Giving orders and orchestrating pregame pep talks didn’t fit the personalities of Shorecrest High School’s 2004-05 athletes of the year.
Banimi Lawson and Chris Lindsey preferred to let their actions do the talking. The soft-spoken seniors were heralded as role models due to their tireless work ethic and competitive spirit.
In the fill-in-the-blank portion of this year’s Shorecrest girls basketball program, Lawson acknowledges her laid back disposition. Highlights from her bio include:
• “My friends would describe me as … quiet.”
• “My greatest non-athletic talent is … being a good listener.”
• “People don’t believe me when I tell them … I can’t dance.”
The supposed lack of rhythm didn’t affect Lawson’s fluid footwork. The 5-foot-10 power forward of Nigerian descent created mismatches on both ends of the floor with her mix of size, speed and smarts.
“She isn’t the biggest post in the league, but if she decided she wanted to get somewhere, there was nothing you could do to stop her,” said teammate Amy Farquhar.
“She was always a force in the key. You can’t leave Banimi alone, or sometimes even with a single player on her. Teams were forced to always get a body on her.”
Farquhar started alongside Lawson in the frontcourt the past two seasons and understood why opponents struggled to effectively box her out.
“She’s so strong and physical,” Farquhar said. “She played in practice like it was a game. She never took anything lightly. She is so strong, people can’t push her around in the key. I know I was scared to go up against her.”
Drills never lacked intensity.
“We went at it in practice,” Lawson said. “I’m sure she’s a little frustrated with me.”
Lawson didn’t miss a game the past two seasons and was voted “best defender” by her teammates both years.
“We could match her up with anybody, guards or forwards, and she’d stay right with them all the way down the court,” Scots coach Jon Rasmussen said. “She accepted all challenges.”
That fearless approach carried over to the soccer field, where Lawson displayed a knack for anticipating defensive schemes and distributing the ball swiftly and accurately.
“She was very coachable and she set a great example. She knows the game very well and she can really strike a ball,” said former Shorecrest girls soccer coach Gary Harris. “We played with three forwards, so teams couldn’t concentrate on any one player. But they always had to put their most athletic defender on Banimi.”
Lawson was so disappointed with her performance as a junior that she promised Harris during the offseason she had recommitted herself to the sport.
“He’s real strict about wanting you to work hard,” Lawson said. “I was afraid I might not make the team, so over the summer I ran a lot and worked on my left foot.”
Behind an offense that averaged 3.2 goals per game, Shorecrest earned a share of the Western Conference South Division title in 2004. Lawson was one of just three seniors on a retooled roster.
“We had a lot of chemistry and that really boosted us,” she said. “We all worked together.”
After achieving the rare feat of playing on three varsity teams as a freshman, Lawson was a lock to graduate with 12 letters before deciding to skip track season as a sophomore and junior. She rejoined the team this spring and took fourth in the shot put at the Wesco South championships.
Four days after commencement Lawson left for the University of Florida, her father’s alma mater. She was accepted into an introductory civil engineering program for minority students that begins the last week of June.
“I’ve always liked math and science and designing and constructing things,” said Lawson, an active member of the Black Student Union at Shorecrest.
Athletics will remain a priority throughout college for Lawson, who is considering walking on to the basketball team.
“Banimi was a very strong team leader and a great person,” Rasmussen said. “She leads by example by always working hard and giving maximum effort on and off the court. She’ll be greatly missed.”
An army of Chris Lindsey clones would have made the Shorecrest football team virtually impossible to stop.
The two-way tackle was a force up front for an explosive Scots squad that finished 5-6 last fall and clinched its first postseason berth in six seasons.
“Even if we were losing games it was still fun,” Lindsey said. “But it makes it so much better when you start winning games and having success.”
As a senior, Lindsey anchored a work-in-progress offensive line that helped the Scots amass 2,225 rushing and 1,475 passing yards. He ranked fourth on the team with 49 tackles and recorded 21/2 sacks and a pair of fumble recoveries.
“When we needed yardage, we usually ran to the left,” Scots coach Mike Wollan said. “That was Chris’s side.”
Lindsey didn’t play organized football until the eighth grade. Midway through his sophomore season, Lindsey locked up a starting slot on an undersized line for the Scots.
“You don’t get to touch the ball much, but it’s still fun knocking around people,” said Lindsey, who earned three letters in football, two in basketball and one in track and field.
The football team doubled its Wesco South win total from the previous two seasons in 2004 before falling to eventual Class 3A state runner-up Ferndale in the Northwest District playoffs.
“We were one game from state,” Lindsey said. “I wish we could have gone to state, but I’m satisfied with what we did this year. Next year’s seniors are really excited about this upcoming season. The whole program is going to turn around.”
Lindsey attributes the growth to a greater commitment to offseason conditioning.
“Freshman, sophomore and junior year there was barely anybody in the weight room,” he said. “Last summer we’d have 30 or 40 guys in the weight room every day. People got dedicated to it and cared about it more.”
Few players were as loyal as Lindsey, who followed a rigorous workout regimen and pumped up his 6-foot-4 frame to a more robust 240 pounds.
“It takes a lot of time,” Lindsey said. “You’ve got to be in the weight room at least four days a week and running the other days. My past three summers it’s taken up my whole summer. Sometimes you’d rather be doing other stuff, but in the long haul I’d rather be in the weight room getting bigger so I can have success in college.”
Lindsey selected Western Washington University out of a swarm of Northwest schools who recruited the all-league lineman. The Vikings return 37 lettermen, including seven offensive and six defensive starters off last year’s 6-4 team that placed second in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
“The Western coaches saw a lot of tape on Chris and they liked his speed and his reach,” Wollan said. “He played three sports his entire career at Shorecrest and now he can focus on football and lifting weights. He has tremendous upside in that area.”
Early projections put Lindsey at defensive end.
“If I lift and get bigger, hopefully within a year or two I’ll get up into the starting lineup,” he said. “I’ll probably redshirt my first year and see how it goes after that.”
The extra bulk Lindsey added proved beneficial on the basketball court as well. He learned to use his strength to gain inside position and shield off taller players.
“He put on a ton of muscle between his junior and senior seasons and that allowed him to match up with some of the bigger posts in Wesco,” said former Shorecrest boys basketball coach Bill Liley.
“Chris is the kind of guy who makes you want to coach. He is unbelievably loyal and a real hard worker. Even when he wasn’t at 100 percent, he gave you everything he had.”
After missing the final two regular-season games due to a deep calf bruise, Lindsey came off the bench to score 10 points from the free-throw line as the Scots dismissed South Whidbey in a district qualifier contest.
“He could barely walk,” Liley said. “That took a ton of heart.”
Lindsey played three years of baseball at Shorecrest before switching to track this spring. The change gave him more time to lift weights and prepare for WWU football camp in August.
“Chris could end up being a steal for a team like Western,” Liley said, “and I think they’re already starting to realize it.”
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