At most basketball games, you will see some embarrassing halftime shows when they bring someone from the stands onto the court to try to make a shot. If someone makes the “Hail Mary” shot from midcourt, they usually walk away with a T-shirt or a box of frozen pizzas. While the odds are stacked up against anyone who walks out on that court, the odds that someone from the stands would actually walk out and suit up for the Gators are simply astronomical.
Then, of course, there’s Steffi Sorensen. A junior guard this season for the Gators, Sorensen spent the entire season playing at Santa Fe College, a nearby junior college, and attending every women’s basketball home game, all 23 of them.
“Last year at Santa Fe, I’d pick up the Alligator (the Florida student newspaper) every morning and read about the team,” Sorensen said. “And me and my teammates would come to every home game. I remember telling my mom, ‘Don’t you think I could go out there and play?’”
Well, Sorensen certainly could even though she didn’t earn a lot of looks coming out of Jacksonville Bartram Trail High School. Instead, she went to Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers,
FLORIDA GAME DAY
Gators women visit Baton Rouge hoping to rebound after loss at Vanderbilt
What: No. 9 Florida (22-3, 8-2 SEC) at Louisiana State (12-9, 5-4 SEC)
When: Today at 1 p.m. ET.
Where: Pete Maravich Assembly Center (13,468), Baton Rouge, La.
TV: FSN Florida (Dave Neal, play-by-play; Carol Ross, color analyst).
Radio: WRUF-AM 850 (Steve Babik, play-by-play; Steve Russell, color analyst).
where she averaged 14.5 points and 5.2 rebounds a game while shooting almost 40 percent from beyond the 3-point arch for the Eagles, who were the No. 1 team all season and finished 34-1 after losing the NCAA Division II national championship game to Southern Connecticut State.
She then transferred to Santa Fe College, where she appeared in 23 of 27 games, averaging 14.1 points, 6.9 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 3.0 steals per game while shooting 45 percent from the field, including 40 percent from the 3-point line.
“Not putting down my high school or AAU teams,” the 5-10 Sorensen said. “I didn’t really have the big opportunities to go to these showcases and tournaments where you had Pat (Summitt, the Tennessee coach) or Geno (Auriemma, the coach of Connecticut) walking around scouting you,” she said. “(After) last year, my options were either a full ride to South Florida or walk on here. I wanted to play, (so) it didn’t matter if there was a scholarship.”
With the loss of junior guard Jennifer Mossor earlier in the year, Sorensen has stepped up, big leading the team in 3-pointers made (61) and is second only to leading scorer Sha Brooks in minutes played.
Her contributions have certainly been a pleasant surprise for the Gators, but even more so for Sorensen who admits she was star struck when she first arrived on campus.
“Over the summer, I was just like ‘I can’t believe I’m here,’” she said. “I used to come to all the games last year, and coach (Amanda) Butler seemed so surreal from the stands. But I just kept telling myself, ‘You’re just as good as everyone else, you need to start competing and stop watching and taking a backseat to everyone else.’”
Her work ethic and desire has led many around Florida basketball to draw comparisons between Sorensen and Butler, who earned a reputation as a lights-out shooter and bulldog defender in her four years at Florida (1990-1994).
And like Butler, Sorensen could end up in the Florida record books by season’s end. She currently has a streak of 20 consecutive games with a 3-pointer, which is second on the list to Brandi McCain, who had a 30-game streak in 2001. Having shot 43.3 percent from downtown this season, Sorensen is also threatening the UF record for 3-point field-goal percentage, which stands at 44.3 percent.
Sorensen doesn’t plan on slowing down any time soon.
“I came in here and I had something to prove,” she said. “I’m not going to let anybody tell me that I wasn’t good enough to play here, because pretty much people have been telling me that my whole life. They said that I was too slow, I wasn’t athletic enough, (that) all I did was shoot. I couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that.”
Steffi Sorensen has proven the doubters wrong.