Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? Sharon's daily role was finding a way to keep food on the table while doing everything from working as a waitress or in factories, to doing hair- dressing from her own home. At the time, Ruth was too young to under- stand what poverty meant until the children qualified for a free and re- duced lunch program. "That is when I started to realize that we were different from everyone else," she said. Freshman year in high school opened other wounds when she was easily the tallest girl in school and became some- what withdrawn because she was per- ceived as awkward, shy and one from the poor side of the tracks. "Once I was a teenager, I realized I wasn't wearing what everyone else was wearing and I definitely was not driving what everyone else was driv- ing," Riley said. "In high school, I started to see more clearly the struggle my mom was going though to provide for us. I noticed that people only saw me as an athlete and really were clue- less of my life's story. "That made me more aware that as I engage with other people, I needed to put all assumptions aside and try to truly meet them on a level of hu- manity." The gangly 6-5 girl developed into an elite athlete, winning four letters apiece in basketball, volleyball — she was named all-state in both — and in the discus for track and field. Sharon also implemented strict guidelines on limited television use — "we got only four stations anyway," Riley deadpanned — and put a pre- mium on constantly reading books to facilitate their knowledge. "We were told at a young age that we were smart, and we were expected to bring home grades accordingly," Ri- ley said. "Besides the intellectual ben- efit of reading more, I am grateful for the creativity and resourcefulness that I developed as a child. My brother, sister and I were always active, and our imaginations became our guide instead of a TV." Although she appreciates the conve- nience of today's technology, she still believes there is a drawback. "I do believe it comes at a cost of increased obesity rates in our youth," she said. "My nephew knows when I visit that I am happy to play any game he wants — as long as it is not elec- tronic and his latest feat in Minecraft is not going to be our conversation topic." HARDLY 'RETIRED' In addition to her on-court exploits, Riley was a Hall of Fame academi- cian, a regular on the Dean's List while earning bachelor's degrees in psychol- ogy and sociology. She also viewed her greatest victories as the ability to use her basketball skills as a platform with the school's LifeSkills Office (now Stu- dent Welfare and Development). "I would visit local schools and was amazed at the reaction of the kids," Ri- ley said. "… I realized that my oppor- tunity to impact lives would not just be to a large group of kids, it also ex- isted on a very personal level as well. "The confidence I gained on the court and the spotlight that accom-