P.E.I. athletes among the best
Stammberger, Ellsworth recognized by U Sports for distinguished basketball careers
Anna (Pendergast) Stammberger and Jenna Mae Ellsworth played basketball during different eras, excelled at different positions at university and suited up for different teams in different provinces.
However, both were driven to succeed, worked hard and didn’t back down from a challenge.
“Something that might be in common is work ethic. I hear she works on her game a lot, and I certainly worked on my game a lot,” Stammberger said, and “I think our love of the game is probably pretty similar.”
Stammberger and Ellsworth were both included in U Sports’ list of the top 100 women’s basketball players of the past century earlier this year. It was selected by a committee of women’s basketball coaches and partners. The list was released in sections starting Feb. 6, which marked the 100th anniversary of Canada’s first university women’s contest between Queens and McGill.
“It’s a tremendous recognition of two tremendous representatives of the sport from the Island,” said Josh Whitty, executive director of Basketball P.E.I. “Anna is a former Olympian, Jenna Mae is the national player of the year. … I don't think we could pick two better people.”
Stammberger, the daughter of Austin and Ethel Pendergast of Kensington, played for the Dalhousie Tigers in Halifax from 1978-83. She played on the national team for 10 years and professionally in Germany for 15 seasons before retiring in 2003 at 42.
“I am honoured to be selected,” she said, noting her longevity likely helped her in the eyes of the committee. “It’s very humbling to look through that list.”
She said there’s a phenomenal list of other studentathletes who could have also been included, showing the depth of the Canadian game.
Stammberger has been inducted into the Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia sports hall of fames and Dalhousie’s. She has coached the Tigers’ women’s program since 2009.
“She’s definitely been an inspiration for me, coming from the Island,” said Ellsworth, who did her heritage fair project on her years ago. “I’ve watched Anna coach in the league, coach her own daughter.”
Ellsworth, the daughter of Paul and Tracy Ellsworth, finished her fourth season
at UPEI this spring and was named the top women’s basketball player in the country. She is coming back for her final year of eligibility for a Panthers’ squad that won bronze at the nationals in March.
Dave (Hermie) MacNeill, well-known around basketball courts on the Island and a member of the UPEI Sports Hall of Fame, coached Tracy at UPEI and Jenna Mae for three years at Queen Charlotte Intermediate School.
“She always had a very high basketball IQ,” he said of Jenna Mae. “There’s no question she had leadership qualities even when she was in junior high.”
Ellsworth was the top recruit in Atlantic Canada in 2015-16, when she was finishing up Grade 12 at Colonel Gray High School. Stammberger pushed hard to get her to come to Dal, as many of her counterparts across the region were doing.
“She’s every bit and more the player that I thought when I recruited her,” Stammberger said.
Whitty said she had a great career coming through the school and provincial programs.
“Everybody knew coming through that she was a good player, I don’t know how many people could have sat there and predicted that she would go on to have the sort of career she has had,” he said.
But both MacNeill and Whitty pointed to the time she has spent working on her game as a reason for her ascension.
“She’s not only a phenomenal player, but she’s a phenomenal leader,” Stammberger said. “I see how she leads her team, how she motivates her team, how she says what needs to be said in a strong voice.
“You combine that with her ability on the court to get the job done, she’s just that complete package.”
Stammberger played forward for the first four years of her university career. She made the national team that year, but her coach Don McCrae told her she’d have to try out as a guard to crack Canada’s squad the following year as she was too small to play her normal position internationally.
Making that type of transformation was thought to be virtually impossible. But her coach at Dal, Carolyn Savoy, who is regarded as one of Canada’s best all-time women’s basketball coaches, gave the five-foot-11 forward a chance to play her final year of eligibility as a guard.
She cracked the national team as a guard in 1983.
“(McCrae) said, ‘You proved me wrong’,” Stammberger recalled. “‘You’ve really changed your game’.”
Both Ellsworth and Stammberger are proud Islanders who didn’t let coming from Canada’s smallest province hold them back.
“It just goes to show you, it doesn’t really matter where you come from, it just really matters how hard you work and what your goals are,” Ellsworth said.
“It’s definitely a message I like to give whenever I am coaching or involved with the sport on the Island. You have to aim high.”
The province has traditionally punched above its weight in producing top-notch athletes. And both Ellsworth and Stammberger are great examples of that.
“I love representing P.E.I.,” Stammberger said. “When I was on the national team, they always said, ‘You can take the girl off the Island, but you can’t take the Island out of the girl’ and it’s really, really true. A lot of pride, for sure.”