This article on Northern Arizona University freshman point guard Sadé Cunningham appeared in the Arizona Daily Sun in January 2006.
STEADY PRESENCE
By Ed Odeven
One day last spring, Sadé Cunningham was playing basketball with her friends. Nothing unusual about that — she loves to play.
Cunningham heard her cell phone ring. Ho-hum, nothing extraordinary, right?
Well, this day was different.
Usually, she’d ignore the phone and keep on playing. But not this time. The phone’s ring suddenly seemed more important than Cunningham’s next dribble, pass or shot.
“I stopped to answer it,” Cunningham said. “I don’t even remember why, because usually when you play you don’t stop to answer your phone. So I stopped to answer it and it was her (NAU women’s basketball coach Laurie Kelly) on the line.
“It was just all great timing.”
Kelly offered Cunningham a scholarship and the then-senior at Lynwood (Calif.) High School signed a national letter of intent with NAU in May.
Seven months later, the player and the coach are both happy.
Cunningham is the starting point guard for the Lumberjacks, who are 13-6 overall and 3-1 (in first place) in the Big Sky Conference as they prepare for Saturday’s home game vs. Sacramento State.
“I’m pretty excited that I can come in as a freshman and play lots of minutes and contribute to the team,” Cunningham said.
The 5-foot-4 freshman has displayed exceptional court vision, an equal flair for making steady plays look dazzling and vice versa, leadership and confidence beyond her years.
“I just never, ever have felt like she was a freshman,” Kelly said of the 18-year-old.
PERFECT FIT
Cunningham made a name for herself as a two-year captain at Lynwood High, helping the team win a pair of California Interscholastic Federation Division I state titles and earning a McDonald’s All-American nomination as a senior.
The Cunningham took an unofficial visit to national powerhouse Duke and also attracted interested from Vanderbilt and Southern California, among other big schools, she said. All the while, NAU had her on its radar, too.
“I thought that getting Sadé would be a longshot for us to get,” Kelly says now.
NAU lost contact with Cunningham because her family moved and Kelly didn’t have her correct phone number or address. She eventually got it and, finally, re-contacted Cunningham in the middle of that pickup game.
“I think a lot of (coaches) had the same thing happen that we had,” Kelly said. “(They) just couldn’t get ahold of her, didn’t know what happened.”
“I believe fate works in strange ways,” Kelly said, “and it just kind of came back around that she was available, we brought her in for a visit and she had a good visit and we were offering her a role that she was really looking for.
“She wanted to come in and be a part of a team that was going to win and be that player that we depended on. She wants that role. She thrives on that responsibility. Where a lot of freshmen may be nervous about it, she expects it. That’s, I think, the unique part about her age and her maturity level.”
Maybe NAU was where she was destined to go all along.
“A lot of schools don’t have a lot of faith in small point guards,” Cunningham said after Thursday’s practice. “So they talk a lot, but they don’t really come through in the end.
“(But) I feel that Coach Kelly was really true to her word, and I’m here,” she added, laughing.
PRODUCTIVE PLAYER
Cunningham has played in 18 of the Jacks’ 19 games, making 18 starts on a veteran-dominated starting lineup (the Jacks start three juniors and one senior). She’s averaging 7.4 points, 30.5 minutes (No. 1 on the team) and 4.2 assists (second in the Big Sky behind backcourt mate Kim Winkfield’s 4.53) per game. Her 49.5 shooting percentage from the field is No. 1 in the league, while her 1:52:1 assist/turnover ratio is third.
“I think Sadé’s been tremendous,” Kelly said. “…She is a very competitive player. She just has a strong desire to win. She just wants to win at any cost. … She’s not necessarily about personal recognition or about who does what.”
Others share Kelly’s opinion, including ex-NAU point guard Lindsey Foster, who holds the school record for assists and steals.
Foster, now a UC Riverside assistant coach, assessed Cunningham’s natural ability to play the point after the NAU-UC Riverside game on Dec. 4.
Said Foster: “She’s a very solid point guard, handles the ball well, runs her team. She does all the little things, and that’s all you can ask from a point guard really.”
LIFELONG PASSION
For as long as she can remember, Cunningham says she has loved basketball. It’s always been a part of her life. She remembers watching her dad, Robert, play pickup games at the park. So she was there watching him play and observing what it takes to play fundamental basketball.
Cunningham began playing organized ball — yes, at the point — in third grade. And it didn’t take her long to develop a passion for the game.
“I feel like throughout my life I’ve worked really hard in basketball, year after year, and it’s something that I’ve always worked for as a child coming into a Division I school and starting, contributing to the team,” she said. “I’m just glad she (Coach Kelly) gave me the opportunity.”
Robert Cunningham is 6-2 and her mother, Jeno, a former soccer player and track athlete, is 5-3. As she was growing up, the family often joked about Sadé’s height.
“We always had the belief in wishing that I would grow,” she said, smiling, “but it never happened. My dad just knew that I needed an all-around game. … He knew that I needed the fundamentals, being able to dribble, being able to shoot.”
In games this season, those skills have been evident. Cunningham plays relentless, in-your-face defense and shoots shots with a pretty rainbow-like arc.
“I think she’s one of the best freshman in the league, hands down,” Kelly said.
Senior center Sandra Viksryte offered this opinion: “I think she’s smart and she knows what she’s doing. She knows how to (run the offense). … I trust her all the time. I know that if I will run the floor, she will see me. She will always give me the pass.”
Credit must go to her dad, Cunningham insists.
After all, he was her first basketball teacher and her most influential instructor to this day.
Over the years, “(I was) studying, watching, playing and going through different scenarios with my dad about the end of the game: ‘What would you do in this certain situation?’
“…Basically, my father has taught me so much.”
Including this: Answer the phone once in a while.
Ed Odeven Reporting 