By Chris Cox
Minneapolis junior Maggie Shupe has grown up around the game. She started playing when she was in second grade but has been around it all of her life.
“My dad (Erik) was actually the Minneapolis High School boys’ basketball coach for a couple of years,” she says. “Then he was an assistant coach at Bethany for a little bit.”
Maggie says having a coach for a dad helped her appreciation for the game.
“He sees the game in a simple but different way than a lot of people,” she says. “He’s not interested in the big hype. He’s focused on the fundamentals and having fun playing the game.”
Shupe also says her older sister, Lindsay, has also been a big influence in her basketball life.
“She inspired me to always work harder,” Maggie says. “She was really good at basketball too and I just always wanted, with that sibling competitiveness, to be better than her. I learned from her that basketball is a mentally tough sport. She also taught me a lot about the game and how to change your pace of speed and the fundamentals.”
Shupe says her motivation on the court comes from not wanting to let her teammates down.
“I don’t want to let my team down and do my best,” she says. “I know to not to let my team down, I have to work as hard as I can on my job. I also just try to encourage my teammates to be aggressive and go for every ball. On my team, that just comes naturally for a lot of the girls. We also try to just to hold each other accountable and push each other.”
Shupe hopes that accountability and hard work leads to success for her and the Minneapolis Lions.
“Defense is one of our big things,” she says. “We hope to shut teams down and keep the no points in the first half. We also want to get to a point where we don’t have to rely on the fans or coaches to get us going but we to be able to play the game ourselves and trust each other.”
Outside of basketball, Shupe also plays volleyball for Minneapolis. She is also in dance, the school musical and play, StuCo, NHS, and FCA. Following graduation, Shupe plans on attending Fort Hays and studying marine biology.
