Sharpe shoots into UNB women's basketball record book

Who knew?

As it turns out, not even Amanda Sharpe herself.

But somewhere over the course of her five-year career in the post with the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds, the 22-year-old Fredericton High School basketball product, who grew up idolizing the players of an earlier era - she wears No. 12 in honour of former UNB men's star Gordie McNeilly - became the all-time leading scorer in UNB women's hoop history.

"She's the all-time leading scorer in UNB history, is that right?" said Jeff Speedy, who has coached her for five seasons and seen them all. "Is that right? Cool. I don't keep track of any of that stuff."

"To tell you the truth, I didn't know that either," Sharpe was saying the other day. "I found out on Thursday night at the (AUS) awards banquet."

That's the night she was named the league's Most Valuable Player, and winner of the student athlete community service award for all she does off the court. She's never been one to wave her own flag. That task is often left to her dad, Charlie, who has been sprinting the sidelines at UNB games for five seasons now.

The numbers are impressive: 1,526 points in 100 games over her five-year career on campus, eighth all-time in the conference: better than Shelley Ryan or Bonny Munn or Charlene Woolaver or any of her heroines growing up, or any that came before them, for that matter.

Even more impressive: she didn't know. And she didn't care.

The numbers that really mattered to her came up a month or so ago: $936.78, the amount of money generated pretty much overnight after she announced that she would cut 10 inches of her flowing brown hair at centre court to wrap up "Think Pink" weekend at UNB.

Speedy admires Sharpe for more than just the numbers.

"I love defence, I love hard work...scoring the ball is obviously important too," he said. "But if you listed the characteristics you'd want a player to have, she has 'em all. She's everything that I would want in a player."

He and the kid from Fredericton High School sort of inherited one another five years ago. Since then, she's become the poster girl for the UNB program.

"I didn't know what I was getting, I didn't know her from a hole in the ground," Speedy said. "She had signed on before I got the job. She wanted to play here her whole life and had gotten a scholarship, so I assume unless I was a total idiot, she was going to come here no matter what. She's had a remarkable career.

"Our past is littered with the Laura Swift-Christies and Pauline Lordons of the world," he said. "They might have accomplished more with their teams, because we didn't win any titles in her five years. But she accomplished a heck of a lot as an individual. Not winning any titles sure as heck wasn't her fault, that's for sure."

One day, that AUS title will come. And while she won't be on the court, Sharpe will be a big part of it, says Speedy.

"If we win one next year, in three years, in seven years, she'll be a part of it," he said. "Without Amanda, we probably don't get Claire Colborne, and we don't have the season we had, we don't get some of the recruits we've got coming in or some that are already here without her coming in and helping to change the culture and have some of the success that she's had. Any success we have in the immediate future, she's going to be a big part of it."

Well, "big" is a relative term. At six feet, she's considered undersized in the sometimes gruelling post position.

"But that just makes what she's accomplished even more incredible in my opinion," he said.

Speedy said Sharpe "outworked everybody we had from Day 1. She and Jessica Steed were in the gym all the time together...it was insane how much they worked. Then Tashina Van Vlack came on board, and she was cut from the same cloth, and the three of them just took our work ethic as a team to a whole other level."

Anyway, her swan song in the Pit comes up either tonight or Saturday. Let's hope her dad gets to do a victory lap for a pretty special kid.