Pee Dee Academy's McKenzie is champion at heart

Teen shares her story to help others

The game of basketball always appears to look easy for Pee Dee Academy senior guard Samantha McKenzie.

Since her freshman season, I’ve named her among the best basketball players in the area. A terrific spot up shooter with a high IQ, she always played in control, never seemed rattled by a challenge and always perseveres.

“I think I am a pretty good ball handler. I love making back-door passes and my team scores off a good pass,” she said, adding that her best attribute is being an unselfish player. “No one can play by themselves and expect to win,” she said.

Through injury and illness, McKenzie has always returned to her team and her playing career is loaded with highlights that include state championships in basketball and tennis. This year's basketball team recently finished its season, making it into the state SCISA playoffs, but losing in a heart breaking game in Sumter.

“The reason I didn't get to play much this season is because i have been trying to gain my weight back because I have an eating disorder. It is more complicated than just eating. I think I started losing weight just to get in shape for tennis, then once I started getting compliments, I, being a very driven person, started working harder and harder until it was out of control.”

McKenzie said the disease has “left me with nothing. I missed most of my junior year because I was wrapped up in my head, and I hadn’t gotten to play my senior year of basketball with my teammates like I would have wanted.”

“I began playing basketball with my brother and neighbors. Later I played rec basketball in Mullins,” she said, adding that she also played junior varsity basketball three years, garnering two MVP awards.

As a freshman, she was the youngest on the varsity team. “During the opening tournament, a teammate got hurt. Coach Jerry Coleman grabbed me and put me in. I was scared to death. After that first game, I think I became a starter,” she recounted. Before long, she was playing a major role for the program.

The impressive teenager said she is not ashamed of coming out and telling people about her problem, “because there could be other teens who will read this who may be experiencing this but they think they are alone and no one will understand.”

McKenzie says she is still a very normal person, “which I hope people can understand. I just have experienced different situations that not many experience.”

“Last year, I felt like I was a leader. I tried to keep the team focused on playing hard, like Coleman says, ‘play like boys.’ This year, I wasn’t able to begin practice. I was out of town. Since Christmas I’ve been practicing and trying to build up my strength to be a part of the team again. It’s not easy sitting on the bench and watching my teammates. I am use to playing,” she said.

McKenzie said her team is special because most of the players from this past year’s state championship team have returned.

“I will never forget that game. I remember the first quarter being so intense! Shots were being hit back-to-back. Finally I saw the clock tick down to the last seconds and I still remember dribbling down the court grinning from ear to ear. Coach said, once he saw me smiling, he knew it must be in the bag.” This year, McKenzie shed tears with her teammates.

In the 2008 state tournament run, McKenzie averaged 17 points per game. “That moment was one of the greatest moments of my life. I have been a part of state championship winning teams in tennis, but nothing beats a basketball title because no one thought we could win and that makes it even more special proving them wrong.” She also received the SCISA 2A Player of the Year award for the 2007-08 year.

McKenzie said sometimes she felt she didn't deserve the recognition for being a good athlete, but now realizes that such things can’t be taken for granted.

“I never planned for my senior year to be like this,” she said. This past summer, McKenzie said was one to remember because she spent it in a rehabilitation center in Florida, "because things got too serious."

McKenzie said she really found who she is, met great friends who she keeps in touch with and realizes the problem she struggles with hasn’t left her.
“I still, and will, continue to struggle with this for the rest of my life, but I hope it won’t ever get out of control like it has in the past … I have more knowledge of the problem,” she said.

“Last year, during the season, I felt I helped lead the team. But this year, I feel like I have let them, as well as Coach Coleman, my family and fans, down because I have missed the majority of the season from a misunderstood disease.”

“I have never faced anything so tough to handle in my life,” she said. “I think I have been put in this situation as a test for me. I believe that God won’t make a mountain that I can’t climb, and this is only one of the many steep mountains I have faced, and I expect there to be many more. I feel I am a stronger person from this experience,” she said.

McKenzie plans to attend Clemson University, like her brother Justin-Keith, adding that she is interested in becoming a therapist to try to help people who have struggled with the same problem she has been facing. Pharmacy is another of her interests, she said.

The star athlete gets tons of support from parents Justin and Sheila McKenzie of Lake View and thanks family members and fans for their prayers. “I consider Coach Coleman to be the best coach I have ever had. He knows how to push you to your full potential … he is more than a coach to me, he is like a father, too,” she said.

McKenzie’s other activities at school besides tennis and basketball include her favorite subjects, math and English. And that's because they are “tough classes taught by great teachers,” she said.