By Dan Angell
dangell@journalnet.com
MALAD — Malad girls' basketball coach Bob Sorensen didn’t hesitate when asked about his senior point guard Shancee Smith. He calls her one of the best point guards in the state.
Smith has run the Dragons' offense for the last three years, two of which have resulted in trips to the 2A state tournament. She tends to think on the same wavelength as Sorensen, having played for him for four years.
On the court, she is the Dragons' best ball handler and her decision making and relationship with her teammates is such that she can set up forwards Jessica Sorensen and Hope Murray for a basket without saying a word.
“Shancee is really the heart and soul of it,” Bob Sorensen said. “She has a drive and desire that doesn't quit and is very aggressive defensively. She doesn't have a slow gear. She's all out or nothing, and I think the world of her.”
She does it all despite being born without a left hand.
“I think having that has been a drive to me,” Smith said. “It's given me the attitude of 'Tell me I can't, and I will.' I have that drive to do the best I can at what I can. If I can't do something, I work on it until I can do it or I find a different way to do it.”
Smith doesn't see having only one hand as a handicap, mostly because it's all she's ever known. While in her mother's womb, the umbilical cord wrapped around Smith's neck, catching her left arm in the process. The cord cut off the circulation to her hand and prevented the hand from ever forming.
However, Smith had no intention of letting that stop her from doing the things she loves. At an early age, she discovered that she enjoyed playing basketball and began playing in the Junior Jazz league in second grade. Even then, she saw nothing odd about her situation. All it meant was that she had to work a little harder than other girls to succeed.
Hard work never has been a problem.
“I was given talent, but I've had lots of hours in the gym since I was little,” she said. “It is something that I've had to work for, which is why I'm so intense in my game. It was never a struggle for me, but because I was playing against the best when I was little, I had to be better and push myself to be better.”
The results of her work even surprised Sorensen. When he started coaching her on the Dragons' junior varsity team in the 2007-08 season, he knew she was good enough to play at that level, but he wondered if Smith's lack of a left hand would hurt her when she moved up to the varsity level.
It never did. During Smith's four years at Malad, neither Sorensen nor her teammates ever have heard her use the excuse of having just one hand. Instead, she uses it as a challenge to prove that she can do what other people think she can't — if they even notice that she has just one good hand, which isn't often.
At a summer camp, the Dragons were playing their third game of the day when an official came over to Sorensen. After working Malad's first two games, the referee finally noticed that the Dragons' point guard had just one working hand.
“Everybody has a dominant hand,” Smith said. “My right is definitely my dominant hand, but it's funny because I like when coaches say 'Push her left!' and then I drive left and dish to a post player for a score. I just smile, 'Yeah, push me left.' When people tell me I can't, I'll prove them wrong, which is the mindset I was born with.”
That confidence makes her valuable to the Dragons. Even when the opposing team is able to force a turnover after pushing Smith left, she shrugs it off and moves on to the next play.
“There's times I go left and get the ball stolen, but what good point guard doesn't?” she said. “I make mistakes, but when that happens, I regroup and do something to try to redeem myself.”
Those mistakes don't happen often. Murray said she loves playing with Smith because of how well the point guard sees the floor and directs the offense, making her job in the post easier. Besides that, she loves that Smith doesn't let what could have been a major setback bother her.
“She's amazing,” Murray said. “I think it's so funny when other teams try to push her left, because if you see her spin move, then obviously, you probably shouldn't (push her left).
“She's an inspiration to a lot of people. Everyone knows her ... because she's so good.”
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