Former basketball standout now has passion for ministry

ELKHART, Ind. (AP) _ It was 2012, and Shanna Zolman’s meteoric rise in the basketball world had come crashing back to earth.
From her days of thrilling sold-out crowds at Wawasee High School as Indiana’s all-time leading girls scorer to playing under legendary coach Pat Summitt at Tennessee to becoming the 16th pick in the 2006 WNBA Draft, Zolman found herself stripped of the identity she had spent her life building.
She was undergoing rehab following her third knee surgery. She was going through a divorce. She had been cut by the Tulsa Shock during summer training camp. Zolman called it the most humbling year of her life.
“You have no income, you have no benefits, you have no job, really,” she said. “You have no team or support around you, necessarily, so it’s really just you and the Lord and finding out who I really am. No longer a basketball player, no longer a professional athlete. Who am I really? Just Shanna.”
Zolman returned to her home in Seattle after she was cut and reached out to her father and Wawasee girls basketball coach, Kem Zolman, for advice.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Go where God is moving,” he told her.
She saw an opportunity to use the lessons she learned from two decades on the court to mentor and minister to young women through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Seattle.
By the time Zolman returned to Tulsa for summer training camp in 2012, she realized the competitive fire that once burned for basketball had gone out.
“I just knew 100 percent, without a doubt, that my time had passed. My competitiveness was gone,” she said. “I said as a kid, whenever I start to play basketball for the money and not because I love it, I’m done. That was totally the case for me.”
She had been praying for a new passion, one that would surpass what she ever felt for basketball.
She found it as the director of women’s ministry for FCA in the Greater Seattle area, mentoring female athletes at University of Washington, Seattle Pacific University and around the city.
She ministers to the women, but Zolman said her job is mostly to provide an open door and an open ear to athletes wrestling with the transition from high school to college.
“When you come into college, you’re promised the world,” she said. “When your sport fails you, when your coach does, when your body fails you, a lot of times those girls have no background, have no one to fall back on. It’s being for them at that moment and showing them there’s so much more to life.”
Zolman had once been there herself _ a teenager who went from the adoration of a loyal Wawasee home crowd to the steely-eyed Summit and the ironclad expectations of the Tennessee women’s basketball program.
As such, she sees a lot of herself in the young women who come through her door. The frustration, the fiery attitude, the overly competitive drive _ all familiar to Zolman. She uses those shared experiences to build trust, and to help them see the forest through the trees.
“I’m trying to draw the positive out and squash the negative,” she said. “Look, I understand where you’re at, I know where you’re at. This is where you will head if you don’t change it or don’t seek help.”
While she’s no longer playing for banners or records, Zolman finds her ministry work rewarding in a different way. She develops close relationships with the student-athletes at Washington and Seattle Pacific. She speaks on behalf of FCA across the country, capturing crowds with engaging, impassioned dialogue about her relationship with Jesus.
“You can talk to any believer, any Christian that actually walks it. The reason you’re here is to be an ambassador for Christ and to show the people who he is, truly,” she said. “Oftentimes, it gets distorted and hypocritical.”
At first, Kem Zolman struggled to accept his daughter hanging up her sneakers when she did.
“In my mind, I wasn’t ready to see her give up the ability, the talent that God gave her. I wasn’t ready to see that end yet,” he said. “I think she was.”
But he watched from a distance as his daughter threw herself into her work, and he saw how she gave herself entirely to promoting the best parts of her faith.
He saw the same person who had inspired the Syracuse community as a teenager moving and shaping young athletes as an adult. He came to terms with basketball not being Shanna Zolman’s destiny, but as a platform to spread the word of God.
“I see what she’s doing now being used even more so, twice as much, effecting more people, twice as many, as before,” Kem Zolman said. “It’s a God thing.”
Her experience on the court gives her an instant credibility and a foundation for her platform. There’s an automatic respect that comes with those who played under Summitt, and Shanna Zolman figures it has helped get her foot in the door when trying to reach college players in Seattle.
“You say `WNBA,’ and they say, `That’s cool.’ You say “Pat Summitt,” and it’s like, `Oh my gosh, you’re legit,'” she said.
Zolman still carries life lessons from the people who left an impact on her life during her playing days. From her parents, it was work ethic and discipline. From the Wawasee community, it was humility. From Pat Summit, it was integrity.
“She never, ever succumbed to doing it easy,” Zolman said of Summitt. “If you stand for something, you follow it flat-out. You don’t need an excuse or a reason.”
As part of learning how to coach each woman on an individual level, Summitt would have her players take a personality test. When the Hall of Fame coach saw Zolman’s results, she told the guard: “We’re either going to have the best four years or worst four years together, because we have the exact same personality profile.”
The two grew close during Zolman’s four years at Tennessee, and she regards Summitt as “one of the most influential people in my life.”
She channels her parents and Summitt while mentoring the student-athletes through FCA. She has an open door, but she also has high expectations.
“If we’re going to set goals, if we’re going to meet, if you want me to challenge you, then I am going to challenge you, and I am going to challenge you to something you don’t like,” she said of her approach to her work. “It’s all on them.”
Zolman’s playing days are over, but her career in the FCA ministry is just now taking off.
She wants to develop a women’s ministry, whether her own or joining one that’s already established. She wants to be on a worldwide speaking circuit, building on the platform basketball has given her.
The door to the sport she loved has closed, but Zolman has found a new one in its place _ one that stirs even greater passion.
“The main reason I’m here is to love on other people and show them who (Christ) is,” she said. “My passion is doing that _ speaking boldly and speaking passionately in truth.”
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Information from: The Elkhart Truth, https://www.elkharttruth.com