How childhood love for basketball brought this athlete to New Hampshire

For Sharmela Reid, becoming a basketball player wasn’t a conscious choice. Her love for the sport stemmed from her family’s shared interest in the sport.

“My family is a big sports family in general,” the University of New Hampshire sophomore said. “Like all my aunts, uncles, everyone loved basketball.”

Reid, who is originally from Montreal—moved down to UNH just to be  closer to home while also exposing herself to competitive academics and collegiate sports—said it was her mother who provided her with the impetus to become a basketball player at a young age. 

 ”Definitely it started with my mom getting both me and my sister into basketball because she played basketball when she was in college,”  Reid, now a college basketball player for the UNH Wildcats, said. “And she was like, ‘I am getting my daughters into this sport.’”

A rising star with an impressive track record, Reid has played nine games this season and has grabbed 28 points and 25 rebounds in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II Women’s basketball tournament. 

At 11-years-old, Reid impressed her older sister’s coach with her skills that they ended up selecting her to play with teammates who were significantly older. 

“Her coach at the time just said, ‘You might as well like hop in,’” she said, adding that her sister Sharnel is now an assistant coach for the Cégep du Vieux Montréal Division 2 women’s basketball team in Canada. “[So then there was] me at 11 years old, playing with a bunch of like 14-year-old girls. And yeah, that’s how I had my start.”

By 14, Reid was a part of three different after-school basketball programs, and tried out for one of the basketball teams in Quebec.

In 2023, Reid was named one of the top players in Quebec, and was named a 2023 National Champion Quarterfinals Player of the Game. 

Moving from Montreal to New Hampshire wasn’t too drastic of a change, Reid said, and finding grounding at college and within the basketball team was seamless. 

“My teammates, as soon as I got here, they were so welcoming. I love those girls,” Reid said. “They made the process super easy.  I was worried about the transition from getting a new coaching staff completely, because I had the same coach my whole life.”

Reid had started laying out groundwork for playing for the Wildcats even before she was admitted to UNH. To find a school that would accommodate both her academic and athletic needs, she started emailing coaches all across the country. And UNH was one of the schools that “responded” to her email inquiry. 

“ You get anything you need here. Whether it is mental health services, or it’s just going to the academic center to study and seeing other athletes, you know that you’re well supported here,” Reid said. “A lot of other schools have those services, but I feel like UNH, they advertise them. 

With all the success Reid has had to her name in the field of basketball, she plans to further use that experience by becoming a sports psychologist. 

 “I am living it, and going through the struggles of being a sportsperson everyday,” she said. “And I would love to have more people in the field who would help athletes in their everyday struggles.”

Even though UNH is proceeding into the season with a 2-15 score, might Reid’s personal success in basketball be owed to her height? 

“I am 6’1,” she said. “I was always taller than the other girls.”