Wake Forest Athletics
Kristen Shaffer Has Become The Deacons' Spark
2/15/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 15, 2000
By Jay Reddick
People tell Kristen Shaffer that she changes her mind a lot and with good reason. She has dreamt of following in the footsteps of everyone from Mary Lou Retton to Jackie Joyner Kersee to Diane Sawyer during her life.
But ask her what she has the ability to accomplish, and she points to one thing: a handprint permanently etched into the carpet of her bedroom in Woodbridge, Va.
Shaffer's dreams these days are focused on basketball. As the first reserve off the bench for the Deacon women's basketball team, the junior swingman is supposed to bring a spark whenever she comes into the game.
She has done that on the court, averaging 6.9 points, 2.6 rebounds and nearly a steal a game. But she's finding that the right spark off the court can produce results as well.
"We came to a new perspective after the Florida State game (on Feb. 3) that we are not going to get pushed around anymore in the ACC," Shaffer said. "We're not going to be the underdogs all the time. We're going to lay everything on the line , and have a new attitude where we 're attacking, not being on the defensive."
The attitude was immediately evident against Georgia Tech on Feb. 6. The Deacs had a new intensity and led for most of the game before losing their edge.
Shaffer has taken it upon herself to be a leader of this new attitude.
"This is my role: to get in (my teammates') face, and not back down," Shaffer said. "You have to be positive as well as negative. When somebody makes a mistake, they'll hear about it from Coach, and you don't want to make matters worse, but you want the team to know that you 're there with them if they need that extra 'oomph' to get them over the hump."
Shaffer's intensity has been a part of her since she was very young. Her father, who played football at Maryland, and her mother taught her not to expect anything but her best and to work as hard as she could to get there. That manifested itself first in sports.
The 5-foot-10 woman you see on the court now was once known as the "Tiny Tumbler." Yes, Shaffer was a gymast, and a good one - she won the Virginia state championship when she was 9 years old and was thinking of moving to Texas to train for a possible career in the sport, maybe even an Olympic berth.
Then she grew six inches during one summer, when she was 10 years old. And suddenly, other options became a bit more viable.
"My dad was a defensive tackle in college, so he has had this physical contact, go-get-'em attitude," Shaffer said. "So he wanted me to do contact sports."
Shaffer joined the basketball, soccer and track teams all at once in sixth grade and stuck with hoops and running, plus volleyball, all the way until she graduated from C.D. Hylton High three years ago.
And from the beginning, Shaffer worked hard. She had a pull-up bar in the garage, and not only had an outdoor basketball goal, but a bright spotlight so she could practice at all hours.
"I'd go out at 8:00 at night and work on shooting and ballhandling, and my brother and my dad would come out, sometimes my mom would be the passer, and we'd work on defense," Shaffer said.
"We'd play long games of 21. After bad games, I couldn't go to sleep, so I'd go out there at midnight and wake up the neighbors. It was a great experience, and I miss that. I love going home and seeing my basket and my spotlight, and the treasure chest in the garage with all the balls in it."
And then there were the push-ups. Shaffer did countless push-ups in her bedroom every night to get in better shape for the next sport, the next season, the next year.
Over time, she did so many push-ups that a single handprint (the carpet was more plush on one side) dug its way into the carpet fibers and stayed there for all to see.
"I would never let my mom vacuum over it," Shaffer said. "That's always been there to say, this is what I've done, what my hard work goes into. I've done this over and over again, I've gotten strong, I'm a better player all around because of my stick-to-it attitude. It's sacred to me. It's my sacred handprint on my floor."
The hard work paid off in many ways. Her track coach wanted to make her into a pentathlete after she made the Penn Relays as a high jumper. Her volleyball coach thought she could become a Division I-level force after just one year of experience. Academically, she made the National Honor Society and numerous all-academic teams.
And in basketball, she led her team to its most wins in history as a senior, earned all-region and honorable-mention all-state honors, and got the attention of many colleges.
And that brought her to where she is today. She still has the hard work, she still has the positive attitude, and though she's five hours from Woodbridge, she's found a little bit of her driveway in Reynolds Gym.
"My safe haven is the gym," Shaffer said. "I love to go, and just turn on three or four lights, and have that really old-school atmosphere of basketball, and have that love fill through your veins. It's awesome. It puts me back in and gets me in touch with who I am again."
And once she does that, she's ready to go pump her teammates up again.
"We had always been really passive," Shaffer said. "It was, 'Come on girls, it's OK,' instead of smacking people around and saying, 'You need to pass me the ball if I'm open!' or, 'You're letting your teammates down. You need to box out.' This new attitude is really going to be beneficial, and you're going to see a different Wake Forest team over this next month."
