Samantha Collins takes on multiple roles at Greensboro Day Hunter Stedman, January 30, 2025 Samantha Collins was searching for a high school home when she was at Northwest Guilford Middle School. Her AAU teammate Liz Wyrick suggested checking out Greensboro Day. Basketball may have been what brought the 5-foot-5 sharpshooter to GDS, but traits both on and off the court led to the senior combo guard being named the school’s homecoming queen on Friday in a ceremony held before the boys Bengals played Calvary Day. “Sam is a very fun player to coach,” GDS girls basketball coach Tamera Thorpe said. “Everybody loves a shooter—I’ll start with that; everybody loves a shooter—but looking beyond what she brings on the court, just her personality that she brings to the team off the court and her understanding of trying to build community within our team, I think that goes beyond anything she can do on the floor skillset-wise…” People are also reading… On this year’s court, all four of the members are also members of the Lady Bengals basketball team, the others being Candice Williams, Azariah Scott and Wyrick. The moment was special for Collins because of the shared support between teammates. “It was definitely great,” Collins said. “I knew we were all going to support whoever won regardless and I saw them clapping and cheering and I’m glad they were happy for me and it was great being with my dad. It was definitely good to have so many loved ones around.” Collins had the desire to lead from the time she arrived at Greensboro Day School but knew she had to earn her way through action. Thorpe said the two-year captain evolved as she got older, particularly in receiving the coach’s critiques and translating that into performance. “I can get in her face in high-tempo moments and she is still looking at me dead in my eyes and we’ve gotten to the point of ‘Oh, I got you, I got you,’” Thorpe said. For Collins, that has meant becoming increasingly vocal. Thorpe points out that Collins even shared coaching duties with Scott in preseason camp and developed into a key voice for a team that has those four seniors but also has only one junior, one sophomore and the rest being either freshmen or eighth graders. The team is 16-9 overall, 3-2 in conference, with four regular season games remaining on the schedule. Last year, the Bengals finished 28-5, won the PTAC at 10-0, and reached the NCISAA 3A semifinals, not to mention winning the HAECO Invitational for the first time in program history. “We’re definitely a competitive program, so a lot of that is a come-with-me attitude getting them onboard with everything,” Collins said. “But we have some good competitors that have come in this season and I think just continuing to build them up even for when we are gone and setting the foundation while we are still here is something that we’ve been trying to do. It’s definitely different having a whole bunch of younger girls, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” Thorpe thinks that Collins has a personality well-suited for coaching, especially for a youth or middle school team, given the way she builds connections and develops trust with others. Collins is active with the youth in the community, serving as a tutor for students at Greensboro Day’s lower school. She also volunteers for Court Kicks For Kids, an organization that donates shoes to needy children. Collins has also participated in student government and is the school’s current senior class president. In that role, she takes part in weekly meetings, helps organize events and is expected to deliver a speech at this year’s senior graduation ceremony. After high school, she plans to play basketball at Washington & Lee, where she wants to study journalism and mass communication with the thought of working in the sports marketing realm. At Greensboro Day, she creates graphics for the school. Outside of school, Collins enjoys photography work at basketball games and other events. Thorpe said Collins is always one of the first students to volunteer to help out with youth training sessions or after school activities at the school. “She is definitely personable,” Thorpe said. “Sam is the kind of person you could put in any room and she is going to be fine. She’ll find somebody to talk to or somebody is going to gravitate in her direction.” Her choice to sign with Washington & Lee was influenced by her experience at GDS. “I think going to a school where I would want to go even if I wasn’t playing basketball was important to me,” Collins said. “It’s a really good academic school, it has a lot of things, a really beautiful campus, so going there and knowing that I’ll have a lot of outlets outside of basketball and then when I was on my visit, the girls on the team were all best friends and it was kind of like I have here where it’s a very close-knit community in the basketball realm.” Cooper’s Question, Presented by PF Plumbing Q: If you could have dinner with any three people, living or dead, who would they be and why? A: LeBron James because he is the GOAT, Caitlin Clark because I like her energy and confidence and my dad. He is alive; he is not dead to clarify, but I think he’d be good to have in those conversations and have good questions. Source link Pet News girls