It’s all Business for this basketball player who does well for her community, maintains great grades, and helps her family.
photo by Rebecca Holt
Shanora Ali never expected to be playing on the girls’ varsity basketball team. During her freshman year, Steve Thomas, (the head coach of the girls varsity basketball team) asked her to just try it out, and look at her now. “It looked like fun and Coach Thomas was in need of players, so I decided to play,” said Shanora, who continues to play because she loves to compete and it’s a great exercise.
Shanora works very hard on the girls’ varsity basketball team and has earned her nickname as Mother of the Team. “I am like the motherly figure to my teammates. I make sure everybody stays positive even through rough times, and I give advice to my teammates about basketball and their personal issues,” said Shanora, who is looking forward to the team’s trip to Yuma, Colorado in early January for a tournament. “It’s a lot of fun, and we get to bond as a team and become close. We play against great competition that helps us for when we begin our league play.”
As the season gets going, Shanora is improving on her defense by working hard at practice, and is helping the team come together by doing everything on the court as a team. “I want to help our team win games by improving defense and becoming closer as a team. If we can do this, I think we will have a successful season,” said Shanora.
Over the summer, Shanora participated in the TJ girl’s basketball camp. In the camp, the girls conditioned and played at Manuel High School against teams from the Denver Metro area. “It was a way for the team to get used to playing with each other. It was a little difficult because we had to adapt to each others’ playing styles,” said Shanora.
Before every game, Shanora prepares herself by watching the C- Team and Junior Varsity play so that she can pick up on the opposing team’s game plan and try to figure out what the other team likes to do. She will listen to music to get her pumped up, stretch, and become mentally focused for her game. “I love to listen to music before my games. It helps tune out distractions and helps me focus on the things that I need to do in order to help my team in positive ways,” said Shanora.
Aside from basketball, Shanora does community service work every Saturday for thirty minutes at the Dancin’ Dreams organization, where she helps teach young girls ages five through eight with Down Syndrome how to dance. “It’s a lot of fun working with the girls. They always bring joy to my day, and it helps to make my day start very well,” said Shanora, who is also an escort for the Jack and Jill Beautillian, which is a program that honors young African American senior males in high school. “I don’t get honored at all, but I still give up my time and money to support my beau,” said Shanora. As an escort, Shanora has to dance with her partner and will sit with him during the program. She gives up two hours of her Sundays so that she can take classes and learn the dance steps.
At TJ, Shanora is an excellent student with a 3.9 GPA, and takes accelerated classes (AP Biology with Scott Thomas, AP Literature with Susan Stokley, and Spanish 4 Honors with Rose Romero Young). “They are challenging classes and can sometimes stress me out, but I just have to push myself through it even when I don’t want to,” said Shanora, who is a part of the Black Student Alliance (BSA), Peace Panel, and National Honors Society (NHS). “I like the clubs at TJ, because they make me feel more connected with the school. They are fun, and it’s a great way to meet new people,” said Shanora. As the president of BSA, Shanora organizes meetings, schedules a room to hold the meetings, makes sure announcements are made so that people know about the meetings, and coordinates and schedules guest speakers.
Outside of school, Shanora likes to hang out with her friends on the weekends, go hiking in the mountains, and watch movies. She faces many challenges in her life, like helping her little sister Hannah Ali. “I have raised my little sister since I was eight years old. It hasn’t always been easy, and I had to become responsible at a young age. I would wake up in the middle of a school night to change her diaper, or to just feed her. Even now, I help her with her school work, and I make sure that she is happy, even if I have to sacrifice something for that to happen. Our mom wasn’t always around so I decided to help raise her,” said Shanora.
With all the things Shanora does in her life, she said that her biggest inspiration has been her English teacher, Susan Stokley. “She takes her personal time and will bend over backwards to help anybody succeed. She’s open to find out what you’re struggling with, whether it be life or school related issues, and she always pushes and encourages people to be the best that they can be,” said Shanora.
Stokley describes Shanora as an amazing student, who will never back down from a challenge. “ She advocates for herself for help, and she’s not afraid to work hard until she completes her task the right way. She is very determined to succeed and understands the importance of education in her life. She has an incredibly strong work ethic and I have so much respect for her as a person,” said Stokley, who can recall an incident when Shanora came into her room to work on analyzing symbols in a poem. “She was in my room and cried her way through it until she figured it out. I knew from that moment that Shanora would be a successful person in college and beyond.”
After high school, Shanora hopes to attend either Colorado State University, the University of Northern Colorado, or CU Boulder. “I like what they all have to offer (environment, the community, classes), and they’re not too far from home, yet not too close,” said Shanora, who still hasn’t decided on a major.
When Shanora finishes college, she hopes to become a pediatrician because she likes to help people. But before she does this, she wants to spend a year in Africa working for the AIDS foundation. “It’s a great start in the medical field, and I would get to see what other people in a different country deal with,” said Shanora.
