Photo credit: Josie Le Blanc

Sixth grader Sloane Adamson dribbles the basketball with intent and focus in her eyes. “You can’t really play basketball if you’re not having fun,” she said.

Sprinting onto the court after what she describes as a long, grumpy day of classes, Sloane Adamson, a sixth grader on Archer’s middle school gold basketball team gets ready for an afternoon with her teammates on the basketball court.

Adamson said her passion for sports drove her to join the basketball team, and the sports community helped her to develop connections with fellow sports fanatics, teammates and coaches. 

“A lot of the people on my basketball team I’ve become pretty good friends with,” Adamson said. “We can hang out after school, or after basketball, and just have a good time during practice too.” 

As a new member of the Archer athletics program, Adamson said she has received support from her coaches, specifically mentioning head coach Dani LeNoir, who offers feedback in a kind and constructive way.

“All the coaches are really nice and helpful,” Adamson said, “and they point out mistakes in a way that seems nonjudgemental but just to make sure that you know what you’re doing, so that you don’t make mistakes in a game.”

Adamson’s hard work, passion, and dedication to her team, according to LeNoir, have enabled her to become a young team leader.

 “She has blended perfectly with our team”, LeNoir said. “[She] has already started to put herself in more leadership roles and positions.” 

Support is integral to becoming a winning team, and Adamson  believes players must offer support and encouragement to one another in order for the team to run smoothly.

“It’s a true team sport,” Adamson said. “You can have one good player on a basketball team but if the rest of the team doesn’t help and support each other, then it falls to pieces.”

Adamson’s teammate Kami Nobuyuki (’30), whom she met in a recreational basketball league before Adamson joined the Archer community, said she has also been impressed by Adamson’s growth and her ability to incorporate humor into support and friendships.

“She definitely makes a lot of jokes,” Nobuyuki said. “She has a very good sense of humor, and she is very supportive of our team … she definitely is more open to me in school than [she was] in the REC team.”

LeNoir said Adamson uses her humor to take part in friendly competitions to connect with teammates and coaches. She often starts friendly debates about feuds amongst WNBA teams.

“She matches my humor…she’s also taken on a very strange German accent, when she is trying to support someone…It’s quite interesting. But we love it. She does it in a way that she absolutely gets the other person’s attention so that they hear what she’s saying,” LeNoir said. “The only issue is that she’s a fan of the WNBA team, Indiana Fever and I’m not okay with that.”

In addition to her sportsmanship, LeNoir said Adamson is a skilled basketball player whose talents contribute to the team’s performance. 

“The most amount of growth I’ve seen in Sloane is her guard work in her ball handling and her shooting,” LeNoir said. “I’ve never seen her play before this, I did not know that I was going to get such a great player on the team this year, so I was very pleased by her skills.”