Samantha Sanders has her hands full balancing the responsibilities of being a student-athlete. Easily the most stable force on a powerhouse East High School basketball team viewed as a serious challenger in the Class 5A girls tournament, which opens Wednesday, the senior must get to class, get her homework done, prepare for tests and score well enough to get into college.
And, handle all of it in addition to being a mother.
In April 2009, two months before turning 17, Samantha gave birth to a daughter, Saniya. It has left her negotiating a demanding schedule through tightknit support from multiple families to get her schoolwork done, play basketball and tend to her child.
“I know (my teammates) look at me differently, but, hopefully, still as a leader,” she said. “I think they see me as the same.”
On the court, Sanders is the point guard and best ballhandler for the Angels, a program that the Denver Public Schools hope will end a 13-year state-title drought.
As a person, said East assistant coach Charles Boyd, “Sam grew up, and in more than basketball.”
But not at the outset. Sanders’ fear once she learned she was pregnant nearly enveloped her.
“I was embarrassed, scared,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I know people expect so much of me.”
When the Angels began league play a year ago, coach Dwight Berry and his staff noticed the ordinarily athletic Sanders jumping less, moving slower and gaining weight.
Her teammates had no idea, but Berry suspected.
“They asked me if I was pregnant and I told them that I didn’t even know,” Sanders said. “That next Monday, Jan. 25, I found out. Afterward, I went back to school and told the team and the coaches that I was six months (along). People were crying, it was crazy. It was tough telling everybody about it.”
Particularly her father, David Sanders, whom she declined to tell that night as he was “in a bad mood.” So she informed her grandmother, who told her father the next day.
“It was better she did. And it was a relief,” Samantha said. “For the whole six months, I didn’t want to know, I was in such denial. I only had morning sickness two or three times.”
David Sanders said he was “shocked, just trying not to let it happen. But it was too late, and we couldn’t go back. Life’s a blessing and has its ups and downs.”
Sam remained with the Angels throughout her junior season, but was relegated to a worried, frustrated observer. “My team was out there and I felt like I let them down,” she said.
The Angels rallied around her.
“We were stunned,” senior Raven Taylor said. “We were all worried because we didn’t know she was playing when she was pregnant, but we’ve all supported her.”
Weeks later, the birth went smoothly as Sanders entered a world of dependence she knew little about.
“I’ve learned that you have to depend on other people. I can’t do it all by myself,” Sanders said.
A healthy Saniya sparked a chain of help, every link as caring as the other, from spending nights at home with Sanders’ father, and grandmother, to spending most school days with the family of the baby’s father, Charles Hazel, a senior at South.
“At first, I was nervous and didn’t know how we’d handle it,” said Hazel, who works part-time and played for the Rebels’ basketball team this season before a suspension. “But we have help. If we didn’t, we’d be struggling.”
Said David Sanders, “The father does good, the mother, everybody . . . and I appreciate it.”
And his daughter remains very much a teenager. He said he still has to talk to Sam “about (cleaning) her room and she’s on the phone a lot. . . . But she’s handling this very well, and I’m proud of her.”
Academically, Sanders has improved and is working toward a B average. As for basketball, she leads East (18-5) in scoring as the leader of the No. 2 seed in the Sharon Wilch region.
Before leaving East, where she never played in a DPL loss, Sanders has her sights set on making the Angels a state champion. Only one city team, Class 5A Montbello in 1997, has won state since girls basketball was sanctioned in 1976.
“I have to thank the teachers at East, who stuck behind her and made her stay on top of things,” Berry said. “Just the fact that she’s back and handling all of this is amazing.”
Teammate Chelsea Small, who transferred from George Washington, said, “You never even notice now that she has a baby, she’s playing so well.”
Saniya has made a few appearances at Angels’ practices and games, but Sam thought better of it recently and stopped taking her after the baby got sick, probably, she said, “from being handled so much, but everyone has been so nice.”
In January, Sanders attracted a look-see from Colorado, but did not get a scholarship offer. She has been offered a scholarship by Western Nebraska Community College.
“It’s still a little early for me,” said Sanders, who is confident she will play in college and would like to major in sports medicine. “But I know a lot of them have daycare. Single moms do it all the time.”
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
