Photo courtesy of BlueGoldNews.com Sydney Shaw guards teammate Kylee Blacksten during practice.

MORGANTOWN — All too often we forget that the collegiate athletes who entertain us are more than just robotic performers from within a video game.

They are complex human beings, just as are those of us who sit in the stands to watch or are comfortably seated on our couch or favorite recliner to scream comments at an unhearing television set.

But athletes are made of flesh and blood, just as we are, and they go through the same range of emotions as do fans, and just like fans, they fade similar life dilemmas that are multiplied by the circumstances in which they find themselves.

They are of college age, which we all have been or will be, and it is a time when you think you know everything and really know nothing. It is a period of discovery, both inward and outward discovery.

Sydney Shaw is one such athlete on the West Virginia women’s basketball team which opens its season on Tuesday at the Coliseum, carrying with it a No. 16 national ranking and coming off perhaps the best season it has ever had under new coach Mark Kellogg.

Think of what is playing out within her, having gone from her Miami, Fla. , home to Auburn, then to move into a new city, new state, new home, new locker room, new coach, new teammates, new school. Adjustments had to be made in every area of her life and it had to be done on the run, toss in a basketball trip to Europe with her team, and you understand just what it is like.

Her basketball growth was evident to her, how she has become a smarter player, learned to take care in her shot selection, but there was another side, too.

“Off the court, too, I’ve grown a lot as a person,” she said, cracking open a window that begged to be looked into.

“I had to think about what I was going to bring to the table, because they definitely were going to ask a lot from me. But it was something I asked for. So, it wasn’t so much ‘Oh, my God, they’re asking me to do this?’ It was more ‘Cool, I get to do this now,'” she said of what was going through her mind.

How had she grown?

“Without having to get too deep in here, managing emotions and having the right reactions to certain things that were going on in life; not letting certain parts of your life pour over and not suppressing certain parts of your life that you can’t manage them,” she said.

In other words, she was passing in the world of womanhood.

The help, she said, came from her coaches and a small leadership group that Mark Kellogg had formed for the players he felt had to be the leaders of the team.

“We just talk a lot about looking internally and how you have to lead yourself before you can lead others,” she explained. “It makes you do a whole lot of searching within in those short 30 minutes and that has helped me a lot.”

Maturity is necessary as you progress to being a star athlete.

So much had changed that adjustments had to be made as she settled into her new environment.

“It’s cold. I was wearing my puffer coat like two days ago,” she said, even though this was a rare fall day when the temperatures reached 76 degrees above. “I’ve never been this far north and people are different. The food’s different. I look out the door and it’s very different. When I first moved in here there was like a groundhog outside my door and I was like ‘What is going on?'”

She wasn’t complaining about it, not at all.

“It’s cool. You give me a ball and a court and I’m happy. I like my team. I like my house. There’s not much not to like about West Virginia. The fans are great. It’s been a pretty easy adjustment,” she said.

But she’s normal enough that she misses home.

“I miss the beach, I miss the food, I miss my dog. My stepdad’s Haitian so I always used to get me some Haitian spaghetti and meatballs,” she laughed.

Perhaps someone ought to clue her in on Italian spaghetti and meatballs being pretty good, too.

“My grandma — I hate to say, it sounds so bad, but when I come home, I put her to work. It’s ‘So what are we cooking today? I’ll set the table. I’ll do the dishes. Just please cook.’ That’s what I miss.”

It was not only a new way of life, but basketball had changed for she was on a team that defended first.

“Defense has become a lot more fun for me. I really want to learn more about how to be better instead of just thinking ‘What do I have to do on defense to get back on offense so I can shoot the ball?’ I think my mentality toward defense has changed a lot,” she said.

She had to think that way because defense is where WVU’s success begins and ends.

“We just play off of each other. I’m becoming more defensive minded. I’m watching them, seeing how they get steals, how they get deflections because it’s not something I understand yet. I learn from watching them. I have two great teachers (JJ Quinerly and Jordan Harrison) there. They’re great on defense. I had no choice but to step my game up.”

She’s studied them and learned what makes them a success.

“They dictate on defense. They don’t react. If they want you to go left, you’re going to go left. There’s no coming right,” she said. “I’m a reactor. If you are going to cross over, I’m going to be there, but I didn’t make you do that. They make you do things and I’m just learning the angles and how to be there.”

“She has a great ability to score the basketball, she’s consistently been our best shooter through the summer and through fall and in our scrimmages,” Kellogg said. “She’s really putting the ball in the hole and can do it a variety of ways. She can pull up, she can get going from 3 and we challenge her to get to the rim a little bit more.

But defense?

“She has an ability to be a really good defender, but we have to hold her accountable a little bit more on that end. And she has to hold herself a little bit more accountable. She is going to play a huge role for this team in everything. She’s been everything and more than what we thought we were getting.”