Posted by Sudbury Northern Life Reporter Sabrina Byrnes
The Lady Vees' fifth year forward, Amanda McConnell, recently
received the Joy Bellinger Award of Merit for her dedication to
giving back to the community.
"I was so honoured," said McConnell. " I guess because a lot of
the times you do stuff you do it because it needs to be done.
(The fact) that people notice it is really flattering. I'm
really honoured."
The Joy Bellinger Award is named after a Laurentian graduate
who wore the blue and gold for the Lady Vees' basketball team.
She later became a medical doctor. Bellinger died from cancer.
The award is granted to a female basketball player in the OUA
who shows strong academic skills and who shows involvement
outside of the classroom.
McConnell has a personal cancer connection. Her mother was
diagnosed with colon cancer which spread  to her lungs and
later the rest of her body. She passed away during her
daughter's first year at school.
"She passed away my rookie year, so that was really hard
because I had only been out here for three months at the time,"
said McConnell.
She never had the chance to see her daughter play.
"It's sad. She drove me up here so she saw Laurentian (the
campus), but she definitely never saw me suit up."
Since then the Lady Vees' forward has dedicated her time to
raising funds for breast cancer.
"I've attached myself to breast cancer just because I've lost a
mother, so I don't want anyone else to go through what I went
through. So I thought that was a really important cause."
McConnell's involvement includes organizing a team for the Run
for the Cure, organizing the "Think Pink" breast cancer
fundraising games, arranging food drives, helping out at a Big
Brothers Big Sisters basketball camp, putting together
Christmas hampers for those less fortunate and more. McConnell
is also president of the Laurentian Athletic Council.
Lady Vees' head coach Mike Clarke nominated McConnell for the
award.
"She's been amazing with the amount of time and effort she's
put in away from basketball to help people, so she really
deserved it," Clarke said.
"I'm just happy that she got recognized. Like anybody who truly
cares about volunteering, they don't do it because they want
recognition. She's a good player, she's not a great player.
She's a good student, she's not a great student, but she's
great when it came to community involvement and in a lot of
ways that's the most important thing really."
This is McConnell's last year at Laurentian and her coach said
it's nice to see the way the students grow up.
"She's going to do really well. She has great people skills,
she's friends with everybody."
The head coach said while his basketball player has strong
people skills, it may have actually hindered her on the court.
"She's a little too nice. You need to have a certain amount of
ego to become great at a sport. She was never quite willing
enough to put herself before anybody else. As an athlete, that
might have actually held her back a little bit, but as a person
it made her a great person to be around."
McConnell said she's always been the type of person that likes
to be involved. She said she will take a break after finishing
her last year at Laurentian and head home to Saskatchewan where
her family is. Her ultimate goal is to go to teacher's college
and hopefully teach physical education, as well as coach
basketball.
She said she would also like to play basketball overseas,
perhaps in a lower division.
"I'm not quite ready to hang up my shoes yet," she said,
smiling.
