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Culpeper High School graduate Sonja Ast poses on the basketball court of Yowell Meadow Park in Culpeper. Ast is a standout wheelchair basketball player and has a scholarship to play at the University of Alabama in the fall. |
Sonya Ast has spent her entire high school career in a wheelchair.
Given that fact, many of her fellow graduates and her teachers are stunned to learn that the likable Culpeper High senior with an infectious smile will be attending the University of Alabama in the fall to play basketball.
"I was really surprised when she told me that," says Assistant Principal Mark Settle. "I had no idea she played basketball."
Sonya does play basketball--wheelchair basketball--and has since she was 9 years old. What's more, she's so good at the game that she was recruited by Alabama.
"It's one of four colleges in this country that has women's wheelchair basketball," Sonya says of Alabama. (Arizona, Illinois and Wisconsin-North Whitewater are the others.) "The coach saw me at a clinic and said, 'Hey, we could use her.'"
There followed the usual recruitment scenario--letters, telephone calls, a campus visit and, finally, a commitment. But it was not just basketball that led Sonya to pick the Crimson Tide.
"I chose Alabama because it had the degree program [athletic training] that I wanted," she says. "Other schools didn't have exactly what I was looking for."
A spot on a college basketball team will be the next step in a long and difficult journey for the 18-year-old senior. While most of her classmates were enrolling in kindergarten, Sonya, who was born with scoliosis, was enduring a hellish life in a Russian orphanage.
At the age of 5, she was adopted by Mark and Meg Ast and brought to America to begin a new life. But those first years were trying, with Sonya adjusting to a new family, learning a new language and undergoing seven major surgeries for such birth deformities as a curved spine and clubbed feet.
Once past the surgeries and the adjustment period, however, Sonya's life really took off.
"Ever since I was little, my parents taught me how to go out into the public and do things," she says. "I learned a lot of independence from them."
Sonya has been involved in a multitude of activities. She has been in the high school band, playing trumpet and baritone, been a 4-H camp counselor and swam competitively with Woodberry Forest's school team.
She also enjoys making bracelets in her spare time and wants to learn to knit.
"I enjoy working with my hands," she says.
But Sonya is never happier that when her hands are dribbling a basketball.
"I really like basketball," she says, beaming. "It's awesome!"
At about the age of 9, Sonya says that she and her mother were looking for some kind of athletic activity for people with disabilities. They found basketball, and it quickly became Sonya's passion.
She now plays forward for the Charlottesville Cardinals and, over the years, has been on teams in Fairfax and Fitchburg, Wisc., where her family lived for a year.
During summer basketball camps at Illinois, Alabama wheelchair Athletic Director Brent Hardin and his wife-they coach the Alabama team-took notice of Sonya.
The senior says that, all-in-all, she considers her high school career a success. There have been a few tough moments, however.
"It's been a bit difficult at times, especially [using my wheelchair] in the crowded hallways," she says. "It's especially hard to miss people's feet, and I have gotten a few complaints. It's hard when they don't understand what you're going through."
Sonya, who worked as a cashier at Wal-Mart for a time, now helps her parents in their downtown Culpeper candy store, The Frenchman's Corner.
Asked if she would someday like to go back to Russia, she says she is unsure because the memories of her early childhood are so unpleasant.
She thinks the chances of ever finding her real family are extremely slim since she doesn't know her official Russian surname. She adds that she may have a twin, which could have led to her physical problems.
"We're really proud of Sonya," says her adoptive father. "She has been through a lot."
After earning her degree, Sonya hopes to work as a college athletic trainer.
"And I'd like to help with wheelchair basketball clinics, like the ones I attended," she adds.
Donnie Johnston:
Email: djohnston@freelancestar.com
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Throughout high school graduation season, The Free Lance-Star will be profiling one outstanding senior from each locality. |
| WHAT: GRADUATION DAY: Saturday TIME: 9 a.m. PLACE: High school football stadium (Broman Field); ceremony will be held in Culpeper Middle School gym if raining. |
