Driving Force
But then she picks up her second foul and has to sit out for a while. When she returns she can’t play as aggressively. Despite some missed shots and turnovers, Young manages a five-point lead at halftime. Marshall recovers from its funk at the start of the third quarter, using its superior quickness, depth, and offensive rebounding to gain control. Pointer is off her game. Early in the first quarter she took a hard foul on a layup, falling to the floor with a loud thwack. Now she’s struggling with her outside shot; she can’t get into the offensive flow. Flores takes over for her team and keeps Young within hailing distance; early in the fourth quarter she rebounds her own missed shot in the lane for a pretty bank off the glass.
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Flores has a lot going for her. She’s bright and friendly, possessed of an innate curiosity about the world around her. Plus she has a lethal jump shot and could beat a lot of guys off the dribble. Though left-handed, she’s adroit with either hand. More than any other sport, basketball’s form and style allows players to influence the look and feel of the game through their own personalities: the singsong dribble; the expressive, even stylized movements on the floor; the arrangement and flow of bodies on the court. And because the fans are so close to the floor, they can scrutinize a player’s every move. The court is probably best understood as an elongated stage. Performance is everything.
This element of the game gives Flores a rush. “There are players who are straight up,” she says. “They pass and shoot. For me, I like being flashy. I like the no-look passes and spin moves. I like getting the crowd excited, throwing my hands up. When I’m having fun that’s when I play even better.”
Flores held her own against the neighborhood kids, forging an identity as a talented, resourceful player. “I was always at Wrightwood Park with the guys,” she says. “That’s what made me a better player. You can’t improve if you’re not playing with people as good as you. I played everything with my older cousins. I was into running. While the other girls were playing with their dolls, I was kicking a soccer ball or something like that.” In eighth grade Flores was already being recruited by colleges, receiving letters from Purdue, Marquette, and Vanderbilt.
Flores refined her game in the Public League. “I never had girls tell me they were going to jump me after the game until I played in the Public League,” she says. “The Public League is never boring. Michael Jordan has this attitude–when he steps out on the court he knows he’s the best. People in the Public League, whether they’re good or not, always have that attitude.” When she first attended Young, Flores’s outside game was so erratic Penny wouldn’t even let her shoot from the perimeter. Now her outside game is dead-on.
Trying to reconcile academics, basketball, and her personal life has taken its toll on Flores. At times, she says, she’s wanted to give up the game and spend more time with her boyfriend or her other friends. But she knows how much her scholarship to Northwestern means to her parents, neither of whom attended college. “I’ve made basketball my life,” she says. “You’re expected to do things, accomplish a lot, and live up to the expectations made of you. I never got to live that normal life. I enjoy what I do. Although I’ve made sacrifices, if I didn’t have basketball I wouldn’t see myself going to Northwestern or being as successful as I am.”
