Roper has heart as big as her 6-foot-5 frame

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

Christen Roper swats the pre-conceived notions about 6-foot-5 female basketball players. It is only natural for a woman who could break the 8-year-old Western Athletic Conference career blocks record tonight when Hawai'i takes on Tulsa.

Hawai'i senior center Christen Roper makes friends, such as 8-year-old Kristen Yamasaki, as easily as she blocks shots. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

"Kids are surprised at her," UH coach Vince Goo says. "Because of her physical stature they might back off and be intimidated, but then they see, instead of all the inches, her heart and how soft a person she is. Like a big teddy bear."

Kristen Yamasaki, 8, saw it the moment Roper looked at her during a Manoa Girls Athletic Club clinic. "Kristen," Roper said with a smile. "What a beautiful name."

Kristen, a budding artist, was in the opening seconds of her sports career. Suddenly she was a basketball fanatic.

Roper took more time with Kristen during the clinic, then spoke after about sports and school. Fate kicked in when Yamasaki got No. 14 — Roper's number and birthday.

The Hongwanji Mission School second-grader had a hero. "She's a kind and gentle person," Kristen says simply.

"She was always talking about Christen," Kevin Yamasaki said of his daughter. "After the game she asked her, 'Do you remember me?' Christen said yes and Kristen whispered something into her ear. I heard Christen go, 'Monday, 5 p.m. right? Your first game.'

"I was thinking right. I thought it was kinda mean actually that she'd get her hopes up. We tried to prepare Kristen for her not showing up. But she came."

The Yamasakis have come to every Rainbow Wahine weekend game since, Kristen's persistent screams announcing their presence.

According to Roper, she can't have a bad game in Kristen's eyes. "She always tells me 'You played the bestest,' " Roper says of her "little friend."

Kristen has gone from not having a clue how to hold a basketball to perceiving nuances. She now "leans" on opponents like Kim Willoughby in the post and understands why teams have shot a combined .353 against Hawai'i since Roper made the first of what will be 60 consecutive starts tonight.

"She's a shot blocker, she's imposing in there," Goo says. "She is much more effective at the defensive end than offensively. Look at how many teams have shot 50 percent against us the last three years — three teams? The majority of that is Christen Roper. She changes shots. When you have a girl like that in your interior defense, you're going to be a pretty good defensive team."

Roper came here gawky and with a bit of baby fat. She lost that in her first offseason and has started pretty much ever since. She is not a gifted athlete aside from her stature, but she is a perpetual worker with a passion for the game that stretches basketball into a year-round sport.

Roper has accumulated seven all-tournament trophies, including four MVP awards, to complement all-WAC academic honors. She is averaging 10 points and eight rebounds as a senior. But it is her presence, on defense and on-campus, that is her most compelling contribution.

"We ask three things when they come in the program," Goo says. "In basketball, leave in four years better than what you were. As a student, leave with your college degree. And be a better person when you leave.

"We didn't have to do anything to make her a better person than when she came in. She already had that. Academics was never a problem so all we had to do was work on one of those things. Talk about low maintenance. That's as low as you'll get."

Roper's parents get an assist. They gave her a solid foundation and have been close by during her constructive years, coming to almost all Christen's 81 wins and 36 losses the past four seasons. Bob Roper, the Ventura County (Calif.) fire chief, gets the tentative schedule every August and bends his work shifts around it.

"They have been very, very positive," Goo says. "And you don't always have a lot of parents who acknowledge good performances of others on the team. They do that. That's really nice. They know Wahine basketball is not all Christen Roper. That's enlightening."

Their priorities are their daughter's. Christen, majoring in history and minoring in Spanish, ultimately wants to teach at a high school where she can also coach. She knew that seemingly from the moment she walked into Manoa, and drove straight toward her degree without passing off.

Basketball and making friends with people who cared more for her than how she played were just part of a gratifying process.

"Basketball comes second, always, to school," Roper says. "Basketball takes you to what, age 22?"

Still, she knows she will miss the game more than she imagines.

"Basketball is the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do before I go to bed," Roper admits. "It's always there and it's always going to be there.

"I'm not looking forward to Senior Night because I don't want it to come. Yet I'm really excited for it. Basketball is the whole thing that brought me here. Classes were the same at other schools I looked at. But here, the players actually liked each other."

She is not the only one sad to see it end. "Kristen is bummed Christen's career is almost over," Kevin Yamasaki acknowledges. "It's neat for somebody to be nice to her."