{"id":1922,"date":"2019-12-10T20:55:58","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T20:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2019\/12\/10\/from-basketball-stardom-to-rosary-beads\/"},"modified":"2025-03-19T19:04:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T19:04:01","slug":"from-basketball-stardom-to-rosary-beads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2019\/12\/10\/from-basketball-stardom-to-rosary-beads\/","title":{"rendered":"From basketball stardom to rosary beads"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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When she got the story assignment, ESPN senior writer Elizabeth Merrill could hardly believe it:<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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A Villanova basketball star, Shelly Pennefather, won the 1987 Wade Trophy as the top female player in college hoops, then went abroad for a lucrative professional career. She was beloved by her teammates and family, pegged as someone who would be a wonderful teacher, wonderful mentor, wonderful coach, wonderful mom.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Instead of becoming any of those things, Pennefather entered the Poor Clares, an order of cloistered nuns, and essentially disappeared.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Sister Rose Marie, as she is now called, hadn\u2019t left the cloister since she walked into it more than a quarter-century before, not even for her father\u2019s funeral. And now it was her silver jubilee, the 25-year anniversary of her final vows. As part of the celebration, she would get to hug her mother for the first time in all those years.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Merrill\u2019s initial instinct was understandable: This will write itself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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What happened next is understandable, too.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cIt never works out that way,\u201d Merrill said. She laughed. A little. \u201cIt\u2019s always the exact opposite. You trip over yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I was a young reporter covering women\u2019s college basketball for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the time Shelly Pennefather was making her transition to the convent. I had read Mark Kram Jr.\u2019s 1993 piece in the Philadelphia Daily News,\u00a0\u201cThe World is Her Cloister,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and Alexander Wolff\u2019s 1997 story in\u00a0 Sports Illustrated, \u201cFor the Love of God.\u201d (We couldn\u2019t find Wolff\u2019s SI piece online, but the\u00a0Chicago Tribune wrote about it.<\/a>) I read the stories carefully, of course, because I was paying attention to masters of the craft. But I also paid close attention because three of my great-aunts had answered a religious calling, although none were cloistered. I grew up knowing the power of nuns.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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From time to time, I\u2019d wonder what had become of Pennefather.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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So I was thrilled to see the ESPN story this past August: \u201cWhatever to Villanova basketball star Shelly Pennefather? \u2018So I made this deal with God.\u2019\u201d<\/a> I was even happier to see that Merrill was the writer. She and I crossed paths in the early 2000s, while I was writing sports features for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and she was heading from the Omaha Herald-World to the Kansas City Star to cover the NFL. She moved to ESPN in 2007, where she is a senior writer on the features\/enterprise unit.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Elizabeth Merrill of ESPN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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I\u2019ve always admired Merrill\u2019s ability to look beyond the headlines and find stories the rest of us miss. She sometimes focuses on the stars, as in this profile of Oregon guard Sabrina Ionescu<\/a>, which was of particular interest to me now that I teach journalism at the University of Oregon, where I also hold season tickets to women\u2019s basketball. But even then, Merrill seems to find a deeper, more personal angle. Mostly, though, her byline sits atop stories beyond the obvious. Among my favorites: a profile of the late quarterback Steve McNair\u2019s wife and their two sons<\/a>, and this piece about the student-athletes<\/a> who were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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She seemed like a natural for an update on Pennefather.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Even stories that seem like slam-dunks \u201ctake a village,\u201d according to Merrill.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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In this case, she needed support from her current editor at ESPN, Jena Janovy, who helped her get the first draft out of her system, and from a former ESPN editor, Jay Lovinger<\/a>, with whom she\u2019d kept in touch. (Lovinger died in late August, several weeks after the story published.) She also needed a partnership with ESPN\u2019s broadcast side, where colleagues who had followed women\u2019s basketball for decades were eager for a chance to do a piece on Pennefather.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Carol Stiff, an ESPN vice president<\/a> who has been around the game for decades as a player, coach and broadcast executive, knew about the upcoming renewal of Sister Rose Marie\u2019s vows. Rich Gentile, a freelance producer, had produced an ESPN television piece on Pennefather more than a decade before, was in contact with one of Pennefather\u2019s brothers and had kept in touch with her college coach, Harry Perretta. Gentile was confident they could help with access to Pennefather\u2019s story.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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But when it came to talking in front of a camera, family matriarch Mary Jane Pennefather said no. That presented an opportunity for Merrill.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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It may seem ironic that a no to one colleague becomes a yes to another. But Merrill said one of the great benefits of working at ESPN is the ability to tell stories on a variety of platforms. The broadcast piece, in this case, was six minutes long. Merrill\u2019s story was more than 4,000 words. And because Mary Jane was comfortable telling her story to a notebook-toting reporter, the written piece tells a different part of the story.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cIt\u2019s so great to do collaborative pieces,\u201d Merrill said. \u201cRich will see a story one way \u2014 a lot of times, it\u2019s visually what works . And then I have the option to tell whatever other story is most compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Merrill ended up juggling three main characters throughout her piece. Each of them presented significant challenges.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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