Teen’s Hoop Dreams Come True

These are exciting times for Courtney LaVere, and not just because the Buena High School senior has been named to the first-ever McDonald’s All American girls’ basketball team.

Morning radio show personalities are set to visit her Ventura high school today for interviews. She’s headed to a Lakers game Tuesday, where she and other All Americans will be introduced at halftime.

Then there’s an upcoming trip to New York, to the inaugural girls’ game between the east and west high school all-stars April 4 at Madison Square Garden. The game will follow a week’s worth of events, including scheduled appearances on the “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” and the CBS “Early Show.”

“It’s all so cool,” said LaVere, 18, who led all Ventura County scorers this season, averaging 28 points per game. That, plus a stellar academic record, earned her a scholarship to Notre Dame.

“We are really making history right now,” she said of the McDonald’s selection. “It’s such an honor. I didn’t know basketball could take me to such great things.”

Success has been a long time in the making. She started playing basketball in second grade and received her first college recruitment letter, from the University of Nebraska, while in junior high.

This season, at girls’ basketball powerhouse Buena High, she scored 30 or more points seven times, including a school record 45 against Newbury Park.

Last month, the 6-foot-3 center was selected to play in the Phoenix/WBCA High School All-America Game on April 6 in Hartford, Conn. That was followed weeks later by news of her selection to the McDonald’s team. She is one of 48 high school athletes--out of a nationwide pool of 2,500--chosen for the boys’ and girls’ squads.

“She’s handling all of this with quite a bit of modesty,” said her father, Marty LaVere, who played college basketball for the University of Redlands. “We’re very proud of her.”

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the McDonald’s boys’ All American game, a basketball tradition that benefits charity and gives some of the best high school talent in the country their first taste of prime-time exposure.

Some of the NBA’s biggest stars have played in the game, including Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Shaquille O’Neal. And this year’s girls’ game could be a jumping off point for future stars of the WNBA.

“Not only is it the 25th anniversary of the game, but the first-ever girls’ game,” said UCLA basketball coaching legend John Wooden, who will speak to the players at a formal dinner at Tavern on the Green. “For the 48 final team members, being selected is really a dream come true.”

LaVere, who serves this year as senior class vice president, does not know yet whether professional basketball will be her dream come true. If the WNBA comes calling, she said she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity.

But with the prom and graduation coming up and summer school at Notre Dame on the horizon, she is trying not to get too far ahead of the moments at hand.

“I have so much going on, right now I’m trying not to take anything too fast,” she said. “I need to cherish these moments with high school friends and high school memories.”