Basketball
Favorite athlete: Kyrie Irving
Favorite team: I don’t have a favorite team. I don’t really like to watch basketball, love to play it though.
Favorite memory competing in sports: The first time I hit a spin move fadeaway on a defender from the 3.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Scored in the wrong basket in seventh grade against Abington High School.
Music on playlist: Mostly A Boogie With A Hoodie
Future plans: Play ball in college and get my degree in mechanical engineering.
Words to live by: “It is what it is”
One goal before reaching 30: To be honest, I can’t think of one. I kinda go with the flow, but to have my degree and hopefully working in a BMW or Honda dealership.
One thing people don’t know about me: That I am fully Jamaican.
By Craig Ostroff
As a freshman playing varsity basketball with players older and more experienced, Mikahila Leighton admits she occasionally had doubts about her abilities.
“I was not confident at all as a freshman,” Leighton said. “I went into the game thinking that I’m not the best ball handler out there. It definitely affected me.
“I didn’t want my teammates to know that, I didn’t think I let it show, but my coaches would sometimes pull me to the side, ‘It seems like your head is somewhere else.’”
Now, when the Cheltenham’s senior point guard hits the court, there’s a very different thought running through her mind.
“I’m thinking, ‘I’m gonna get a few ankle-breakers tonight,’” she said with a laugh.
What made the difference? In addition to Leighton’s natural progression and experience on the hardwood, her junior season proved to be a true turning point. Not only did Covid shorten the season, it also shortened Cheltenham’s bench.
“Playing during the pandemic last year, we only had seven people,” Leighton said. “I knew I had to be out there. I didn’t have a choice, I had to run through those four quarters without a sub. But that got me out of my head, I wasn’t worried about being confident. It became, ‘Let’s just have fun and do what we have to do, be the best I can be.”
Coach Ben Bowman, who took over the Lady Panthers’ program when Leighton was a freshman, has thoroughly enjoyed watching Leighton progress from timid freshman to senior captain.
“From her freshman year until now, she is a completely different player, and you can see the confidence in her play,” Bowman said. “Seeing Mikahila come into her own the past four years has been a pleasure.
Early in her basketball career, it was hard for her to control her emotions, especially on a team trying to find their identity. It's something the coaches and I really worked on with her. Mikahila has learned to control her emotions much better.
“Last year, we only had seven players and she stepped up and became a vocal leader on and off the court. And from our ups and downs as a team, she’s stepped up for us in her senior season. She has worked hard on her game, gaining more confidence with her ball handling, and is now our starting point guard. This is all credit to her putting the time in to be a complete player.”
Leighton’s dedication to the Lady Panthers is remarkable, to say the least. She splits her time between Cheltenham and Eastern Center for Arts and Technology, where she studies Automotive Technology. Through an Eastern co-op, she works at Faulkner Nissan in Jenkintown. Then there are her academic school commitments.
Yet she remains committed to her teammates and her team, even though the Lady Panthers have struggled mightily during her four years on the team. For all the effort and hard work, victories are hard to come by.
But Leighton’s love for her team doesn’t come from how many marks they have in the win column. It comes from the relationships she’s developed over the years.
“She has to work basically full-time but juggles making games and practices on a consistent basis,” Bowman said. “That shows her dedication to the program, even when wins have not come easy to us. Her hard work on the court sets the tone for most games, and even in some of our toughest defeats, she is there pushing her teammates. She has done an incredible job of forging meaningful relationships with her teammates and coaches.”
“Everyone on this team, it feels more like a family now,” Leighton said. “We’ve had years where there were one or two players who were the main players. We don’t have that this year, so everybody has a part to play, and I think that made it better for us. This season has been one of my absolute favorites. And just being out on the court is a great thing for me. Basketball is like an escape for me for many things. Even if we’re having a bad game, I just love being out on the court with everyone.”
Leighton also finds inspiration every time she enters the Cheltenham gymnasium. Adorned with banners honoring 1,000-point scorers and league, district and state championships from the glory years of Lady Panther basketball, Leighton longs to do her part return Cheltenham to those heights, even if she won’t be around to see the benefits of her work.
“I know we can be great again,” Leighton said. “Every day I go into the gym and look at the wall and see all those names and the years the team won a title. Even though I’m leaving, I want Cheltenham to get back there. To know I was able to help start turning things around so that we can eventually get back to that point, that would be good enough for me.”
“Mikahila continues to do a wonderful job of helping change the culture of the team as we strive to take the next step as a program,” Bowman added. “She steps in and helps with our youth workouts and speaks of her experience to help prepare them for a bright future. I really appreciate all she brings to the program.”
As for this season, Leighton is enjoying the time she has on the court with her coaches and teammates, and she’s keeping her goals reasonable. The Lady Panthers currently stand at 2-8 overall … she’d like to see the team finish with more than five wins … six victories would tie her sophomore season for most wins in a season for her high school career. Mostly, she wants to see the team continue to grow.
“I really do want the team to stay together,” she said. “We’ve had games where things didn’t go our way and we’d kind of fall apart. I don’t want us to get into that negative state at all.
“For me personally, it’s my senior year, I just want to ball out. I try not to be a ball hog, but when I notice my shots are falling, I’m like, ‘Just pass me the ball.’ But I always want to be a team player and keep everyone else involved.”
Still, her career-best 16-point effort in a recent comeback win over nonleague opponent Jenkintown will rank among her favorite memories of her time on the court for Cheltenham.
“Every shot was landing, I got a couple assists and steals in that game, too,” she said. “That was one of the highlights I’m going to remember.”
Off the court, Leighton is enjoying walking the school hallways again. In addition to basketball, Leighton is a member of the Black Student Union. She is thoroughly enjoying her time at Eastern and working at Faulkner Nissan. She is still narrowing down her choices for college, but she’s gotten several acceptances and several full scholarships, but is still keeping her options open while she looks for a school where she can pursue mechanical engineering.
“I have a love for cars. It’s really amazing to take apart something and put it back together,” she said. “My mentor with the co-op is a master tech, he’s teaching me all the shortcuts. It’s something I’ve always loved, I’ve been doing it since I was about 10.”
Leighton is also hoping to continue to play basketball and improve her game at the college level, whether that means attempting to walk on to a varsity program or playing at the club level.
And when she’s no longer walking the halls at Cheltenham or dishing out dimes in the gymnasium, she hopes her returning teammates will be able to emulate the dedication and positivity she brought to the team.
“I want to be remembered as the 5-5 point guard who was always there for teammates, always picked them up,” Leighton said. “At practices I’m the laughingstock, I like to dance, play games at the end of practice, making everyone laugh. They know I can get serious, you can do both. You can be serious and also have fun. I just want them to keep up their spirits, because even if I’m not there, I want to see the team continue to get better.”
