Goodlett grows up at Tech

The only time Goodlett was at ease at all with her size was while playing organized sports. When a coach put the big girl in goal on the soccer field or at center on the basketball court, she was just the right dimensions.

“With everything else though,” Sasha said, “I wished I was a different person.”

The big girl is a 6-foot-5 woman now, going to school in a city with a forest of stoplights. Her four years at Georgia Tech are almost done. And, over that period on the Flats, Goodlett has transformed herself from a quiet, self-conscious freshman into one of the senior leaders of a hungry basketball team.

She had to lose 60 pounds to find herself, while enduring regular bouts of doubt, as well as the unrelenting demands of her coach. Now comes the payoff. The No. 4 seed Yellow Jackets will open the NCAA Tournament against No. 13 seed Sacred Heart on Sunday in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Consider this Goodlett’s personal commencement address: “Coming here taught me I have to deserve the best. I have to want the best for myself,” she said.

The college refinery worked double shifts on this project, and now as she nears the pipeline’s end, Goodlett is Tech’s second-leading scorer and leading rebounder as well as one of its most commanding voices. When the athletic department last year needed someone to address Tech’s major donors on behalf of all the women’s programs, it chose Goodlett. “Four years ago, I never could have dreamed Sasha could have done that,” said her coach, MaChelle Joseph.

Gaining confidence

When the famously large and loud Charles Barkley made a surprise visit to the women’s team this season, he met his energetic equal in Goodlett.

A funny thing happened to Goodlett on her way to basketball prominence — she got a new perspective on life, too.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody’s self-confidence grow in four year period as much as Sasha’s did,” Joseph said.

She had been recruited on faith by Joseph, who saw a player with good hands and quality skills, but limited dexterity because of her weight and lack of conditioning. Goodlett couldn’t move effectively or stay on the floor for meaningful stretches. She seemed entirely ill-suited to Tech’s up-tempo style of play.

But the coach — hoping to add the true center that previous Tech teams had lacked — persisted. Joseph’s faith has been justified, Goodlett’s minutes climbing as her fitness improved (she’s currently third on the team in minutes played, 29.4 a game, nearly 33 in conference play).

“I don’t think [Joseph] has ever had a player she saw so much in who didn’t see so much in herself,” Goodlett said. “It was a challenge for both of us, but I think we both came out on top.”

Now, those around the program are testifying to how important Goodlett has been to the overall growth of the Tech program, which has enjoyed a sixth straight 20-win seasons (24-8) and a best-ever 12 regular season victories in the ACC (along with a run to the final of the conference tournament).

They say the story of her improvement, illustrated by the obvious weight loss and added nimbleness, embodies the more subtle gains of the women’s program overall.

Among the winningest group of seniors in 37 years of Tech women’s basketball, Goodlett recently was named to the All ACC second team. She finished the regular season fifth in the conference in scoring. She’ll depart Tech fifth in all-time blocks and 13th in all-time scoring.

“The biggest thing in the growth of our program is to have a center who is such a presence for us,” Joseph said.

“We’ve been a team 6-feet-and-under for my first three or four years. Everybody loved the fact we had a presence like Sasha on the inside.”

They keep reminding her, now that her work here is almost done, just how far she has come.

Leaving home

It took a maternal crowbar to dislodge her from Mississippi. Goodlett’s first choice was to play close to home, at Southern Miss. Sara Goodlett wanted no part of that plan. As difficult as it was for a mother to let go of her youngest daughter, Sara was adamant that she leave the cloister of her home state.

“I knew if she got out, if she had the right coach, the right environment, she would improve a whole lot,” Sara said.

Mom was sold on Joseph and Georgia Tech. Her daughter arrived in 2008 with, as they hardly ever say in Mississippi, a lot of excess avoirdupois. A crash diet back home had stripped her of nearly 20 pounds, and still Goodlett reported north of 280.

And it wasn’t long afterward she was plotting an escape.

She struggled to keep up in every workout, in every practice. Goodlett couldn’t foresee that ever changing for the better.

She’d go to Joseph and complain that, no matter how hard she tried, nothing seemed to please the coach. Face it, Joseph told her, I never will be pleased. I will keep pushing, pushing. When you meet one goal, I’ll just reset another one, higher.

On a break in her freshman year, Goodlett told her mother that, if she came home, she probably wouldn’t return to Tech. Then you better not come home, Sara replied.

Goodlett hung on, just barely, encountering a series of minor epiphanies that added up to one major revelation: Inside the insecure big girl was a determined, happy soul ready to be set free.

She picked up a quote, attributed to late North Carolina State coach Kay Yow, that would resonate through her time at Tech. Don’t wallow in self-pity, was the message. Rather, just keep swishing your feet until reaching solid ground.

During one get-together with her teammates in her sophomore season, talk turned to self-confidence, and “I just broke down,” Goodlett said. Her fellow players told her they couldn’t believe how little she thought of herself and how she was blind to her potential.

Gradually, first in plodding steps, then more sure-footedly, Goodlett changed the perception of herself.

Maybe she couldn’t initially meet the time requirements of certain team drills, but, she kept reminding herself: “Alright, Sasha, just finish. It’s OK if you have to run it again. [The coaches] might [complain] and moan at you, but just finish.”

While other teammates took a break, she’d report every Saturday over the summer for additional conditioning work. “She didn’t do anything special. She just worked,” said Scott McDonald, the team’s director of strength and conditioning.

Eating healthy

Growing up on southern fried everything, Goodlett had to turn her diet inside-out. “Before I got here, I had never had a baked fish,” she said. She went on field trips to the grocery store with McDonald, discovering the healthy aisles. When eating out, she’d occasionally phone the trainer and ask him about the most virtuous options on the menu. The lifestyle changes are contagious. Her mother recently bought a treadmill.

Goodlett’s at the lightest weight she’s been since arriving at Tech, and they’d still like to trim off another 10 pounds, to get to an optimum of around 225. Even in the final couple of weeks of her career, “she’s let me know, ‘You’re not through with me yet,’ ” McDonald said.

Armed with some lasting lessons for life, Goodlett has reshaped her basketball dream, too. She came to Tech believing that she’d be a role player. She’d get her degree, then get on with a life apart from the game. Now, in addition to the degree, she has real ambitions to play professionally.

They can all line up — her teammates, her coaches, her mother — and tell her what a different person she is from the shy 2008 version. They can testify to how proud they all are of the effort she made to change. They can echo the words of senior guard Mo Bennett: “Sasha is an amazing story.”

And, yet, you know what the best part is?

She knows that herself without anyone having to say a word.

THE GOODLETT GROWTH CHART

2008-’09 2009-’10 2010-’11 2011-’12

Minutes/game 21.3 27.0 26.9 29.4

Points/game 7.4 10.8 10.7 14.8

Rebounds/game 3.7 6.2 6.9 7.5

Blocks 12 8 16 46