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Future not so fuzzy for Foraker

Playing collegiately is starting to come into focus for the Lecanto senior.

By DAWN REISS
Published December 23, 2005

LECANTO - The college basketball recruiting letters kept coming in, but Melissa Foraker didn't believe they were for her.

Liberty University, Methodist College and Weber International, among others. They cluttered her bedroom and lay on the bathroom sink, water stained from brushing her teeth in the morning. She has looked at some. Many have been thrown away. She hasn't responded to any of them.

"I thought it was just random mail that is sent to everybody," said Foraker, a Lecanto senior shooting guard. "I didn't think I was a special person."

It wasn't until Methodist University coach DeeDee Jarman called a few weeks ago that Foraker started taking the letters more seriously.

"I was surprised," Foraker said. "I couldn't believe she called me."

And when Jarman asked if Foraker filled out the college entrance application she had sent ...

"I told her I lost it because I didn't want to tell her I threw it away," Foraker said.

"I never realized it was a possibility. I knew I was good enough to play basketball in college, but I never thought I was smart enough. I thought you had to be a genius to go to college. I just didn't know."

The Air Force seemed like a more viable option than college, not because she really wants to go, she said, but because it's free.

"Coach (Ron Allan) tells me all the time, "we've got to get you ready for college,' " said Foraker, who works as a cook at Cody's Original Roadhouse in Crystal River. "He made me realize I can go."

Grades have never come easily for Foraker. She struggles with standardized testing. She doesn't know her grade point average, just that it is better than a 2.0, the school minimum to play basketball.

"I've never had anybody push me," said Foraker, who lives in Homosassa. "I know I would have a lot better GPA if I knew you had to have a certain GPA to get into college."

Her mother, Abba Efcue, said she has tried to tell Foraker going to college means a chance at having a better job, a better future. "If it weren't for basketball, she wouldn't still be in school," Efcue said.

Foraker said there is a lot more to her than most people think, much more than just basketball.

She would like to be a crime scene investigator or a physical therapist. She's also an artist.

Of course, she has made a name for herself on the court. Foraker leads the Panthers in scoring, averaging 14 points, with a whopping 44 field goal percentage. She was having a breakout season last year - scoring 36 against Leesburg - before rolling her right ankle in gym class, which sidelined her nine games. Then she injured her left ankle in AAU basketball at the beginning of the summer.

Both injuries kept her off the court almost eight months. Tentatively, she returned this season. She scored 21 against West Port and 20 against Dunnellon, but said she hasn't had a "break-out game.". Her aggressiveness and ability to shoot a jump shot anywhere have made her a versatile part of the Panthers offense.

"She has the ability to play at the next level," Allan said. "She just has to try and improve her grades. ... When you get to be 30-, 40-years-old and an opportunity passed you by, you don't want to say, "should have, would have, could have.' "

[Last modified December 23, 2005, 01:13:18]