And if — make that when — she did get knocked down, she simply got back up and would bury a jumper over some unsuspecting boy to win the game and make him the laughingstock of the street.
That happened a lot.
To a lot of boys.
Especially to Dylan and Ryan.
Tough? Amanda Pape is tough. Strong? Amanda Pape is strong? Determined? Amanda Pape is so determined that sometimes it surprises even herself.
"With everything that I do in life, I never like to stop until I feel the job is done. I just keep on going until I feel I've given enough to get it done," Pape said. "I do that with everything."
Need to play all 40 minutes? OK, no problem. Need to get a crucial rebound? Done. Have to make a game-winning shot? When do you need it? With five seconds left or just one? That's Amanda Pape. The Sacred Heart University senior guard is something of an enigma. She's not tall (about 5-foot-8). She's not very big (140 pounds, soaking wet). She's not overly athletic or physical. But there's something about her that's indescribable.
"It's unexplainable," said SHU coach Ed Swanson.
There
Those numbers are just the beginning. She was a four-year starter at Trinity Catholic in Stamford, scoring 2,429 points, the second most in Connecticut girls' basketball history. She led the Crusaders to CIAC state titles as a junior and a senior. She was a three-time Connecticut Post Super-15 player and the Gatorade Female Player of the Year as a senior. "She put up those stats in biddy ball, she put them up in high school and she's doing it in college," Swanson said.
"I think she surprised a lot of people. What happened was I think people looked at the things she couldn't do as opposed to the things she could do. In high school, a lot of people looked at Amanda as the glass half empty and we looked at it as the glass half full — she could play."
'Always been driven'
Play? Dominate might be a better word. Not only did she average 17.9 points to lead the NEC last season, Pape also averaged 7.3 rebounds, handed out 101 assists, had over 100 steals, shot 43 percent from the field and averaged 33 minutes a game.
"Look at the things she can do. She has so many intangibles," Swanson said. "She doesn't get in foul trouble, she doesn't get tired, she's never going to get beat by a kid that's played two minutes after she's played 40. That's her legacy."
Her legacy might be to rewrite the SHU record book. Pape is just 208 points behind Diane Nicholls' school scoring record of 1,632. She needs 123 assists to become SHU's all-time leader in that department, and she will also likely end up as the program's No. 2 rebounder.
"She's always been driven. Whatever she put her mind to, she would set a goal to achieve it and do it," Pape's father, Richard, said. "She's very headstrong, but in a good way. I coached her when she was 7 in biddy ball and she just seemed to know where to be on the court. She has that instinct. She plays with no fear and it's always worked for her."
"There's just no answer for her hunger and competitiveness," Swanson said. "She's just built differently. She loves competition and she wants to win. That's the biggest thing about her."
Swanson first saw that competitiveness when Pape was just a sophomore at Trinity Catholic. The Crusaders were playing Kolbe Cathedral in a game at the Shehan Center and Swanson saw a kid that never stopped playing. She was like the Energizer Bunny, but instead of banging a drum, she dribbled a basketball. She kept going and going.
"I went to take a look at her and I think the first thing that came to mind was that she had a chance to be good," Swanson said. "I think just her speed and her relentlessness is what I first saw in her.
"We had heard about this kid from Trinity Catholic and that she's putting up numbers, and when you hear that, UConn's already on her. I don't know whether that was true or not, but putting up the kind of numbers she was, people just assumed that UConn and those caliber schools would go after her."
But they didn't. In fact, Pape officially visited just two schools, Holy Cross and Stony Brook, before going to check out Sacred Heart. Once she did that, her mind was made up.
"When I came here, that's when I decided," Pape said. "I had two more visits left, but I didn't take them. I wanted to be close to home, that was the main thing. I just wanted to feel comfortable and I really felt that here, especially with the girls. The seniors, when I came in as a freshman, were great girls, they really made me feel welcome and comfortable and helped with the transition."
Immediate impact
Swanson wanted to bring Pape along slowly, ease her into the rotation. She was a local kid, a potential draw, and he didn't want to put any pressure on her. She was the kind of kid you could continue to build a program around. But in her very first scrimmage against Northeastern, Pape scored 29.
"All I know is I said, 'Well, there goes that idea. The kid's got to play,'" Swanson said. "So, I put her into the starting lineup and she's been playing 40 minutes ever since."
The biggest 40 minutes of her life came on March 11, 2006, when Pape led the Pioneers to a 69-65 victory over Quinnipiac in the NEC tournament championship game, giving SHU its first-ever NCAA tournament berth.
She took 23 shots and made only six, but she battled for 14 rebounds, including 10 on the offensive end. She made 13-of-14 free throws, had three assists and three steals. And with SHU leading 61-59 with 1:05 to play, Pape scored a basket and got fouled, converting the 3-point play to give the Pioneers a five-point margin.
"Pape did what the player of the year is supposed to do," Quinnipiac coach Tricia Fabbri said after the game. "Credit to Amanda. It was her second shots, no one else's, that killed us. Pape made the big plays. She's relentless."
Pape's drive came from trying to keep up with her two brothers, Dylan, now 22 and a senior at UConn, and Ryan, 16, a student at Stamford High. Amanda never got any special treatment.
"There were eight boys on the street and Amanda, and she always gave them a run for their money," said Richard Pape. "One thing I remember clearly was that she was the first one to ride a bike and all the boys still had training wheels on. Watching her ride around forced all the boys to take their training wheels off and learn on their own. She was a tough kid."
She had to be.
"I always played against boys," she said. "I played basketball, football, kickball, all that. It was tough. I got knocked down a lot but I just kept getting back up."
So tough that she didn't even know that she had suffered a severe liver bruise late in her sophomore season after she crashed into the scorer's table during a Sacred Heart game. She kept playing, and it wasn't until April, when she finally told Swanson that she was having trouble sleeping, that doctors found the bruise. They made her wait four months to play again, and she was cleared in September of 2005.
"We started our workouts and we got on the line to do sprints, and she's the first one to finish," Swanson remembers of her first practice in September. "She hadn't done anything in four months. "She's just a joy to have around. She's very humble with all her success. I don't think she's very comfortable talking about herself and how good she really is. She doesn't have to tell anyone, she shows them."
But now, she can talk about it, too.
"In the beginning, it was hard for me (to talk). I remember (assistant director of athletic communications) Bill (Petersen) telling me that he was going to put me in a public speaking class," Pape said, smiling. "But he doesn't need to. I'm slowly coming out of my shell."
Contact Chris Elsberry at celsberry@ctpost.com
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