Thursday, March 22, 2007
GORHAM - Ashley Marble stared at the basketball shoes she had just taken out of her bag. "I don't think I can wear them," she said quietly, as if talking to herself.
"I don't think I can play today."
Tuesday was supposed to be a play-for-fun day at Hill Gymnasium. Pickup, schoolyard basketball kicked up a notch or two because the University of Southern Maine women don't know how to play any other way.
"This will be our first time together since that last game," said Marble. She was still looking at her shoes, the laces scrunched just so, knee pads sticking out of the tops, just as she left them after her season screeched to a halt.
Calvin College beat USM nearly two weeks ago, knocking Marble and her teammates out of the NCAA playoffs. It was a hard loss.
Calvin won, 60-56. Near the end, Marble missed two foul shots that would have tied the score at 58. Everyone in her life told her to forget about it.
She had done more than anyone could ask for so long, even if she was one of the best small-college players in the country. She scored 32 points against every defense Calvin could devise.
"I don't care," said Marble. "I should have scored 34. That haunts me. People say years from now I'll just remember everything we accomplished. Maybe I will."
Thumb through a psychology textbook. When you see the definition of driven you might find a case study of Ashley Marble on the next page. Game after game this season, she was pedal-to-the-metal, pushing herself to performances you haven't seen in years.
"I looked at it as my job," said Marble. "Last year, if you saw me running onto the court at the start of the game, my mouth is open, I'm yelling something, I was so excited. This year my face was so expressionless."
Don't misunderstand. Last year's team was thought to be the one that finally would put the exclamation point to USM's incredible streak of 20-win seasons and NCAA tournament appearances. Winning the national title for the first time never seemed more doable. Instead, a good Hope College team beat USM in the final.
This season the expectations weren't that high. Graduation stripped the team of its familiarity with each other. Last August, Marble had surgery to reconstruct a damaged ankle.
"I almost didn't play this season. I'm a perfectionist and I was in a cast for three months. I had questions about what I could do for my team. Could I still play like I expected?"
Early on, senior captains Katie Sibley and Shannon Kynoch tore up their knees and played sparingly or not at all. Elsewhere, three noses were broken. A shoulder was hyperextended. Marble's shin bothered her.
She looked around at teammates playing through pain and the doubts caused by inexperience. "Last year was exciting but this year I've never seen more heart, more fight. They didn't even know they were supposed to feel pressure."
So Marble threw herself into her game in a remarkable display of consistency of effort. She was the team's leading scorer in 23 of its 30 games. In six of the seven games she didn't lead in scoring, she was the top rebounder.
"I have never had a player do what she did," said Coach Gary Fifield who has coached so many in his 20 years. "She felt a lot of pressure, self-imposed, to carry this team."
And she did, until two foul shots didn't fall.
"Two points? I can go back to that game and find two points in a lot of other places," said Fifield. "At some point she will realize everything she did."
Tuesday, Marble said she and Fifield hadn't really seen each other to talk. "I almost felt like I let him down. You have a love-hate relationship with your coaches, but this year my respect for him grew even more. I would give up all my personal accomplishments for him to have that national championship."
These days Marble heads to the weight-training room. She throws herself into workouts that leave her clothes soaked with sweat.
"Basketball was my release and now I don't have it. Even on my worst days it was therapy. Now it's over. I don't deal with change well."
She looked at her basketball shoes again, at the handwritten phrases on the white leather. "I really can't wear them."
An hour later, the squeaks of basketball shoes as players made their moves to the basket were heard in the gym. Marble was running among teammates, her eyes following the movement of the ball.
She looked relaxed.
Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:
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