MSUB SPORTS – "This is crazy, but I don't know why I would have to wait a day or a month, or any amount of time before I tell him this is where I want to play," Shannon Reny said, looking back towards Alterowitz Gym. With encouragement from her mother Renee Rose, Reny walked right back into Kevin Woodin's office, which she had left just minutes earlier, and gave her verbal commitment.
 
Stories of four-year collegiate basketball athletes tend to focus on their game— points, assists, steals, minutes— but the story of Shannon Reny is something different altogether. "We hit it off— maybe that was the Libby connection," the long-time Montana State University Billings women's basketball head coach said with a smile as he recounts Reny's visit to MSUB. "She walked back in here a few minutes later and accepted the offer. That meant a lot to me and showed how much she wanted to be here."
 
Reny grew up in small-town Montana, tucked away into the northwest corner of the state. With a population of fewer than 3,000 residents, Libby is no bustling city nor mecca of basketball. When Reny graduated from Libby High School, she walked across the stage with a mere 67 other students.
 
Following a trend that seems recurrent in Reny's life, her path to college basketball was an unconventional one. Reny grew up as a dual-sport athlete in Libby, playing both basketball and soccer. Soccer was heavily

favored, however, as Reny admired her two older brothers who played and she eventually fell in love with goalkeeping.
 
As Libby was such a small town, soccer opportunities were limited. Reny took the task on without complaint, and come her junior year of high school, had worked her way into a larger club team out of Kalispell. This team was finally an all-girls team competing at Reny's current age level that provided more opportunities to develop her game. Reny planned on playing with them through her junior and senior years of high school before graduating and continuing on to collegiate soccer.
 
Set with a plan to go and play soccer at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, Reny continued on playing both soccer and basketball for her high school. Then, in February of 2017, a few months before the end of her junior year, tragedy struck.
 
After tearing her ACL and facing a recovery time of 6-9 months, Reny realized her path to collegiate sports might not pan out exactly how she had planned. High school soccer is a fall sport in Montana, and Reny knew she would not be back in time to play her senior season. "I realized that it was not the best path. I didn't feel excited about going to play college soccer after taking a year off," Reny said as she recalled looking down the tunnel of ACL recovery. Reny would, however, be back in time for her senior season of basketball, and decided to play her final season before graduating from high school sports.
 
Returning to the hardwood for her final prep season turned out to be one of the most significant decisions of her athletic career. "Have you ever thought about playing college basketball?" queried Wally Winslow, Reny's high school basketball coach.
 
"You're crazy," was Reny's reply.
 
Winslow continued to push Reny to consider collegiate basketball and mentioned Montana State University Billings, the school where his son Jared played baseball at. Reny eventually decided to reach out to Coach Woodin about MSUB women's basketball.
 
Reny visited MSUB the July before her senior year of high school. "I had just gone on a visit to Mary and had really loved it, and I had other visits scheduled to some other colleges the following weekends as well," Reny recalls. After two days in Billings visiting current players and meeting with Coach Woodin, Reny was walking back through the tunnel from the Physical Education Building with a collegiate basketball offer in one hand, and a ticking clock worth a month's time to make a decision in the other.
 
Reny climbed into the passenger seat as her mom started the car to begin their eight-hour drive back home to Libby. The stir of the engine and prospect of heading home paused Reny, however, and she turned to her mother in the driver's seat.
 
Moments later, Reny had given her verbal commitment to play basketball at MSUB. "I can confidently say four years later that was the best gut decision I ever made."
 
Woodin, who has been the women's basketball head coach for 18 years, too is a native of Libby, Montana. Woodin and Reny played in the same blue and yellow-clad high school gym, repping the Libby Loggers jersey. "Once I heard she was from Libby that triggered excitement for me," Woodin recalled. "Everyone spoke so highly of Shannon." Their hometown connection allowed Woodin to reach out to individuals that overlapped his and Reny's lives to check out Reny as a basketball player and individual. Positive assessments of Reny's character compelled Coach Woodin to offer Reny a spot on the team, a decision that four years later, he and Reny both smile about when discussing.
 
 
GROWTH ON THE HARDWOOD
 
Reny didn't come in as an All-American starter on the team, and she completed her freshman season having played in 7 of 26 games that season with a total of 15 minutes played.
 
Due to this, Reny had to try and find ways to establish herself on the team both on and off the court. For those living in the residence halls with Reny during her freshman and sophomore years, it wasn't uncommon to see Reny making the trek back from Alterowitz Gym through the student union building, covered in sweat from the extra practice she was putting in to develop her game.
 
Reny's commitment and perseverance on the court were rewarded, as just a year later during her sophomore season Reny more than doubled her games played and exponentially increased her minutes, playing in 15 of 24 games and tallying 94 minutes in a trend that has only increased upward throughout her career.
 
While Reny put in the work to improve her game, she also recognized that there was a larger impact to be made. This led Reny to take a deeper look at what leadership truly looks like. "We play 40-minute games twice a week, so that's 80 minutes a week that I would impact the team on the court," said Reny. "That is less time than we spend in a single practice. I understood pretty quickly that there was so much time in each day to lead and support my team in other ways."
 
In the same way Rent grew as an athlete, she also grew as a leader both on her team and in the greater MSUB community.
 
"As a freshman, I had a lot of guidance from Taylor Edwards and Vanessa Stavish," Reny noted, discussing the struggles she faced on the court during the start of her career. "My upperclassmen were always reaching out to me and pulling me in. When I reflect back on it now I realize I was kind of inside myself."
 
Coming into herself would be a journey Reny continued all through her four years, but her growth as a leader and athlete has been displayed for all to see.
 
"I kind of just fell into the role." The summer before Reny's junior year, she received a call from Coach Woodin. The only senior on the squad had entered the transfer portal, and the team was left without a captain. "Kevin called me and asked me to assume the role of captain for at least the summertime and see how it went."
 
For Reny, the leadership position seemed to just fall into her lap, but to Coach Woodin, it was a calculated decision. "Shannon is a tremendous leader. If I was to put together the Mount Rushmore of leaders from our basketball program over the years, I would put Shannon right up there."


 
As Woodin discussed Shannon's journey to captainship, the glimmer of tears reflected in his eyes. He sees Reny's dedication to her team and role as the mark of a truly special person. Continuing his reflection on the great leaders during his almost two decades at MSUB, Woodin remarked, "the thing that is more amazing about that is Shannon has never been a starter or played very many minutes. The other people I'm referring to as some of my great leaders of my past teams were all multi-year starters who played a lot of minutes, and for Shannon to be talked about in the same breadth of them just shows how much character she has and how dedicated she is to our program."
 
Coming into the 2021-22 season, Woodin's confidence in Reny was reinforced as the team elected her captain for her second and final year in the program by a majority vote. Reny has now played in all 25 games, tallying 244 minutes with an additional two games and the Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament still left to play. Earlier this spring, Reny earned academic all-conference accolades for the third time in her collegiate career as well.

Reny's Yellowjackets (16-9, 10-3 GNAC) look to close the regular season strongly this weekend, playing at Central Washington on Thursday at 5:15 p.m. (PST) and at Northwest Nazarene on Saturday at 5:15 p.m. (MTN). Live coverage for the games can be found online here.
 
On top of the leadership Reny has displayed within her own team, she has also been president of MSUB's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) for two years. In her role as president, Reny leads MSUB student-athletes in representing the school and athletes' thoughts and opinions on NCAA regulations, rules, and policies that impact collegiate sports at the Division II level and relays MSUB athletes' opinions to both conference and national level committees. As president, she also helps organize community service events such as the SAAC Food Drive.
 
 
THE PROCESS OF DISCOVERY
 
What is truly remarkable about Reny's story is that her achievements, dedication, and leadership extend far beyond the hardwood of Alterowitz Gym.  Reny's personal journey was not untouched by struggles and triumphs, much like she saw on the court. "Throughout my journey at MSUB, I was asking myself some big questions, many that were difficult and scary."
 
Coming into college, anxieties contributed to her sense of being "inside herself" and feeling that her identity was obfuscated from her own view and others. "When I came into college, I felt like I was standing on some pointy mountain peak where I was trying to balance everything and show no flaws. I struggled with a lot of thoughts of anxiety and perfectionism."
 
A part of this anxiety was understanding her sexuality. During her sophomore year of college, Reny wrote an essay that chronicled her coming to terms with her sexuality and how that piece of her fit into her life. While Reny now notes that recognizing her own sexuality was a small portion of understanding her identity, it was an integral step forward in her personal journey.
 
In the fall of 2020, Reny found another avenue to expand her sense of identity and how this growing selfhood integrated into her own life and the lives of others. Reny had heard about a sports journalism internship with Pacific-12 Conference football analysts Yogi Roth and Ashley Adamson. While the internship was intended for PAC12 athletes, Reny was accepted into the program. The internship spanned the fall semester and namely focused on the necessity of telling one's own story before another's.
 
The internship's flagship was the idea of developing one's "second sentence." Instead of simply saying your name and what sport you play or the school you represent, the internship encouraged attendees to consider their identity more deeply and explore how they might verbalize it. The group met via zoom and oftentimes focused on reflective activities that encouraged development and conversations about identity and storytelling. At the end of the internship, Reny had developed her own second sentence, but also gained deeper and further-reaching insights.
 
Reny reflected on this internship and her essay as turning points not only in her own growth and identity, but also in her ability to draw and learn from other stories. What Reny learned was the power of connection through vulnerability and storytelling. "By owning my story I have been able to reach out, connect, and build relationships with other people in bigger and better ways," Reny says as she discusses her journey through the internship and last four years.
 
Reny found that by listening to others' stories, she was able to further understand her own.
"I kept finding small snippets of myself in these other stories." In the latter part of Reny's four years at MSUB, she continued to plug in these lessons from other stories to places beyond her 'second sentence,' seeing how the vulnerability of storytelling improved her life and how she might be able to radiate that outwards.
 
This vulnerability that Reny drew from these lessons became a centerpiece in her quest to build connections and cultivate genuine relationships. In that vulnerability, Reny also came to learn that accepting flaws and mistakes makes people human, and this common humanity is what brings people together. As Reny reflects back on her personal growth, saying, "finally owning the fact that I am not perfect and have no desire to be, and that some of my shortcomings and flaws are going to be anchor points and beginnings to beautiful friendships in my life have been the coolest part of my college career."
 
 
Reny now speaks more freely about her own story and actively pursues vulnerable conversations. As she realized that others' stories helped her develop her own selfhood, she now recognizes that by sharing her own story and being transparent, she has the potential to impact others. "Who was I to not share my story with others and maybe let someone else take a little part of my story out that would help them?"
 
Reny's struggles and fight to overcome them have played heavily into the relationships and skills she developed as a leader on the court and among peers. Reny now encourages others to "lean into uncertainty" and delve into their own stories.  "I had questions that were really scary for me to try and unpack," Reny said. "The only way that I was about to get rid of the anxiety was to meet it head-on and have those difficult conversations with myself." Reny encourages others who are struggling or simply trying to understand themselves better to do the same and remain curious about their own story and the stories of others.
 
LAWYER IN THE MAKING
 
Reny's impending graduation too is different than she had initially imagined. Reny declared herself as a health and human performance major after spending the first semester taking a mix of education courses and HHP courses. Reny was guided by a desire to pursue a career that helped people and built relationships. Due to a positive experience with her physical therapist when rehabbing her ACL, Reny felt that the field was a place she could positively impact lives while studying material she enjoyed.
 
Come the beginning of her junior year, Reny was on track to enter physical therapy school upon her graduation in 2022 and was prepping for a successful career. However, with the stresses of COVID-19 and a world turned upside-down, Reny began to question if being a physical therapist was the right path for her. "I realized that the biggest part about physical therapy that I was excited about was the relationship building." After doing job shadowing in the physical therapy realm, Reny felt that it limited her ability to have the deep and expansive conversations with people that she desired. "I wanted conversations that asked big questions," Reny said, desiring interactions that might cover topics such as climate change and social justice.
 
This thought led to a drastic shift in Reny's path coming out of college. "All the conversation and energy and change that the year 2020 was got me motivated and it sparked something in me." Eventually, this led Reny to the field of environmental law. Reny decided to pick up a political science minor over her last two years at MSUB and decided to apply to law school to pursue the deep connections that she has so steadily sought the past four years.
 
Reny believes this change in career paths reflects her own personal growth and will allow her to continue developing impactful relationships beyond the halls and hardwood court of MSUB.
 
Reny will walk across the stage this spring and graduate with a health and human performance major and political science minor. After graduation, she will go to Portland to attend Lewis and Clark College's Northwestern School of Law, which is often ranked as one of the top schools in the nation for environmental law.
 
SHANNON'S SECOND SENTENCE

Reny's passage through hardship to growth is one that will extend beyond her four years at MSUB. But during the beginning stretch of this journey, Reny credits much of her success to the people around her. "I want to express my gratitude to everyone at the school and in the community for creating a space for me to do so much seeking, exploring, and growing over these past four years."
 
Reny returns often to her basketball career as a microcosm for her larger development as a person. "My story is really all about identity and connections, and basketball is just the vehicle that I get to use right now in my life to develop those connections, especially from spots of vulnerability." This understanding helped Reny during her sports journalism internship, and with the larger goal of the internship. In fact, Reny's career as a Yellowjacket has, in a way, been a search for that elusive second sentence. The beginning of understanding her own depth as an individual.
 
 
"I'm Shannon Reny, senior on the MSUB women's basketball team."
 
Reny now looks at that statement and says, "So what? So what you're a college basketball player?" After years of searching and reflecting both inward and outward, Reny has an answer.
 

"I am an athlete. I am an athlete whose goal it is to let the lessons I've learned in sport – lessons of resiliency and lessons of human connection – bleed into the rest of my life.
 
In my story, human connection is the beginning and start of it all. From human connection comes deep humility and empathy and it is from these two feelings that I want to conduct my life.
 
I want to spend my life using this empathy and humility to meet people where they are and push them towards their passion in their own life. Through the ups and downs, triumphs and defeats of life, I want my life to be a source of hope, help, and inspiration.
 
My story is a story of seeking. Seeking those people and that connection to elevate my own perspective and create a fuller life. And when that happens, and my perspective begins to change, I want to give myself full permission to continuously ask questions, be curious and be okay with that uncertainty, for it is that uncertainty that is the true bedrock of seeking."

 
As Reny completes her four years of collegiate ball and her undergraduate degree this spring, Wally Winslow, Kevin Woodin, teammates current and previous, and her family can all sit back and smile knowing they played a role in giving MSUB a person and player whose legacy of strength, connection, and integrity will inspire for years to come.
   

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Clare Keenan is in her first year as a media relations intern in the Yellowjacket Athletics Department. Keenan completed her second season on the MSUB women's soccer team in the fall of 2021, and has played in 22 matches throughout her career. She is an English major who earned second-team all-conference honors and academic all-conference recognition during the fall of 2021 as well.