her dad, who lived an hour away with her two brothers and sister.
Amé sullied the elementary school she attended with graffiti. She lit her homework on fire near an open, dry field and created a blaze that forced the cancellation of a kids’ carnival. She made her first trip to juvenile court in fourth grade after punching a boy who’d insulted her sister.
Dave White accompanied her to court where he said there was a “mass arraignment of juveniles” in trouble for truancy and shoplifting. There were 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds and then there was 9-year-old Amé, who didn’t even know what aggravated assault was.
White, an investigator for Utah Attorney General’s Office, tried to reason with his daughter – the youngest of his four kids with Penina – and steer her in the right direction over time, a long time, but she tangled with a lot more trouble before finding her way back to him.
She and her friends stole bikes when they didn’t want to walk home from school. They stole shoes for sports. When she was 15, they hot-wired a car, bought a paintball gun, and drove around town “shooting out the window” until police, believing they were discharging a real firearm, converged on them at a four-way stop, Amé said, guns pointing.
“There was a time when I thought, ‘This is going to be a long road for her. I don’t know how she’s ever going to succeed,’” Mr. White said.
Penina White said it was a struggle and Amé was a handful but Amé herself probably put it best: “I was just a menace. I was the worst. I was such a troublemaker.”
Living with loss
If there was one person Amé adored, it was Itula. She regarded him as her father for the 10 years he was in her life and said he was perfect in her eyes despite his checkered past, which included a history of fighting with police.
Amé was sitting with Itula on the porch one afternoon, sharing good news – she was eligible to play volleyball her sophomore season – when police arrived at their residence.
The Deseret Morning News said the officers tried to question Itula about a bench warrant they didn’t know had been recalled earlier by the courts.
Penina White was inside, sleeping. She quickly awoke.
“My mom came up and was like, ‘No, check your system again. We just got the warrant cleared.’ They said ‘No, he has a warrant. We’ve got to take him in,’” Amé said.
Itula bolted. He ran toward the back of the house and into an alley, Mrs. White said.
“Growing up, he always got in trouble. His first instinct was to run. With him, I think he was just so used to getting in trouble all the time that when he wasn’t in trouble, he (thought he) was,” Mrs. White said.
Four officers chased Itula around the block and caught up with him in the front yard, right in front of where he and Amé had been talking. They told Itula to get to the ground. He resisted, so they tried to take him down by force, Amé said.
Penina White implored her daughter to talk to Itula so he would comply with the officers, but Amé was frozen – “In stuck mode,” she called it – and could only watch.
“I just watched the whole thing and my mom was screaming at me, over and over: ‘Amé, do something! Tell him to get on the ground! He’ll listen to you!’ But I couldn’t say one thing,” White said. “I just watched it all happen. I was just stuck.”
The Associated Press said officers used pepper spray, batons and a Taser when Itula continued to fight. Itula’s pulse weakened. He died at a hospital.
Autopsy reports showed Itula was under the influence of cocaine and meth at the time of the incident in 2006. A medical examiner found Itula died from “excited delirium,” a condition that can “spur pulmonary arrest, especially after being restrained,” per KSL.com.
Amé was inconsolable. She couldn’t shake the pain then and she can’t shake it now.
Her heart aches that Itula can’t see how far she’s come, that she’s not the troubled girl she once was, and she burns with guilt. As copious tears streamed down her cheeks in Xavier’s media room, she said if she’d have yelled something the day he died, anything, he would have listened.
Soon after his death she was consumed with anger and grief and distrusted authority and had no tolerance for anyone picking fights with her family. It led to her expulsion from Highland High School.
A boy picked a fight with two of her male cousins, flashing gang signs and talking smack before hitting them both, Amé said. She thought she was next. Before the kid even looked her way, boom, she socked him.
“He’s on the ground and I’m on top of him just (hitting him). And then it just clicked in my head: ‘What are you doing? You’re in season right now.’ I freaked out and jumped off and I grabbed my back pack and tried to just walk away. I went to class,” Amé said.
“(Administrators) called me and asked why I was in a fight. I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I was trying to break it up.’ They were like, ‘Really? Kicking the kid in his head ain’t breaking it up, Amé.’”
And that was it, her last chance at the school. It came on the very day several college volleyball coaches were slated to scout her in a tournament. Those who’d shaken their heads and told her she was wasting her talent watched her leave Highland High for good.
Amé and her mother moved into a five-bedroom house filled with relatives in a different school district, where Amé enrolled and excelled and found a way to feel, for once, alive.
A new influence
Wendy Sanders knew a thing or two about Murray High’s newest junior.
Murray and Highland were in the same athletic conference and Sanders, Murray’s volleyball coach, had had her hands full trying to prepare for outside hitter Amé when she was on Highland’s team.
“Athletically, she was just so dominant. We always tried to come up with a game plan to at last slow her down. Even her freshman year she just killed us,” Sanders said.
Sanders also knew a lot about Amé off the court, and her reputation wasn’t good. Highland was one of the tougher schools in the area and “she was definitely the toughest kid on the toughest team.”
They sat down and talked when Amé arrived, had a heart-to-heart about pain and loss in both their lives. Sanders ordered the teenager to quit stealing – if she needed gym shoes, Sanders would help her out – and began helping her get her academic credits in order as part of her Credits Recovery class.
Amé said Sanders “fixed” her, was the first person that made her feel whole. She repaid her with respect.
“She was really the only person I could kind of feel comfortable talking to. She sat me down and said, ‘Look, these are your grades. You want to play for me, you need to go to class, you need to this.’ She introduced me to all these tutors that would talk to my teachers for me. She gave me all this help, which I really needed. She put me in a class to express my feelings. It was really helpful,” Amé said.
“She’d always tell me, ‘Amé, it’s not too late. You could still go places.’”
It was the beginning of Amé’s maturation, one that included a renewed relationship with her father and popularity among classmates. She was Homecoming queen runner-up her senior year.
About the same time, a juvenile court judge gave Amé a second chance. She said he saw her potential and told her he’d clear charges against her if she promised never to come back.
“I felt like all the charges I had was keeping me from moving forward. I said, ‘OK. You won’t see me again,’” Amé said.
And he didn’t. Amé went on to led Murray’s volleyball team to a third-place finish at the state tournament and enrolled at Salt Lake Community College, where she played basketball and volleyball. She wanted immediate playing time and the chance to gain experience, all the while planning a transfer to a bigger school after her second year.
“She said, ‘Well, Mom, I think I’ll stay at the (University of Utah) or play somewhere near here.’ I said, ‘Oh, hell no. You’re not staying here. In order for you to get stability in your life, you’re going to have to leave,’” Mrs. White said.
Xavier coach Mike Johnson found her. He almost didn’t. Through “dumb luck,” Johnson noticed Amé in footage of another player. Through her recruitment he learned Mr. White had played two years of football at the University of Cincinnati, which provided a connection to the city.
He also allowed her to play her natural position – didn’t try to change her when other schools clamored for her to be their libero, or defensive specialist – and she committed to XU soon after her visit to campus.
At 5-foot-7 Amé was and is small for an outside hitter, but she has an astounding vertical leap that reaches 30 inches. Because it took time for her to adjust to the Division I game, Johnson said she became the consummate teammate while working and improving on her own game and being the best possible player.
She’s close to that, now. She had a team-high 17 kills and 12 digs in a five-set victory over Cincinnati. She had 12 kills in an ensuing loss to Dayton.
“In some ways she’s one of our leaders in terms of how hard people compete,” Johnson said. “We actually hold her responsible for the level of competitive in practice. She’s probably one of the best competitors we have.”
Smith agreed. She said Amé channels her fight into volleyball and is more intense than anyone she’s ever seen.
“If she’s playing well and she’s feeling it, it makes everyone on our team to play better and do better for each other,” Smith said.
Finding peace
Being inked hurt, oh yes it did, Amé said, but she couldn’t imagine a better tribute to her family than via the seven tattoos on her body. The first one on her calf says “Tonga.” The second is her mother’s name.
She has a sizeable musical note on her left thigh, representing her family’s musical gifts, and a sleeve of tattoos on her right arm all the way down to her elbow. The inside of her arm says “I am my family’s keeper.”
It’s the truth. Amé has steadfast and close bonds with both parents and her three older siblings, whom she talks to regularly. Penina and Dave White have both made cross-country trips to see her play at Cintas Center, and they’ll be back in the stands before she reaches the biggest goal of her young life: College graduation.
“I want to get my degree so I know it’ll set the bar higher for my nieces and nephews and the younger generation. That’s a really, big important thing,” she said through tears. “I want to be a person that makes history, that changes lives.”
After receiving a liberal arts degree, Amé’s plan is to play overseas, represent Tonga in beach volleyball in the 2016 Olympics, and eventually help teenagers with upbringings like her own.
Her evolution from troubled child to a model student and athlete has, at times, forced Mr. White to pinch himself. He credited Sanders for sparking the change and Amé for being responsible and accountable and aiming for the future instead of living for the present.
“She definitely isn’t the person she was five or six years ago. Every time we go out there and visit we’ll walk into the arena. You just can’t help but get that tear in your eye, knowing that she’s really turned it around,” Mr. White said.
For years Amé said she waited to be asked one question: What would she say now to the people who didn’t believe in her, those who thought she was wasting her talent? When it was finally posed, she laughed.
“I still don’t know,” she said.
Does it matter?
“No. It doesn’t. They never did matter,” Amé said. “I’m really happy now, but I feel like I’m not done yet. I feel like there are a lot more things for me to do. I want to be a person that makes history, that changes lives.”
You’re a star player on Xavier’s volleyball team, an outside hitter with a fierce vertical jump, and every day you think about growing up in poverty in Salt Lake City where your anger was so deep and so wide that you got into trouble about every other time you walked out the door.
You’re part Tongan and part Caucasian and your parents split up when you were young and the man you considered your stepfather was subdued by police in a horrific incident on your front lawn.
You saw him die. You couldn’t stop it.
You cried and acted out and landed in trouble again and again and again, switching high schools after assaulting a boy who messed with your family. Nobody messes with your family. Not then. Not now.
You continued spiraling out of control until a teacher and coach changed your life. Your anger still simmered and your sadness remained but you finally saw your future beyond high school, and you were so damn tired being called a waste.
So you straightened out your academics and went to community college and on to Xavier, and in the spring you’ll be the first of your siblings to graduate from college.
You’re Amé White. And you’re a fighter.
'I was just a menace'
Now you’re back to being you and Amé is Amé, which is to say she’s undersized for her position and has an infectious smile and freckled cheeks and a life story so compelling that her teammate, Alex Smith, is filming a 30-minute documentary about her. Smith plans to pitch it to PBS.
“I think her story is one that everybody should hear because it’s so inspiring,” Smith said. “It shows Amé’s spirit and how she’s a great person and a great friend and leader, even though she’s been through things that are pretty intense and tragic.”
In 15 years of playing volleyball, Smith has never met a bigger fighter on the court – or anyone so grateful for what she has. Amé is the first to fawn over gear players receive in their lockers before the season, an event dubbed “Christmas.” When the team loses a match at Cintas Center, Amé reminds players how lucky they are to compete in such a fine arena.
“I’m grateful because I never had all these opportunities, all these things given to me,” Amé said.
Money was scarce growing up, especially after Penina White endured a lay-off. Because her mother had to work several jobs to make ends meet, Amé was alone a great deal of the time. Trouble became her hobby.
She was a smart girl, a trait that became her saving grace when appearing before juvenile court judges, but she said she was kicked out of three elementary schools, two junior highs and a high school for “fighting or getting caught doing bad things.”
The thing was, Amé was respectful at home to her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, Alvin Itula. She became someone else when she walked out the front door. She said she lived in a ghetto infiltrated by gangs and it was cool to be tough and important to be strong.
She was angry, too, about her surroundings and, Mrs. White suspected, her limited relationship with her dad, who lived an hour away with her two brothers and sister.
Amé sullied the elementary school she attended with graffiti. She lit her homework on fire near an open, dry field and created a blaze that forced the cancellation of a kids’ carnival. She made her first trip to juvenile court in fourth grade after punching a boy who’d insulted her sister.
Dave White accompanied her to court where he said there was a “mass arraignment of juveniles” in trouble for truancy and shoplifting. There were 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds and then there was 9-year-old Amé, who didn’t even know what aggravated assault was.
White, an investigator for Utah Attorney General’s Office, tried to reason with his daughter – the youngest of his four kids with Penina – and steer her in the right direction over time, a long time, but she tangled with a lot more trouble before finding her way back to him.
She and her friends stole bikes when they didn’t want to walk home from school. They stole shoes for sports. When she was 15, they hot-wired a car, bought a paintball gun, and drove around town “shooting out the window” until police, believing they were discharging a real firearm, converged on them at a four-way stop, Amé said, guns pointing.
“There was a time when I thought, ‘This is going to be a long road for her. I don’t know how she’s ever going to succeed,’” Mr. White said.
Penina White said it was a struggle and Amé was a handful but Amé herself probably put it best: “I was just a menace. I was the worst. I was such a troublemaker.”
Living with loss
If there was one person Amé adored, it was Itula. She regarded him as her father for the 10 years he was in her life and said he was perfect in her eyes despite his checkered past, which included a history of fighting with police.
Amé was sitting with Itula on the porch one afternoon, sharing good news – she was eligible to play volleyball her sophomore season – when police arrived at their residence.
The Deseret Morning News said the officers tried to question Itula about a bench warrant they didn’t know had been recalled earlier by the courts.
Penina White was inside, sleeping. She quickly awoke.
“My mom came up and was like, ‘No, check your system again. We just got the warrant cleared.’ They said ‘No, he has a warrant. We’ve got to take him in,’” Amé said.
Itula bolted. He ran toward the back of the house and into an alley, Mrs. White said.
“Growing up, he always got in trouble. His first instinct was to run. With him, I think he was just so used to getting in trouble all the time that when he wasn’t in trouble, he (thought he) was,” Mrs. White said.
Four officers chased Itula around the block and caught up with him in the front yard, right in front of where he and Amé had been talking. They told Itula to get to the ground. He resisted, so they tried to take him down by force, Amé said.
Penina White implored her daughter to talk to Itula so he would comply with the officers, but Amé was frozen – “In stuck mode,” she called it – and could only watch.
“I just watched the whole thing and my mom was screaming at me, over and over: ‘Amé, do something! Tell him to get on the ground! He’ll listen to you!’ But I couldn’t say one thing,” White said. “I just watched it all happen. I was just stuck.”
The Associated Press said officers used pepper spray, batons and a Taser when Itula continued to fight. Itula’s pulse weakened. He died at a hospital.
Autopsy reports showed Itula was under the influence of cocaine and meth at the time of the incident in 2006. A medical examiner found Itula died from “excited delirium,” a condition that can “spur pulmonary arrest, especially after being restrained,” per KSL.com.
Amé was inconsolable. She couldn’t shake the pain then and she can’t shake it now.
Her heart aches that Itula can’t see how far she’s come, that she’s not the troubled girl she once was, and she burns with guilt. As copious tears streamed down her cheeks in Xavier’s media room, she said if she’d have yelled something the day he died, anything, he would have listened.
Soon after his death she was consumed with anger and grief and distrusted authority and had no tolerance for anyone picking fights with her family. It led to her expulsion from Highland High School.
A boy picked a fight with two of her male cousins, flashing gang signs and talking smack before hitting them both, Amé said. She thought she was next. Before the kid even looked her way, boom, she socked him.
“He’s on the ground and I’m on top of him just (hitting him). And then it just clicked in my head: ‘What are you doing? You’re in season right now.’ I freaked out and jumped off and I grabbed my back pack and tried to just walk away. I went to class,” Amé said.
“(Administrators) called me and asked why I was in a fight. I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I was trying to break it up.’ They were like, ‘Really? Kicking the kid in his head ain’t breaking it up, Amé.’”
And that was it, her last chance at the school. It came on the very day several college volleyball coaches were slated to scout her in a tournament. Those who’d shaken their heads and told her she was wasting her talent watched her leave Highland High for good.
Amé and her mother moved into a five-bedroom house filled with relatives in a different school district, where Amé enrolled and excelled and found a way to feel, for once, alive.
A new influence
Wendy Sanders knew a thing or two about Murray High’s newest junior.
Murray and Highland were in the same athletic conference and Sanders, Murray’s volleyball coach, had had her hands full trying to prepare for outside hitter Amé when she was on Highland’s team.
“Athletically, she was just so dominant. We always tried to come up with a game plan to at last slow her down. Even her freshman year she just killed us,” Sanders said.
Sanders also knew a lot about Amé off the court, and her reputation wasn’t good. Highland was one of the tougher schools in the area and “she was definitely the toughest kid on the toughest team.”
They sat down and talked when Amé arrived, had a heart-to-heart about pain and loss in both their lives. Sanders ordered the teenager to quit stealing – if she needed gym shoes, Sanders would help her out – and began helping her get her academic credits in order as part of her Credits Recovery class.
Amé said Sanders “fixed” her, was the first person that made her feel whole. She repaid her with respect.
“She was really the only person I could kind of feel comfortable talking to. She sat me down and said, ‘Look, these are your grades. You want to play for me, you need to go to class, you need to this.’ She introduced me to all these tutors that would talk to my teachers for me. She gave me all this help, which I really needed. She put me in a class to express my feelings. It was really helpful,” Amé said.
“She’d always tell me, ‘Amé, it’s not too late. You could still go places.’”
It was the beginning of Amé’s maturation, one that included a renewed relationship with her father and popularity among classmates. She was Homecoming queen runner-up her senior year.
About the same time, a juvenile court judge gave Amé a second chance. She said he saw her potential and told her he’d clear charges against her if she promised never to come back.
“I felt like all the charges I had was keeping me from moving forward. I said, ‘OK. You won’t see me again,’” Amé said.
And he didn’t. Amé went on to led Murray’s volleyball team to a third-place finish at the state tournament and enrolled at Salt Lake Community College, where she played basketball and volleyball. She wanted immediate playing time and the chance to gain experience, all the while planning a transfer to a bigger school after her second year.
“She said, ‘Well, Mom, I think I’ll stay at the (University of Utah) or play somewhere near here.’ I said, ‘Oh, hell no. You’re not staying here. In order for you to get stability in your life, you’re going to have to leave,’” Mrs. White said.
Xavier coach Mike Johnson found her. He almost didn’t. Through “dumb luck,” Johnson noticed Amé in footage of another player. Through her recruitment he learned Mr. White had played two years of football at the University of Cincinnati, which provided a connection to the city.
He also allowed her to play her natural position – didn’t try to change her when other schools clamored for her to be their libero, or defensive specialist – and she committed to XU soon after her visit to campus.
At 5-foot-7 Amé was and is small for an outside hitter, but she has an astounding vertical leap that reaches 30 inches. Because it took time for her to adjust to the Division I game, Johnson said she became the consummate teammate while working and improving on her own game and being the best possible player.
She’s close to that, now. She had a team-high 17 kills and 12 digs in a five-set victory over Cincinnati. She had 12 kills in an ensuing loss to Dayton.
“In some ways she’s one of our leaders in terms of how hard people compete,” Johnson said. “We actually hold her responsible for the level of competitive in practice. She’s probably one of the best competitors we have.”
Smith agreed. She said Amé channels her fight into volleyball and is more intense than anyone she’s ever seen.
“If she’s playing well and she’s feeling it, it makes everyone on our team to play better and do better for each other,” Smith said.
Finding peace
Being inked hurt, oh yes it did, Amé said, but she couldn’t imagine a better tribute to her family than via the seven tattoos on her body. The first one on her calf says “Tonga.” The second is her mother’s name.
She has a sizeable musical note on her left thigh, representing her family’s musical gifts, and a sleeve of tattoos on her right arm all the way down to her elbow. The inside of her arm says “I am my family’s keeper.”
It’s the truth. Amé has steadfast and close bonds with both parents and her three older siblings, whom she talks to regularly. Penina and Dave White have both made cross-country trips to see her play at Cintas Center, and they’ll be back in the stands before she reaches the biggest goal of her young life: College graduation.
“I want to get my degree so I know it’ll set the bar higher for my nieces and nephews and the younger generation. That’s a really, big important thing,” she said through tears. “I want to be a person that makes history, that changes lives.”
After receiving a liberal arts degree, Amé’s plan is to play overseas, represent Tonga in beach volleyball in the 2016 Olympics, and eventually help teenagers with upbringings like her own.
Her evolution from troubled child to a model student and athlete has, at times, forced Mr. White to pinch himself. He credited Sanders for sparking the change and Amé for being responsible and accountable and aiming for the future instead of living for the present.
“She definitely isn’t the person she was five or six years ago. Every time we go out there and visit we’ll walk into the arena. You just can’t help but get that tear in your eye, knowing that she’s really turned it around,” Mr. White said.
For years Amé said she waited to be asked one question: What would she say now to the people who didn’t believe in her, those who thought she was wasting her talent? When it was finally posed, she laughed.
“I still don’t know,” she said.
Does it matter?
“No. It doesn’t. They never did matter,” Amé said. “I’m really happy now, but I feel like I’m not done yet. I feel like there are a lot more things for me to do. I want to be a person that makes history, that changes lives.”
More stories by Shannon Russell
Photos by Tony Tribble, Kareem Elgazzar, Liz Dufour, Cara Owsley, Jeff Swinger, Michael Keating, Gary Landers, Carrie Cochran