Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
A Different Kind of Grade-A
December 06, 2005 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 6, 2005
This feature story appeared in the game program for the Dec. 3 game against Colgate at Jadwin Gym.
By Andrew Borders
Princeton Office of Athletic Communications
It was the best hundred bucks she ever spent.
One day in mid-October of her senior year, Shelly Slemp and her father made the seven-hour drive from the family farm to Philadelphia, all for a chance. For a $100 registration fee, she would gain some floor time in front of college basketball coaches in the hope that some of them would like what she had to offer and give her a spot on the team. She would be paired with other high-school seniors she'd never met, let alone played alongside. It was a gamble, but she and her father figured it would be her last chance to achieve her longtime goal of playing college basketball. If she failed, Slemp had some offers to walk on to teams in her home state, but probably no help off the family farm down in Sugar Grove and into the entirely new world a university would offer.
Sugar Grove, Va., is not Chappaqua or Grosse Pointe or Malibu. Pickup trucks, not SUVs, are the most common vehicle heading south on State Route 16 from Interstate 81, traveling between green hillsides and past farms growing one crop or another, past factories that are the pulse of the economy of the thousands of little towns up and down the Appalachian Mountains. It is a no-stoplight, one-school town where the diner and the church, not the shopping mall or the health club or the daycare center, are the hubs of the social network.
Slemp's family is the eighth generation to live and work on the same piece of land. The town even has a Slemp Creek and a Slemp Cemetery, all named for the current generation's precedents who settled there in the early 19th century. That land is a dairy farm these days, and Shelly and her siblings grew up feeding the animals, working the machinery and milking the cows. Sugar Grove is the kind of town where you're born, you grow up, you stay, and then you pass everything on to the next generation.
With some exceptions.
Within a few days after the scramble for a basketball scholarship, the phone rang at the Slemp family home. On the other end was Richard Barron, head women's basketball coach at Princeton University, calling to tell her she ought to apply. Most high-school seniors like Slemp who are strong academically see Princeton as a goal, have the application dates memorized and try to pinpoint what day the life-changing letter will arrive.
"We jumped on the computer to find out where Princeton was," says Slemp. "I didn't know much about it, so after Coach Barron called, we decided to take an unofficial visit there."
After eighth grade, Shelly had begun to make the daily 20-minute trip, up and back, to Marion, Va., and Marion Senior High School, as the one school in Sugar Grove went only through eighth grade and the town of just 500 or so wasn't big enough to support its own high school. At Marion, her senior class measured 220 strong; maybe 30 she estimates went right to four-year schools. Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, 80 miles away, was the most popular choice.
But after that $100 entrance fee, a few hours of hodgepodge basketball, dozens of hours in the car and thousands of miles of interstate, Shelly Slemp, the basketball and academic pride of Marion Senior High, became Shelly Slemp `07, a guard on the Princeton women's basketball team. Still, just as she never expected to go to Princeton, she didn't expect to be a role player, on the team to add depth and contribute in ways other than double-digit points and 35 minutes a game.
"I expected to be a major contributor here and be a main cog on the team. But my role has changed now, and I have come to appreciate it. I'm someone who works hard and tries to bring about a culture of hard work and the attitude that it's a privilege to play on the team," says Slemp.
In her two-plus seasons, Slemp has scored 61 points and played in 53 of the team's 58 games. Those are, of course, not numbers that scatter one's name throughout the Princeton record book. But a negative attitude is not swirling about her now that her role is one of encouraging others rather than hearing praise for herself. In fact, it's difficult to attach anything negative to Slemp, whose sunshiny demeanor and how-are-you-doing attitude is one that seems curiously out of place in the chilly Northeast.
"People ask all the time if it was a culture shock coming here from a small town, and it really was. People here don't really smile at people they don't know on the street, but once you get to know people, Princeton really is a friendly place," she says.
There are no Green Acres jokes or country bumpkin assumptions, she says.
"I don't think people here even know to ask questions about growing up on a farm; it's sort of assumed that you grew up in one of those suburbs."
This season, though Slemp has appeared in Princeton's first four games, it was only for a total of six minutes. In that time, she missed her only shot from the field, a three-point attempt, notched an assist and picked up a strategy foul as the Tigers tried to get the ball back during their fast-forward comeback attempt at St. Mary's last weekend. Even though she hasn't had much of a first-hand opportunity, the basketball mind works even from a cushioned seat while she yells for her teammates.
"I'm very optimistic about this season. I think we're running an offense now that better suits our personnel rather than my first two years when we ran the `Princeton offense,'" says Slemp.
It's too soon to tell, but the Tigers have split their first four games for the first time since the 2002-03 season. With the third-place forecast in the Ivy League preseason media poll, such a finish would be the team's best since 1998-99, before any of the current players or coaching staff were at Princeton or even thought about coming here.
With both her college career and Princeton education just past the halfway point, Slemp still has plenty of time to enjoy the excitement of a promising season and the continued improvement of the program she joined two years ago. Away from the court, she still has time to enjoy her friends and being around more people her age in proximity they'll never have again. And though she plans on getting her teaching certification, she still has time to decide what life holds for her after four years on Old Nassau.
Any thoughts of heading back to Sugar Grove?
"I'm not sure where life will take me after college, but I will probably spend some time back home. It's such an important part of who I am," says Slemp.
Maybe in a couple years the town that bears her family's name on its streetscape will see its local girl come home and teach others in the Appalachia of southwest Virginia, or maybe she'll decide to pursue something else entirely. Either way, with more yet to come, the girl from the dairy farm in Sugar Grove has seen her life scenery change from an anonymous small town to an internationally lauded university. She fits nicely into both.
A life-changing four years as a Division I basketball player and a degree from Princeton? A wiser hundred-dollar investment has never been made.