From Border Hoops to the University of Vermont
Sarah Wells working hard for a basketball dream come true
When she looks back on the start of her basketball career, Sarah Wells thinks about weekend trips over the border in elementary school.
“That’s when I first discovered that I really like this,” reflected Wells, who is back stateside now, starting her third season playing for the University of Vermont Catamounts. “My parents signed me up for Border Hoops and me and my best friend would cross the border on the weekends to go play.”
When the season gets started later this month, the Stanstead native will be serving as her team’s co-captain, the most recent in a string of achievements she has worked for since those early days.
“I’m super grateful to my teammates and coaches,” she said, calling the position an expression of respect. “I’m humbled and grateful that that’s how people see me.”
For Steve Cassivi, her former coach at Champlain College in Lennoxville, Wells’ accomplishment comes as no surprise.
“She always came to practice with a smile and worked her butt off,” he said, sharing that to him, the young player had all of the qualities that he looks for in a team captain. “Sarah’s just a natural leader. She leads by example and vocally as well; people just move towards her.”
Wells named a number of different coaches and influences, including Cassivi, as key players in inspiring her to work her way up to where she is today, but also said that playing for the Catamounts is something of a childhood dream come true.
“When I as a kid (my dad) used to take us down, my sister and I, to watch them play, and I always thought it would be cool to play at UVM one day but it was always more of a dream or aspiration than an actual goal.”
With some humility, Christian Wells told the Record that his message for his daughter at the time had been not to get her hopes up.
“The whole thing about going to the
States; I discouraged her from having it as a dream because I never imagined that it would be possible,” he said, pointing out that without a scholarship, international tuition for the school would have been impossible to cover.
“We knew she was going to do something in basketball, but we didn’t really expect this,” he added. “At the end of the day she proved us wrong and made it all the way there.”
Looking back on the work that she has done, Wells’ father praised her focus and hardworking attitude.
“She understood if she put in the work today, there would be results tomorrow,” he said, arguing that not all teens can make such a connection.
While her new position as co-captain is a big accomplishment, it comes in a very strange year to be playing competitive sports. Wells pointed out that college basketball is much more of a phenomenon in the United States than it tends to be in Canada but added that this coming season will be played in front of empty stands.
“I was envisioning that in practice the other day,” she said. “When someone scores it’s going to be so weird. There will just be dead silence.”
Because of the pandemic and the shifting of classes online, Wells said that basketball has become her main point of social contact at the moment other than time spent with her roommate.
“It’s very intense, I feel sort of saturated in basketball,” she said, while also highlighting the fact that she has fostered some “fantastic relationships” in the process.
The other complication of the pandemic on the situation, of course, is the border closure.
“She went back on June 30 with a special pass from the athletics department because her training was starting, and we have not seen her since,” said Wells’ mother, Sonia Patenaude, sharing that although her daughter remains in contact through online messaging apps, her schedule and the uncertainty of the closed border mean that there is no clarity about when the family will be able to meet up again in person.
While also troubled by the separation, Wells’ father described it as another example of his daughter’s commitment to her work.
“She is willing to make sacrifices to meet her goals.” he said.
It is worth noting that those goals are not simply athletic, either. At just about the same time that she found out about her role as co-captain, Wells was accepted into an accelerated master’s program in nutrition that will pick up after her undergraduate degree is finished in May.
“I’m getting ahead of it right now,” she said, explaining that years of balancing sports and academics have given her a strong work ethic. “My one piece of advice would be really take school seriously,” she said. “I don’t think I would have gotten the opportunities I did get if it weren’t for my strong academics.”