In This Issue
A High Achiever
Gryphon recognized for academics, athletics and community involvement
BY DAVID DICENZO
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| Gryphon Stephanie Yallin leads on and off the basketball court. Photo by Kyle Rodriguez |
Sometimes sports statistics are just numbers telling you how many goals a player made or who won or lost the game. But sometimes they also speak volumes about a player's character.
Take Guelph Gryphon basketball star Stephanie Yallin, for example. In the 2006/07 season, the four-time Ontario University Athletics all-star led the Gryphs with 5.9 rebounds per game and 92 assists. Rebounds are all about perseverance, and Yallin's totals are particularly impressive for a guard, but the assists show her willingness to share and help her teammates become better players.
Yallin, a fourth-year biological sciences major from Port Colborne, proved those qualities extend beyond the basketball court when she recently became the first-ever Guelph athlete to win the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) Sylvia Sweeney Award, recognizing achievement in academics, athletics and community involvement.
Earlier this month, she travelled with her mother and basketball coach Angela Orton to the CIS finals in St. John's, Nfld., to accept the prestigious award.
“I think I was in shock at first,” Yallin says of receiving the news she had won. “I'm very proud to represent the University and the community. I've had just a great time in my four years here. It was the best feeling to go to St. John's and represent Guelph.”
The only bittersweet note was that her teammates weren't by her side, she says.
“Unfortunately, our team didn't make it to the nationals this year, and that was hard. You would trade anything to get there with your team, but the next best thing is that you can represent the school and the community in another way.”
A natural leader on the court, Yallin says that having four younger sisters — including Kris, also a member of the Gryphon basketball team — has taught her how to have an impact on others.
She's been involved with U of G's “Believe to Achieve” program in each of her four years, speaking with local schoolchildren about the importance of excelling in the classroom, being confident in their abilities and setting goals. Yallin is also the University ambassador with local media, is a University liaison with potential students and has volunteered at numerous community basketball clinics.
“Stephanie has been a tremendous competitor, leader and ambassador,” says Orton. “She's a wonderful person who has always supported those around her, whether it be on the court or in the community. She has great humility and is very unselfish in her commitments in all aspects of her life. It has been my privilege to coach her for the past four seasons.”
Over the last year, Yallin also volunteered her time at two speech pathology clinics — KidsAbilities in Waterloo, where she worked with children up to age five, and Sheila MacDonald & Associates in Guelph, where she worked one-on-one with an elderly man who's dealing with aphasia.
Yallin, who plans a career in speech pathology, became interested in the field after her grandmother suffered a stroke a few years ago.
“Seeing the improvement she went through and the huge impact her speech pathologist had, I slowly started looking into it,” she says, noting that many people take for granted the ability to communicate with others. “It's been great. I didn't know a lot about the field before this year.”
MacDonald says she rarely takes volunteers but made an exception in Yallin's case. “What I saw in her was her integrity and her willingness to see the person behind the aphasia. Her responsibility to him is what stood out for me.”
Yallin, who will graduate in June, is waiting to see if she's been accepted into a speech pathology master's program, having applied to the University of Western Ontario, Dalhousie University and the University of Buffalo.
With her basketball career quite possibly behind her — she does have a year of eligibility remaining and has contemplated playing if she does continue in a master's program at a Canadian school — she has been looking back over the last four years with fond memories.
The pinnacle on the court came in her second season when Guelph won the provincial title and took a trip to the nationals.
“It's a huge deal to be able to get that far,” she says. “I'm glad we had that one opportunity to get there.”
Win or lose, Yallin takes much pride in what she brought to the team and how she played the game.
“I tried to bring positivity and hard work. If you go into every practice and every game and personally give everything that you have, at the end of the day, at least you can say: ‘I left it all on the court.'”