.BYUWBB guard KayleeSmiler and her older sister, Kendall, used to kill time by making up dances at home in New Zealand. Now she's sharing her culture with the entire school and women's basketball team.
Smiler gets homesick often, she said. She’s the first in her family to attend college in the United States, and the first to receive a Division I scholarship. One of her uncles paid for her plane ticket to the states, and other families from her community paid for her luggage and a new pair of basketball shoes.So anything she can do that reminds of her upbringing is helpful. One of those things was participating in the BYU Luau last year, which for the first time featured a Māori section.
Although it took up much of her already limited free time and caused her some stress, Smiler’s passion for it made all that worthwhile, she said. The performance occurred on Nov. 16 and 17 while the team played in a showcase in Hawaii, so she wasn’t in attendance. But she did arrange a dress rehearsal and invited her teammates and others around the BYU athletic program.
Smiler’s culture will soon make its way onto the team’s wardrobe. During a preseason barbecue, as part of their discussion of the new team motto, coach Amber Whiting asked every player to write how they will beAll Smiler could think of writing was part of a Māori whakatauki, or proverb, that translates to, “Strip the bark of the tree so only the core remains.” The team loved the saying so much that it wanted to display it on new warmup shirts, which will also feature Māori designs.
Smiler has been on the women’s basketball team for five seasons, and still has a year of eligibility left due to the COVIVD-19 year. She’s averaging 8.8 points, 2.0 assists and 2.0 rebounds in nearly 36 minutes per game after coming back from a fractured left tibia.
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