PASADENA, Calif.—Rene Davis has just accomplished something that no other California Institute of Technology woman has ever managed to do. The Corona junior has been named to the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference's 2007 women's basketball all-conference second team.
A quick glance at the conference's website shows some impressive numbers for the 20-year-old Davis. Seventh in the conference in overall scoring with 179 total points and an average of 12.8 points per game, she also snagged 156 rebounds for first place and chalked up 26 steals. In defensive rebounds, she led the conference with 106.
Rene's honor is a pleasant coda for a season in which the Caltech women scored their first conference victory in NCAA Division III play, says Sandra Marbut, the Caltech head women's basketball coach. And not only did the Beavers win against Pomona-Pitzer in mid-January, but they also knocked off archrival Whittier College a few weeks later.
"This was a tremendous season for the program, one that included a lot of Rene," said Marbut after the All-SCIAC Women's Basketball Honors were announced. "We have been building a program that other teams would need to pay attention to, to prepare for, and Rene has been a key ingredient in forcing SCIAC teams to notice."
As for Davis, she thinks the high point of the season was the win against Whittier College, a team against whom the Caltech women have built a strong rivalry over the years. "We really, really wanted to beat them. That was a pride thing," she says.
Davis still remembers the Whittier team's arrival on the gym floor a mere 12 minutes before tip-off, which in the world of basketball is considered inadequate unless a team is certain of victory.
"They were overconfident, and we made sure to send a message that you can't just walk into our gym and get an easy win anymore," she says. "There have been other things in the past that created this rivalry. I don't think they're even aware of it. But we are."
How would she write the story about the Caltech women's basketball season? "Well, I think Quantum Hoops tells the story of Caltech athletics very well, but we are different in a lot of ways," she says, referring to the acclaimed documentary about the 2006 men's basketball team by director Rick Greenwald.
"A documentary about our team would show how hard we worked in the preseason and on the court to build a competitive program. It would show how close our team is and how supportive our coach is. She is there for us in every way she can be. I have never had a coach like that."
Marbut is a great fit at a college where every single student is preparing for a future role in science or technology, Davis says, because she understands the academic conflicts that simply don't exist at other schools.
"Sophomore year is the hardest year for most majors, so she gives the sophomore players a day off from practice each week," Davis explains. "She'll look for a compromise if there's a big academic conflict, just as long as we let her know ahead of time.
"Also, she's all about making sure we get the most out of the experience, and she is not going to ask us to put in more effort than she puts in herself."
Despite Caltech's legendary rigor for all undergraduates, the basketball players put in a surprising amount of practice time. They are on the courts six days a week for two to two and a half hours, and on game days they typically show up more than an hour before tip-off. And this is at a school where every student is required to take physics through quantum mechanics, and many pull 14-hour studying binges just to score acceptable grades on big tests.
The next step for Davis is track season, although she was forced to miss the first track meet because it took place only a day after her last basketball game. A nagging shoulder injury has slowed her down in heptathlon and javelin, but she'll do the running, jumping, and hurdling events in the heptathlon, plus some relays and the 400-meter run.
Next year she'll undoubtedly return to the basketball court for her senior year, and after that, she'll aim for a career with the FBI.
"That'll probably require graduate training in psychology, but I don't know where I want to go yet," she says.
Then there's the 2007-08 basketball season, about which Marbut is already feeling optimistic. "Rene always had this in her," Marbut says. "As our program gains confidence, I think you'll see even more names on the all-conference team with 'Caltech' next to them."
