OVERCOMING THE ODDS
FROM A CHILDHOOD FULL OF STRUGGLE TO A LEADERSHIP ROLE ON CAMPUS BY SARAH HUXFORD
If there’s one thing you shouldn’t tell Sheyvonne Owens ’23, it’s that she can’t do something. She knows better — and a lifetime of Instability at home wasn’t her only overcoming the obstacles placed in her challenge, though. Owens had major knee way proves she’s right. surgery in seventh grade – the first of four Growing up in west Orlando, Florida, surgeries. She also had an early growth Owens didn’t have it easy. Her childhood spurt, and she says her mother taught was full of instability, with many moves her a lot about learning to love herself and shuttling back and forth between her through those awkward years. mother’s house and her grandmother’s. Her high school coach saw her passion She went to five elementary schools and and natural athletic ability, particularly two middle schools. The rough neighborher strength as a rebounder. “I didn’t hood she grew up in, she explains, was know a lick about making a layup properoften referred to as “Crime Hills” instead ly,” she laughs. “Rebounding was always of Pine Hills. “We were moving around a my niche.” whole lot, and you know, you have your That coach let Owens play both varsity parents doing the best they can, but it’s and JV that year, and the varsity team just the circumstances given,” she says. went to the Final Four — which gave One of six children, Owens was strugOwens, who was recovering from anothgling in school, getting into conflicts with er surgery, the motivation to work hard her classmates. “I was in a new [middle] for the following year. She was a starter school that was very confrontational,” she from her sophomore through senior years, says. “It was almost like you were figuring breaking school records along the way. it out day by day, like what’s next – but She also served as a team captain. not in a very positive or productive way.” “I blossomed into who I am as a player,” Owens’s mother was trying to teach she recalls. “There were so many odds her life lessons, but she was often at against me, where people would tell me, work by the time Owens got home from ‘you’re not good enough.’ And I was just school. Owens frequently cooked dinner like, ‘I’m going to keep going, I’m not for the family. As she moved into high going to stop. When you tell me I’m not school, Owens’s mother and stepfather good enough, I’m going to show you that knew something had to change, and they I’m better.’” worked hard to get the family into anothOwens started her basketball career at er neighborhood. Hillsborough Community College in TamAn active young student, Owens had pa, Florida, but things didn’t go smoothly played basketball and soccer, as well as run- in her first year. She ended up red-shirtning track and participating in dance. Once ing, and she’d never gone a whole season she knew she wanted to focus on basketball, without playing before. Sitting on the she says, she finally found stability. sidelines was tough. 14 | POINT M AGAZINE
“I really got into a bad slump,” she says. “I was in a depression from not being able to play.” A toxic relationship with a boyfriend also didn’t help. She was juggling work and her classes, and she found herself getting out of shape. “I didn’t have basketball as my release anymore,” Owens says, “so I was crashing and burning. But God just put me in a place where He said, ‘Remember me. Remember what I’ve brought you through.’” After that moment, she was determined to turn things around. She started working out again, ended the toxic relationship, and focused on getting back into shape for her next year. “Now my coach doesn’t believe in me the same,” she says, recalling the struggle of having to prove herself all over again. It was her first experience with not getting playing time. But she kept working hard, waiting on her opportunity to come — and it did, in the second half of the season. After two seasons at Hillsborough, Owens started hearing from coaches interested in recruiting her for the remainder of her college career. She had interest from NCAA Division I and II programs, but she wanted to make her decision based on the coach and the relationship she thought she’d have with him or her. “I’d experienced that feeling of a coach giving up on you and not believing in you,” she says. “I didn’t want to deal with that again.” She found the right coach in Point’s Tory Wooley ’12. “I turned down higher-division schools to be here because of the person he showed me he was,” Owens says. “God was shutting every other door.” Owens is often the “mom figure” on her teams, with younger players looking up to her for advice on everything from basketball to cooking and laundry. She felt God had a role for her to play on the team at Point – and she was right. “Shey is the spiritual leader of our team,” says Wooley. “She always finds a way to remain faithful and true to her values.” Since coming to Point, Owens has once again grown closer to her grandmother, who travels to attend both home and away games. “She tells me, regardless of what you do, be a beast at it — be the best one you can be at it,” Owens says. “I run my energy off of that.”
