Basketball star has plenty of big numbers
Tri-State Sports & News Service
As a gifted scorer, Brooke Stewart accumulated a combined 4,169 points at East Allegheny High School and the University of Pittsburgh.
Staggering numbers, no doubt.
Yet, they pale in comparison to a gratuity Stewart said she once received while waiting on a group of high rollers at Pure Nightclub in Las Vegas. Ten-thousand dollars. That is correct, five figures. Ten grand. That sum is equal to 3,333 3-point baskets, which Stewart made consistently as an all-time basketball great. (She just didn’t make 10,000 points worth).
“When I saw that big tip — it was on the credit card receipt — I was like, ‘Thank you,’” Stewart said. “Sometimes, you never know what’s going to happen. Who’s going to pay the big money.”
Big money was the norm for Stewart as a VIP server in Vegas from the time she graduated from Pitt in 2003 until three years ago.
Working only three nights a week (Tuesday, Friday and Saturday) she earned more than $100,000 annually, she said. She had everything a club owner coveted — personality, hustle and the right look. The website spyonvegas.com named her “Sexiest Server” a few years back.
“It was a great time,” said Stewart, now a stay-at-home mother who lives just outside of Vegas with husband Kenny Sanchez (coach of national prep powerhouse Bishop Gorman) and son Kayson, 2. “Think about it: I was 22 years old coming out of college and I had a chance to go to Las Vegas, with great weather and great fun and make some great money. I enjoyed it. I got to be with celebrities, entertainers, athletes. It was a pretty good gig.”
Name a celebrity, and there’s a good chance Stewart served them at Pure. Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez, Drake, Lil Wayne, Jamie Foxx, Mariah Carey, Prince ...
“I typically got the A-listers,” she said.
One such mega-star left quite the impression on Stewart — but not in a good way. She said P-Diddy was paid a fee of $50,000 one evening just to show up at the club. Knowing that this could result in a big gratuity, Stewart’s boss sent her and another server to wait on the entertainment mogul and his group.
At the end of the night, Stewart said she was handed a $100 tip by P-Diddy’s manager. She was stunned.
One misconception people have about celebrities, Stewart said, is that they spend large amounts of money. She said a fair amount spend very little, at least in the clubs, because everything is given to them. This, in turn, impacts the servers.
“They think they’re doing us a favor just by being there,” she said. “Now, don’t get me wrong, sometimes there were great perks and benefits. But I’m just saying that a lot of times they weren’t leaving big tips.”
While working at Pure, the club often hosted members of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals. It was during that time that Stewart got acquainted with star wideout Larry Fitzgerald. The two would date for six years.
Surprisingly, Stewart said she knew very little about Fitzgerald when they first met, even though the two attended Pitt together for two years. Fitzgerald, of course, left as the program’s greatest receiver of all-time.
“When we first started talking in Las Vegas, he was talking about the Heisman Trophy [Fitzgerald finished second in voting in 2003] and I had no idea about it,” she said. “I said, ‘I literally know nothing about your career.’ I was into academics and getting two degrees [sociology and psychology] and playing basketball.”
None of this dissuaded Fitzgerald.
“We kind of kept each other humble,” she said.
Long before launching into her post-college life, Stewart was one of the preeminent prep players in the region from 1996-99.
A smooth scorer who regularly faced defenses specifically designed to stop her, Stewart finished her career with 3,055 points, the thirdbest total in WPIAL history. Only Gina Naccarato of Monessen (3,364, class of ‘96) and Charel Allen of Monessen (3,110, class of ‘04) scored more.
Digging deeper into the WPIAL history books, Stewart, a 5-foot-8 shooting guard, is an all-time record holder. In 1997, she scored a staggering 56 points in an 82-79 doubleovertime playoff loss to Geibel. That total remains the most-ever by a girls player in WPIALpostseason history.
Stewart, who led East Allegheny a WPIAL championship, finished with a career scoring average of 29 points per game. She was an honorable mention selection for national Player of the Year by USA Today and eventually had her jersey retired. Stewart even helped pave the way for current East Allegheny star Amani Johnson, a 2,000-point scorer.
Asked what gave her a winning edge, Stewart answered in two words: My father.
Walter Stewart religiously met his daughter after East Allegheny practices and trained her for an hour, while everyone else had gone home. These sessions could be grueling and challenging for young Brooke, but she embraced the idea of chasing greatness.
Even when times got tough.
“There were days when I didn’t want to do it, when I would get frustrated and exhausted and I’d want to throw the ball at him,” said Stewart, whose sister, Dana, is the girls coach at Woodland Hills. “But he had a way about him that made you not want to hurt his feelings. You wanted to make him happy. He instilled a work ethic and an understanding that hard work pays off. I look back and it was a great experience. It was father-daughter time and it was something we enjoyed. It wasour time to bond.”
Despite playing in a smaller WPIAL classification (AA), Stewart transitioned nicely to Division I basketball at Pitt. She earned a spot as the Panthers’ sixth man in her freshman season and started the subsequent three years.
True to her ability to shine in the big moment, Stewart surpassed the 1,000- point mark at Pitt by ringing up 31 against Howard on Dec. 31, 2002. She finished with 1,114 points.
After graduation, she entertained the idea of playing professionally, but the appeal of Las Vegas was just too powerful.
“I looked at it this way: It’s either try to go to the WNBA and make 30, 40 or 50,000 before taxes, go to Europe and make 100K and work out all the time for basketball or go to Las Vegas and work three nights a week for six figures,” Stewart said. “I wanted to go to Las Vegas. I got to meet different and interesting people. I didn’t have to deal with snow and ice. And it was a greatopportunity.”
One that she’ll never forget.
“I would definitely do it again,” she said. “It was more than worth it.”