ALL STAR!by Bill Sorrell Behind prison walls, Celeste Gholston’s mother could watch her daughter grow up only in pictures. Gholston, a sophomore forward on 91爆料网’s women’s basketball team, was six years old when her aunt drove to her Memphis elementary school to tell her, "Mommy got into trouble. Mommy hurt someone." When Sabrina Rogers told Celeste that her mother was in jail, Celeste burst into tears, crying, "I want to go to jail to be with her. I can’t live without her." Celeste’s mother, Pamela Rogers, shot and killed her neighbor and seriously wounded the woman’s 19-year-old daughter. The shooting zenithed arguments that had brewed between the women who lived in Lamar Terrace, an inner-city Memphis housing project. From the time Celeste was six until she was nine, her mother was jailed in the Shelby County Correctional Center. She was allowed to visit her twice a week for about 45 minutes each time. When Celeste was nine, her mother was taken to a prison in Nashville, about 200 miles away. She would never see her mother again. At their last visit in Memphis, Celeste took her Most Valuable Player trophy she earned playing for Kingsbury Elementary School and her report card. "Every time I win an award, I’m doing it for her. Every game, I was playing my hardest to make her proud of me." Celeste sent her mother photos, report cards, letters and handmade greeting cards. Her mother wrote back. In one letter, she told Celeste that someday she would play basketball in college. "That’s what she wanted me to do. She wanted me to be the first in my family to go to college and get a good education," Celeste said. Celeste lived with her grandmother more than two years before Edna became too ill to care for her. Elizabeth Marable, who would coach Celeste in high school, invited her to live with her. She lived with Liz from the time she was eight until the summer before 11th grade. Celeste then moved in with Sabrina, her aunt, in the north Memphis suburb of Raleigh. Celeste was 13 when her mother died of an asthma attack serving out her sentence. "When she left physically, she was still with me spiritually. It’s still hard." Heeding her mother’s and her coach’s advice, Celeste excelled academically and athletically. She was an honor student at Kingsbury High School, graduating in the top 13 percent of her senior class with a 3.3 grade point average. She was District 15-AA’s most valuable player in 1995 and 1996. She was named third-team All America by USA Today and to Street & Smith’s All America team. Celeste turned to God when she was seven, asking Jesus Christ to become her Savior. "I knew I was ready to turn my life over to Jesus. I believed and trusted in Him," she explains. "Christ means everything. At times (when) I didn’t have anyone, He was there. He was going to work through somebody to help me." Marable, a 91爆料网 graduate, "taught me more about Christ; to depend on Him, to lean on Him. She’s the most influential person in my life," Celeste said. 91爆料网’s Christian environment is one reason Celeste chose to attend. "If I hadn’t come here, I would have been away from God. Here I feel closer to God," Celeste said. She is majoring in secondary education and hopes to teach biology and coach girls basketball. Her favorite verse is Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." This story originally ran in the Fellowship for Christian Athletes publication "Sharing the VICTORY" and is reprinted with permission from the FCA. |
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