Central Bucks South’s four seniors shared a unique journey and a camaraderie that won’t soon be forgotten. (Senior photos: Amanda Fischer) (Article below sponsored by CB South girls’ basketball)
(Photos by Amanda Fischer)
January 29, 2024
Not a particularly noteworthy day for most high school basketball teams. Unless, that is, you were a member of the Central Bucks South girls’ basketball team.
There was a definite feeling of excitement and anticipation prior to the team’s practice. There were even some shrieks and hugs as players arrived, suggesting this was not your ordinary practice.
It wasn’t, thanks to two sheets of papers brought to practice by one of the team’s seniors, Gianna Rahill, a student-athlete with a disability who is a full member of an inclusive Titan squad.
It turns out Gi – as she is affectionately known – had adoption papers for two seniors, making them her 11th and 12th daughters on the team.
The excitement could be attributed to not only the fact that there were two new additions to Gi’s growing family, but the two additions – Lily Colon and Yoyo Samayoa - were the last of the four seniors to be adopted. Casey Balkir – Rahill’s close friend since they were youngsters – was adopted last year.
“This is actually groundbreaking,” South coach Beth Mattern said. “Casey is one of her original children. Gi’s adopted almost the whole junior class, and she has started to adopt some of the ninth graders.”
Exactly what do the ‘adoptions’ entail?
“It means to me you adopt a family, kids,” Gi said. “I adopt a family, and I’m the mom.”
Mattern explained the process.
“Gi hands them a piece of paper that says – ‘Yoyo’s adoption papers. Gianna Rahill, the mom,’” the South coach said. “Yoyo and Lily are going to be adopted tonight.
“Neither one of them was adopted, and it’s been a big joke that she was never going to because they’re seniors. I don’t know long she’ll make them wait.”
It turns out they didn’t wait long.
“It’s a surprise, it’s a surprise,” Colon said when she arrived. “She told me it’s a surprise.”
“Can you believe it?” Mattern asked.
“She was screaming at me,” Colon said with a laugh.
“You know how excited Gi gets when she has a surprise,” Mattern said. “Did we ever think this was going to happen?”
“No,” said Colon. “She told Yoyo she was going to be adopted today, and Yoyo was like, ‘Yeah, because we’re going to be on the same level, right?’
“I was like – ‘What about me? Are you going to adopt me too?’ She goes – ‘No, you’re up here on my level,’ and then she said, ‘Gosh, Lily’ and just kept walking.”
Although ‘adoptions’ are not a typical occurrence at a high school basketball practice, it’s the norm for what has become a very special Titan squad.
“There’s a lot to keep up with around here some days,” Mattern said. “Gi tells Lily she’s her best friend. Honestly, we could talk about Gi all day.
“Gi only likes her hair down, and it’s Lily who can talk her into pulling it up in a ponytail. She’ll let her do braids sometimes. Gi wears a ponytail to play, but literally, the second it’s over, she’s like – ‘Get it out of my hair, get it out.’’
Gi actually has a lot of best friends, and it doesn’t take long to realize Gi – the team’s manager as a sophomore, junior varsity player as a junior and varsity player as a senior – is the heartbeat of the squad.
“Gi is trying to adopt them all,” Mattern said. “She hasn’t paid for anything financially. Mom and dad can’t get any financial relief from her, but she makes adoption papers and adopts them as daughters.
“Gi’s adopted the whole junior class, and she has started to adopt some of the ninth graders, but again, everyone is building relationships in their own way, and Gianna is really building a bridge with the ninth graders and building relationships. It’s been really fun.”
A special senior class
Four seniors remain from a class that – as freshmen – lived through the COVID-shortened season.
“That first year I remember a divider in the gym being the weirdest thing,” Samayoa said. “We were only allowed to have a certain number of girls in the room at the same time, so they had a divider for JV and varsity when we practiced.”
“It was very different,” Colon said. “You felt distant from everybody, but sometimes we would be able to talk to each other.”
“I remember it was a bit gloomy,” Balkir added, “because we never were in the gym consistently, but through games we played like goose chase – it got us connected as a team.
“A lot of us knew each other before we came to South which helped make connections.”
Gi joined the team as a sophomore because, according to Mattern, she wanted to meet new people.
She wasted no time at all before making her presence felt.
“Before every game, she would give us a pregame speech – you’ve got to rebound, you’ve got to box out,” Samayoa said.
“She has a little clipboard too, and she’d draw up plays for us,” Balkir said.
Mattern uses the word inclusive regularly to talk about this year’s squad, and it starts with the four seniors, who say it’s something they learned from those who came before them.
“I remember we had a group of seniors in 2022 who were just really great people, and they were accepting of everybody, and they brought everybody on board,” Samayoa said. “We always used to go out as a team, and everybody was invited, and they felt like they belonged.
“I feel like when you experience that as an underclassman, you want to bring that same feeling to the new people coming on board, so everybody is happy playing basketball.”
“We had a bunch of people above us who showed us how,” Balkir said. “They took us in, so I feel like we just followed their lead by taking our younger people in too.”
The inclusion of the underclassmen is intentional.
“We tell them jokes or we tell them about what happened in the past – funny things that used to happen in practice,” Colon said.
Although the final high school season of the seniors is in the rearview mirror, the friendships remain as do the memories of good times spent together.
“We listen to music in the locker room,” said Gi, whose favorite artists are Katy Perry and Hannah Montana. “We dance, we play a lot of songs.”
“There’s lot of dancing and singing in the locker room,” Samayoa said. “Me and Gi made a TikTok a lot of game days. It was a tradition when we have home room that day, so that’s fun.
“We also will remember all the time we spent with each other outside of basketball, the team bonding kind of things. Those are really special and helped connect us a lot over the past three years.
“Pasta parties – those are obviously mandatory. We’ll have other things. Before Applebee’s closed down, we used to go there a lot as a group. Even still, we will hit breakfast occasionally after a Saturday practice because Gi will say – ‘Let’s go to Panera’ and keeps asking until somebody takes her, so we all go. She wants her brownie and yogurt.”
“We have a lot of team meals,” Balkir said. “It’s very different than a lot of team dynamics of team I’ve been on – between the really close relationship we’ve all shaped, I think it’s very different compared to a lot of teams.”
Even practices will be part of their good memories.
“Sometimes during practice, if we’re lacking energy, we play a game called small, medium large,” Balkir said. “It’s this fun shooting game that always brings us together and gives us a lot of energy when we need it.”
“We always have the same teams, so it’s like a running competition,” Samayoa said. “It gets pretty heated, and whoever wins is always really excited.”
In the center of many of their best memories is Gi.
“I think Gi just brings a lot of life to us,” Balkir said. “When she missed a practice once in a blue moon, it will just feel off without her because she brings the energy to all of us.
“If you’re not there at a time when she expects you there, she’ll start yelling at you – ‘where are you?’ She holds us accountable. We have a ranking, so she lets us know where we stand. I’m her number one daughter. She gave me a shirt for my birthday that says ‘my favorite daughter’ on it.”
“I’m probably still a punk,” Samayoa said after her adoption was official. “I’ll be a punk tomorrow, but I’ll be a punk daughter. I like to mess around with her.”
It’s not uncommon for Gi to tell any one of her daughters they are grounded, which – they say – is a regular occurrence.
So, what happens when they’re grounded?
“Nothing – she just yells at us – ‘You’re grounded,’” Samayoa said with a laugh.
Mattern recalled a Saturday when she and Gi wrote some notes to the team.
“She did tell one of the juniors that she was her least favorite daughter,” the Titans’ coach said. “We keep it real around here - we keep it real.”
But it’s all in good fun for a group that will leave South with the best kind of memories.
Titans together
The journey of this year’s seniors, according to Mattern, has been anything but typical.
“I think this group is unique because they came in in 2020, and their seasons have changed because of that,” the Titans’ coach said. “But they are a very close group who have really been the link of all the different players because they’re all friends with everyone, and they pull them all together to make a group that’s cohesive.
“I think what makes them unique is they all have a different background when it comes to basketball and sports and who they were friends with on the team and also are very likable as individuals, and that has made them, I think, stronger as a group and also stronger as a class in regards to the underclassmen looking up to them and seeing their kindness and the way they genuinely like each other and how they treat each other, taking people under their wings and just forming new relationships and never being done being friends. That’s been really fun to see them have different inside jokes with people and just kind of the bonding you hope you see in a season.”
The Titans finished strong to earn a berth in the District 1 6A Tournament, but that’s not what they’ll remember most.
“I think we’ll remember the relationships we had with each other,” Balkir said. “And all the little jokes we had amongst us.
“Our team motto is – I’ve got your back because Gi loves to say, ‘Oh Casey, do you have my back?’ or ‘I got your back.’ Even though she says it a lot, I think it’s really true for this team.”
When this team says they share a special camaraderie, it’s not just lip service –Gi, the ‘mom’ of 12 daughters confirms as much.
“I talk to my coach about stuff, and she’s always supporting me a lot and giving my what I need - my coach is amazing to me,” Gi said. “I’ll remember most my friends, my daughters, and my coaches. I really love them all, but my friend Casey is my number one daughter.”
And no one would want it any other way.
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