Laney athlete celebrates SF State admission with signing ceremony in gym

By Bonnie Oviatt

Laney’s star shooting guard Courtenay Brown signed a letter of intent to attend San Francisco State University in the fall. The signing ceremony was held in the Laney College gym on April 26. Her coach, family, and friends were there to congratulate her.

She accepted a full scholarship to the university where she plans to major in kinesiology. She will be a shooting guard for SFSU’s basketball team, the Gators, who play in the NCAA division II.

After she graduates from SFSU Brown wants to become either an athletic trainer or work in rehabilitating athletes after injuries.

Brown lived in Stockton and attended Weston Ranch High School, but during her junior year, she went to Encinal High School in Alameda where she helped their basketball team into the playoffs. For her senior year she returned to Stockton to live with her father Anthony Brown.

Although Brown was recruited by Humbolt State University out of high school, she decided to attend a community college to play basketball. She didn’t want to attend Humboldt State University, but she did want a basketball scholarship to finance her education.

Her sister, Jordan Brown, who lived in Alameda, had played for Laney, so Brown was familiar with the school.

Brown has been a starter on the team since she came in as a red shirt in 2014. “I had a much larger role [this year],” she said.

This season Brown averaged 18 points per game overall and 21.3 in the conference.

Approximately three games into the Bay Valley Conference basketball season, the number of players on the Laney College Eagles basketball team was greatly reduced. Due to injuries and eligibility issues, the squad went from 12 to five players.

When asked if this created a difficult situation for her, Brown replied that it didn’t because all five of the remaining players had to dedicate themselves “a little more to playing harder.”

She explained that without the ability to switch out players to rest, ”I never had to tell anyone to play harder because we already were.” Although the team was playing hard, Brown admitted that anyone fouling out would have been a big problem.

Fortunately, the team was able to avoid this fate until the last game of its season, the championship game against Solano.

Bonnie Oviatt is a Tower staff writer. Contact her at btower(at)yahoo.com.