Norman — It wasn’t who she was. Scoring a ton of points every night, becoming her own highlight reel, taking over just as soon as the ball was tipped at Lloyd Noble Center and throughout the Big 12 … it just wasn’t.
Yes, Amanda Thompson, coming out of Chicago’s Whitney Young High School, the Sun Times’ and the Tribune’s player of the year, the No. 5, 6 or 7 high school prospect in the nation, depending on the source, when she signed to play college basketball for coach Sherri Coale and Oklahoma, thought there would be nights like that.
“I came in with these dreams when I first came here of being this and that and this and that and this and that,” she said.
Yet it wasn’t what she was about.
It wasn’t her background.
“She came in here with big dreams and high expectations, but with an understanding that nothing is ever given to you,” Coale said. “As much as we can say that, as an institution or as coaches, she knew that already because nothing had ever been given to her.”
Nor was it her style.
There are moments on the court when she’s guarded near the top of the key and she’s playing with the basketball like a Globetrotter. Between the legs, behind the back, crossovers and feints to one direction or the other, and in those moments it becomes easy to understand the root expectations. But it’s never been more than something she does.
She was never about flash.
“I could come in here and score 40 and still be soft,” Thompson said. “That’s an insult to me. I’d rather go 10 (points) and 10 (rebounds), block a few shots, get a couple assists.
“The thing is, I was always like that.”
Over time, it’s become clear.
That and so much more.
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Today shouldn’t mark Thompson’s last game at Lloyd Noble Center, nor Nyeshia Stevenson’s, nor Abi Olajuwon’s.
Lloyd Noble Center is hosting the first two rounds of the women’s NCAA Tournament and, barring remarkable calamity, the Sooners will be sent home.
It is, however, the seniors’ last regular season game on campus, which makes it Senior Day when OU takes on Bedlam rival Oklahoma State at 4 p.m.
All three are good stories.
Stevenson came to Norman a multi-sport athlete of incredible repute only to become one of the best 3-point shooters in the conference. Olajuwon had to wait her turn, but has become a valuable post capable of dominating the lane.
Thompson, however, stands apart.
Since her sophomore season, she’s been voted team captain. If everybody had a dime for every time Coale entered a postgame interview room and began with “Amanda Thompson was a warrior,” everybody might have a dollar. Or two.
For that matter, who else can dominate a box score without dominating the scoring totals like Thompson, even if, sometimes, she dominates there, too?
There are many examples, but OU’s 62-60 overtime victory over Baylor four weeks ago stands out.
Thompson played 41 of 45 minutes, she scored 19 points and grabbed 19 rebounds, she had five steals, two assists and a block. And she seemed to do it all in the last 5 minutes.
“I think she’s the most competitive person I’ve met of all time,” junior point guard Danielle Robinson said. “It’s like she gets in this zone where she’s just unstoppable. You can see it in her eyes, you can see it in her body language. She just has this demeanor about her that’s just unreal. You can’t get through it.”
The Sooners probably haven’t had leadership like this since Thompson’s freshman season. But at the time, it was hard to know where it started. A team loaded with seniors, it was spread throughout Leah Rush, Erin Higgins, Chelsi Welch, Britney Brown, Kendra Moore and Krista Sanchez.
Now, it starts with Thompson.
She began taking on the role when her teammates first voted her captain.
“That was a huge step for me because I just got that based off playing hard and loving the game and my teammates saw that in me, but I didn’t really take on that vocal aspect,” Thompson said. “I felt like I had to embrace that role, and I learned from players before me and seeing what they did and they didn’t do.”
It was as simple as her seeing a void and choosing to fill it. Being a vocal leader might not have been natural, but putting in the work to do what’s required always has been.
It’s the same way on the court, where at one time or another she’s played all five positions.
“She has grown into one of those leaders that, as a coach, you can just kind of smile and say, ‘She has my team,’” Coale said. “That didn’t come natural to her … She’s had to learn that merely expecting them to follow you isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to take them and pull them. Sometimes you have to get behind them and push them, and it’s an all-time thing.”
So she does it all the time.
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Stevenson calls Thompson “Grandma.”
“Everything she does,” Stevenson said, “it feels like she lives in the past.”
Thompson doesn’t walk very fast, she doesn’t talk very fast.
One day, at Abi Olajuwon’s house in Los Angeles, OU in town to play UCLA three seasons back, the Sooners were shocked, amazed and thrilled to meet Vivica Fox, the actress. Everybody took out their digital cameras, or phones, to get pictures and mark the occasion.
Thompson took out a party favor for playing in the State Farm Tip-Off Classic, a horribly old-fashioned and cheap camera that had her teammates cracking up.
“Everybody has like the LCD, where you can see what you’re taking, where you don’t have to get it developed,” Stevenson said. “It’s just little things like that that she does.”
“I have an old soul,” Thompson said. “It’s just the way I do things.”
For all the apparent flash and sizzle she still offers in moments and may well offer again today, it is who she is.
A hard worker. Accountable. And a leader, be it on the court, where Robinson said, “she refuses to lose,” off the court, where Stevenson said, “it’s just her personality, the way she talks to us,” or in the classroom, where Coale said, “she attacked her schoolwork and became an outstanding student,” and will graduate with a degree in communications in May.
It is who she is.
Amanda Thompson.
Clay Horning 366-3526 cfhorning@normantranscript.com
