Alex Scoffone first caught Arden Kragalott’s eye in 2007, when she was playing basketball at Lincoln High School.
Kragalott, head coach of the De Anza College women’s basketball team, asked Scoffone to play but Scoffone turned down the offer because she received a full scholarship to Santa Clara University, where she played volleyball.
This year, she is the sole sophomore of the De Anza women’s basketball team. But playing in a team with 10 freshmen, Scoffone said she didn’t see herself as a leader.
She said nobody on the team views themselves as a leader, but their ability to “mesh” with each other allows each member to lead.
“I have never actually been a vocal leader,” said Scoffone. But, she said, some freshmen on the team are developing into vocal leaders.
Scoffone is ending her second and final year of basketball at De Anza. She said the one area she has most improved on is coming into contact with other players.
Volleyball is not a high contact sport, Scoffone said, so she is still not used to being surrounded by multiple players.
“I still don’t like contact,” said Scoffone. “Which is tough for a center because that (contact) that’s all we do; get bumped around, beat up … punched in the face.”
Scoffone joked, saying she got her first black eye at De Anza, referring to a Nov. 20 game, when De Anza faced Monterey Peninsula College.
Scoffone was a sociology major at Santa Clara, but her interest lay in biology. Since biology was not a popular major at Santa Clara, Scoffone started looking at other colleges.
She had a friend, Kaylin Mitsumori, who played basketball at De Anza (2007-09), so Scoffone was familiar with De Anza’s court. Kragalott said she asked Scoffone if she would work at the score table and Scoffone said “yes.”
After Scoffone enrolled at De Anza, Kragalott found her and urged her to play. Scoffone tried out and made the 2011-12 team, playing center.
Though she grew up playing basketball, Scoffone said she prefers volleyball over basketball. Bobby Jo Stewart, now an assistant coach at San Jose City College, had pushed Scoffone towards basketball in high school. But Stewart left mid-season on maternity leave and having no other basketball influence, Scoffone tried out for the volleyball team.
Scoffone is now an assistant coach in Titan Volleyball, where she teaches kids from Lincoln High School and King’s Academy.
Academically she has not chosen where she will go to finish her degree whether to become a physician or physician’s assistant, but she is looking at Samuel Merritt College in Oakland.
