Basketball, Track & Field
Favorite athlete: I don’t really have one, actually.
Favorite team: Princeton Tigers
Favorite memory competing in sports: I have two (both high school basketball): junior year when we beat North for the first time in school history and I scored my 1,000th point, or this past season when we clinched our first league title at home on Senior Night. Both of these were amazing nights, and my memories of them will always be some of my favorites.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When money fell out of a teammate’s shorts during a game, or this past summer when I accidentally brought two left shoes to a game (and played in them).
Music on iPod: A lot of Sara Bareilles, Jack Johnson, and Billy Joel. But a little bit of everything.
Future plans: Attend Princeton. That’s my only concrete future plan. Possible plans: lead an environmental campaign, move out West, travel the world, run a marathon.
Words to live by: ‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You are who you are. And you know what you know. You are the one who’ll decide where to go.’ –Dr. Seuss
One goal before turning 30: Become a regular at a restaurant (‘the usual?’ ‘yep’)
One thing people don’t know about me: My favorite movie is Mulan
Mention the name Alex Wheatley to North Penn basketball coach Maggie deMarteleire, and the veteran coach smiles as she recounts a conversation with her players about the Council Rock South senior star.
“They were saying, ‘She’s the best player on the team, and you want to hate her, but you can’t because she’s so nice,’” deMarteleire recalled. “To me, she had to be one of the most pleasurable players to coach.”
Pleasurable hardly covers it.
Wheatley is the very definition of a scholar-athlete, earning all-state honors in basketball in each of the last two years while rewriting the record books at South. Off the court, she is a National Merit Scholar, the vice president of National Honor Society and is ranked in the top 10 percent of her class with a 4.422 GPA. This despite a course load that includes five AP classes this year.
She is the president of the Environmental Action Club and was the flute section leader in the concert band. In other words, Wheatley does it all, and she does it all extremely well.
“Coaching her was a great experience,” Rock South coach Monica Stolic said. “You would think kids like her who were first team all-state as a junior would be cocky.
“I never saw her disrespect anyone – an opponent, a referee, a coach. She was just so easygoing. I never saw her rattled.”
Wheatley was the definition of poise under pressure. When the Golden Hawks needed a play, the senior center delivered. She closed out her career with the records for most points (1,771), most rebounds (1,288), most assists (464), most steals (343) and most free throws made (299).
“That kid was so fundamentally sound and unselfish almost to a fault,” deMarteleire said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a post player with better footwork than hers. She made everybody better because you had to pay so much attention to her, and other people got wide open looks. Defensively, she never takes a second off. You just love that kind of player.
“You never saw anything negative from her. She has class, she has sportsmanship, and she’s just a dream player. Her parents did a great job.”
Wheatley, according to her coach, had a relentless work ethic.
“She was averaging a double-double, but she was always – I need to get better,” Stolic said. “She made everybody on the floor a better player.
“She did it all, and it came natural to her.”
Stolic, who came on board the same year as Wheatley, was dazzled by her future star the moment she saw her in action at an open gym the summer before Wheatley’s freshman year.
“She was so athletic, and her arm length – it’s funny because my two assistants were there, and they said ‘When she waves her arms, it’s like an angel’ because her arms were so long,” Stolic recalled. “We used to refer to her as our angel. Little did we know.”
Wheatley transformed a struggling program that had won just five games the year preceding her arrival to one that won 15 and earned a spot in districts when she was a freshman.
Although she went on to excel, Wheatley admits it was a bit intimidating initially.
“I’m kind of a nervous personality anyway, and I remember going to open gyms the summer before my freshman year and just being so nervous because these were high school girls,” she said. “They were older, they were bigger, they were stronger, and they played differently than my AAU team played, but it was good for me.”
Wheatley – the best player on the court as a freshman, according to her coach - admits she was a reluctant shooter during her rookie season.
“I thought – I shouldn’t be shooting. Other people must have a better shot, and they would probably make their shot whereas I would not,” Wheatley said.
Wheatley’s reluctance to shoot didn’t last long, thanks to an interesting plan by Stolic, who made the entire team run suicides if her freshman center passed up an open shot during practice.
“Those weren’t really fun,” Wheatley said. “Everybody ran, and that was the worst part. If I had to just run by myself, that would be one thing, but she made everyone run wind sprints, and that was horrible, but it turned things around, so it was a good strategy, I guess.”
By the time Wheatley was a sophomore, the Golden Hawks had earned a coveted berth in the state tournament, advancing to the second round. This year, the Golden Hawks were 27-3, captured their first ever SOL National Conference crown and advanced to the state quarterfinals.
“As a freshman, she was this quiet kid that didn’t want to shoot the ball to this kid that turned our program around,” Stolic said.
Wheatley was born in Kansas, moved to Colorado when she was four years old and then moved to Pennsylvania when she was nine, moves necessitated by her father’s job. She has been playing basketball since she was in kindergarten.
“I remember going to clinics and learning how to dribble and pass and getting very frustrated because I was not good at it at all,” Wheatley said.
The days of ‘not being good’ didn’t last long. By the time she was in elementary school, Wheatley was playing AAU basketball, always playing up a year. In seventh grade, she joined the Philly Belles and stayed with that organization for the duration.
“I have been blessed with very good coaches,” Wheatley said. “They have all taught me a part of the game and a way of playing. All players are representations of their coaches, and I have been blessed to have some really good ones.”
While Wheatley is best known for her accomplishments on the basketball court, she also excelled in track, finishing third in high jump in the SOL National Conference Championships and competing with the 4x800 relay at districts. The relay team established a new school record.
“Track is not so much your competition, it’s your time,” Wheatley said. “I like to run, I like to sprint. I’ve had a lot of friends who do track with me.
“I was really sad when I took off my spikes for the last time. I’m really sad that it’s over.”
Wheatley’s high school athletic career may be over, but the memories will stay with her forever.
“Sports are a defining part of high school,” Wheatley said. “As great as the games were, I’ll remember the teams and the players that were with you at practices, the bus rides and pasta parties.
“I’ll remember the spirit of competition. There were the (Rock) North games that everyone got so riled up for. You made the t-shirts, and it was such a big deal. In track meets, it was the spirit of competition.
“In AAU basketball, you don’t have that. Every tournament is just another tournament. In high school, things matter so much more. You’re representing your school. It’s more than – okay, I have to practice twice a week for this. It’s – okay, I’ve put in two hours every day since November for this. Everything just means so much more, and that’s what I’ll remember.”
If pressed to choose the highlights, Wheatley recalls several
“For me, I wouldn’t remember a game, I would remember a moment,” she said. “I remember standing at the foul line when there were 10 or 20 seconds left the first time we beat North. Everyone was starting to cheer, and I was like, ‘No, it’s not over yet. You never know – they could come back.’
“I remember Abington this year – the first time we beat them on their home court when we redid the last three seconds.”
Wheatley will write the next chapter of her life at Princeton University where she will play basketball and major in biology.
And her future?
“If my environmental passion and thinking stays the same way, I would hope to be working on some sort of environmental topic and living in a very ‘natury’ place,” Wheatley said. “I don’t want to live in a city. I want to be surrounded by greens.
“I would love to go back to Colorado in the mountains. It’s very idealistic, but I’m a senior. I can be as idealistic as I want because I haven’t faced the real world yet. I may be naïve, but I’m going to be happy about it right now.”
