Basketball
Favorite athlete: Lebron James
Favorite team: Cleveland Cavaliers
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the SOL championship three years of my high school career.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I was dribbling the ball up the court, and fans from the other team started yelling “3,2,1” when there was actually still three minutes left on the clock, but I didn’t know and I chucked up a shot from half court and missed. I also got gum on the back of my new shorts for my school team that won’t come out.
Music on iPod: Electronic, Modern Pop
Future plans: Go to Ursinus College and graduate
Words to live by: “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is enough.”
One goal before turning 30: Be successful with a job I like and be happy.
One thing people don’t know about me: I can touch my nose with my tongue.
By Mary Jane Souder
Morgan Goldenbaum might want to seriously consider a career in human relations.
Neshaminy’s senior captain has a unique understanding of the importance of team dynamics and has adopted a leadership style that would translate well into the workplace.
Goldenbaum, it turns out, has never forgotten what it felt like to be a freshman on a varsity loaded with upperclassmen. She filed that experience away and, as a senior, joined forces with fellow captain - junior Devon Storms - to make a conscious effort to ensure that everyone, no matter their grade, would feel a part of the team.
“I think Morgan had a vision of what she would like to see that transition be like when she became a senior, and she really never forgot that,” coach Joe Lally said. “I think it’s more treating the freshmen and other kids like they belong.
“Not that it didn’t happen in the past, but I think it’s something she made a focal point – ‘I’m going to make sure these kids feel accepted' and they know that. I watch how she feeds (freshmen) Ali Harvey and Brooke Mullin the ball as if they were (the senior star) when she was a freshman.”
Goldenbaum’s intentional efforts to be inclusive are not because she had a bad experience as a freshman on the varsity – she didn’t, but she has not forgotten the rough days, the days when she would leave practice feeling very much like a rookie.
“It was intimidating,” she said. “I remember there were times when I actually went home really upset because I didn’t think they liked me or that I was doing things wrong.
“It ended up working out – I ended up being close with some of them, and it was a great experience, but it really made me think about how I was upset for them judging me because I was a freshman and how I wished I was treated as if I was the same age as them. But that’s how it is in high school, and I’m not really a fan of that, so I wanted to focus on welcoming them.
“If we had a great player come on the team, make them feel great, make them feel like they’re going to make a huge impact on this team. No matter what grade in high school - it’s only a couple of years different. I welcome them because I think that’s what everyone deserves.”
It’s not a coincidence that freshmen Allison Harvey and Brooke Mullin are excelling in that environment.
“It’s been fantastic,” said Harvey, the team’s leading scorer (13.2 ppg). “Getting the support from the returning players, especially if we don’t play the best in certain games, knowing they have our backs – it’s amazing.
“I can speak for myself – their support has helped my confidence grow on the court. I’m more confident with making the plays, and if I make a mistake, I know they have my back.
“If they would have treated us like freshmen or given us the cold shoulder just because we were on the varsity team, it would have changed things drastically.”
As it is, the Redskins – thanks in no small part to the seamless addition of Harvey and Mullin to the varsity lineup - have clinched a share of the SOL National Conference title with two games remaining in the league season.
“With Ali and her shooting – she has great friendships with all of us now,” Goldenbaum said. “She makes so many shots for us, and if she was treated different, maybe she wouldn’t have the confidence to take all those shots. Brooke too – everything she does out on the court and starting for us is huge. I think that’s definitely helped on and off the court.”
If her unique leadership style was all that Goldenbaum brought to the court, the senior captain would have immense value, but it’s much more than that. She is the Redskins’ undisputed floor general and leads the team in rebounding (6.5 rpg), assists (4.1 apg) and steals (2.9 spg). She also is averaging just over 10 points a game, but it’s playing defense that Goldenbaum enjoys most.
“As a freshman and sophomore, she wasn’t the point guard, and she was constantly guarding a four or five because she was a little bit taller,” Lally said. “We used Morgan all over the floor. She could have been guarding a four one night and a one the next night and continued to excel.
“It’s still very infrequent that Morgan guards the other team’s point guard. If we’re playing man defense, she is generally guarding the three, four or five. She’s been so versatile over her four years. It’s been pretty special. It’s great for a coach to have a player like that.”
*****
Community basketball and soccer both entered the picture around the same time for Goldenbaum. And it wasn’t long before she was playing travel soccer and AAU basketball.
“I always liked both of them the same,” she said. “I could never choose.”
Around eighth grade, the scales began to tip in favor of basketball.
“I played soccer my freshman year and played basketball too,” Goldenbaum said. “A little bit before that – I knew I liked AAU basketball better than I liked travel soccer. That’s when I really decided I wanted to play just basketball.
“I liked how in basketball there’s always a score during the game. In soccer, you could play an entire game and it still could be 0-0, and it feels like a waste of time sometimes.”
In fourth grade, Goldenbaum joined New Hope-Solebury coach Andy Krasna’s Pennsbury AAU team, playing up a year in age group. Last year, when her Lightening squad lost most of its players because of age limitations, she played for the Rebels out of Lower Bucks County.
Goldenbaum – along with AAU teammate Erin Lindahl, a senior at Germantown Academy – also trained with Jesse Krasna since fifth grade. She reaped the benefits for her efforts when she earned a spot on the varsity as a freshman.
“I recall her playing soccer and seeing her come into the gym for our open workouts,” said Lally, who took over the helm when Goldenbaum was a freshman. “Just shooting the ball around, I thought, ‘Wow, this kid is going to be pretty good.’
“I think almost every year we’ve asked her to change her role. As a freshman, she came in and was maybe the second kid and sometimes the third kid off the bench, and she produced really well several times which made her the first kid off the bench. She always was a kid that gave us good minutes no matter how many minutes we gave her. She excelled and did well as a role player in that atmosphere.”
As a sophomore, Goldenbaum became a fixture in the starting lineup and last year took over the point guard duties. This year’s conference crown is the program’s third in four years for Goldenbaum.
“She’s really, really done well,” Lally said. “The four years – it’s been a pleasure, and she’s going to be missed for many reasons, not just on the floor.
“Morgan and Devon Storms have kind of made sure the ship stayed on some kind of course and paid attention to some of our team goals. The two of them have done a really good job. They’ve just embraced these kids through summer workouts like they’d played with them forever. That’s when we started thinking behind the scenes, ‘This could be a pretty cool year if they bond the way it looks like they’re bonding.’”
Goldenbaum, an honors student, will continue her basketball career at Ursinus College where she plans to major in exercise and health physiology with a career goal of one day becoming a physical therapist or dietician.
“There was a point last year where I wasn’t sure exactly if I was going to play in college because some of the schools that were interested in me – I didn’t like the area and I didn’t want to go to school for basketball if I didn’t like the school itself,” Goldenbaum said. “I was lucky to find Ursinus – it feels homey to me.
“That fact that it’s only an hour from my house makes it a little easier. I think it’s a good fit.”
For now, Goldenbaum is enjoying every minute of her final high school season, playing for a Redskins squad that has not lost since dropping its first three games of the season.
“It’s so much fun,” she said. “I’m so close with all the girls on the team. For this to be my senior year and be able to be the first year that so far we’re undefeated in the league is all I could ask for.”
