St. John's University Athletics
AN INSPIRATION: MS FORCES ST. JOHN'S SENIOR TO ADJUST
12/1/2003 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Written by: Lori Riley, Hartford Courant Staff Writer
As part of a drill during practice, the coach would hold up her fingers as the players dribbled past. How many fingers were there?
Sherri Brown couldn't see how many fingers. Her teammates thought Brown, then a sophomore guard for the St. John's women's basketball team, was joking around.
People would stand in the walkway above the Alumni Hall court and talk to her, people she knew. She couldn't make out their faces.
Brown's left eye went first. She had a hard time reading books. In a game in Chicago in November 2001, the ball came off the rim and uncharacteristically bounced off her chest as she tried to rebound it.
Then her right eye started to go.
``I knew something was going on,'' Brown said.
She went to a couple of doctors. They determined that there was swelling in the back of her eyes. They gave her eye drops, which didn't help.
Finally, she went for an MRI. The neurologist said Brown had multiple sclerosis.
MS is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. Its symptoms and their severity vary widely, making it unpredictable and hard to diagnose. Sometimes it takes years to diagnose, although for Brown it took only a few weeks.
St. John's will open its season tonight at Holy Cross. Brown is a senior now. She can see again. And she is still playing, but not a lot. She averaged 9.3 minutes last season after starting and averaging 22.5 minutes and 7.0 points as a freshman.
It took awhile for her to adjust to her new role, to learn what she could do, how to pace herself, to sit out of drills when she became fatigued and to learn how to lead when not on the court.
``She's an inspiration to us all, the way she's stayed positive and the way she's handled her role changing,'' said second-year St. John's coach Kim Barnes Arico. ``Before I got here, she was an integral part of everything. She was a starter. She got major minutes. Now her time has significantly decreased, which is tough for anyone to handle. She's handled it in such a great way.
``She's definitely a leader for the team, even though she's not out there all the time. She's vocal, she's positive, and she's great for the younger kids. And when she gets out there, she just plays her butt off. In the short spans she can play, she goes hard.''
At Willingboro (N.J.) High School, Brown was the school's all-time leading scorer, an All-State player who averaged 14.3 points, 6.9 rebounds, 2.9 steals, 1.9 assists.
She started 13 games as a freshman at St. John's. She started her first three as a sophomore, scoring 11 points in the first game against Marist.
Then she sprained the medial cruciate ligament in her left knee in a Thanksgiving tournament. She came back slowly, but started to notice her vision problems. Her reaction time was not what it had been. She had a hard time remembering things.
``In practice, she would fumble the ball a lot,'' said senior guard Shemika Stevens. ``It wasn't like her. She wasn't playing the way she usually did.''
Brown was diagnosed with MS on Dec. 18, 2001. The doctor sent her right to the hospital, no time to pack, finish her finals or buy Christmas gifts. She spent five days with a steroid IV dripping into her body. She went home two days before Christmas and spent the next two weeks in Willingboro.
``I came back to school Jan. 2,'' Brown said. ``I had nothing to do at home. I was just going to sit around, so I thought I might as well get myself back into the swing of things. I didn't practice at all. I did things on the side, shooting, riding the bike. Things like that.''
Her vision, still blurry, didn't clear up until the end of school in May. After her diagnosis, she started to take a drug called Avonex, which requires a weekly injection. Brown hates needles. She couldn't bring herself to stick one into her quadriceps. For two months, she had other people do it. Then, one night, she was alone and had no choice. She has been doing it herself ever since.
She was ready to play last season, but her body was still a step behind because of the MS. When Arico, the new coach, implemented new plays, Brown had a hard time remembering them. She was a step slower than she had been. One of her legs would start to drag when she became fatigued and she had to come out.
``The coaches were patient,'' Brown said. ``They helped me out a lot to stay focused.''
She played in 26 games, starting four. She played 23 minutes against Notre Dame, and had a season-high eight points against Stony Brook.
She was playing. But it wasn't the same.
``I still struggle to this day with it,'' Brown said. ``Taking the year off was cool. I was like, OK, I can do this, I'm fine. I'll be back.
``But last year I found out my whole pace has changed. The fatigue factor. The playing time, not playing, was the roughest thing for me. This year I'm more prepared for that.''
At practice, she'll participate in some drills and skip others. During one drill recently, she helped count out loud the number of passes the team took before shooting.
In St. John's exhibition game Nov. 10 against Team Concept, Brown played less than a minute. She found herself thinking, `I want to get in, I want to get in.'
``I have to keep telling myself, `Don't worry about it. Be the leader that you are. Just support the team. It's not good for the team if you pout and complain,' which I found myself doing last year,'' she said. ``I'd go home and be miserable. Now this is my last year, so I might as well make the best of it.''
