Katie Rollins is not the star of the documentary “No Look Pass,” but she’s all over it. The 2011 documentary follows Emily Tay, Rollins’ teammate, roommate, and best friend in their days playing basketball at Harvard University during their senior year. Filmmaker Melissa Johnson followed friends Rollins and Tay through their senior season, 2008-09, with the Crimson, then their season playing professionally together in Vierheim, Germany.
Johnson’s film glosses over nothing. It captures the struggles of Tay, a first generation Burmese-American as she overcomes traditional Burmese gender roles (there’s a point in the film Tay’s father explains it’s unusual for girls to play sports in Burma) and contemplates telling her family she is gay. The movie shows Rollins and Tay dealing with the consequences of their partying in Germany when they’re reprimanded by coaches for what’s perceived by the team as a lack of professionalism.
More than anything, “No Look Pass” shows two young women in their early 20s growing up.
“It was special to have that memorialized. You truly do forget the camera is there. You live your life, and everything is there (on film), good, bad, and ugly,” Rollins said.
Five minutes into the film, Rollins and Tay are seen working at their part-time job, cleaning bathrooms for around $100 a week each.
“I bet there’s no other D one (Division I) athletes doing this,” Tay says.
Hard work was and is nothing unusual to Rollins, now Katie DelSignore since her marriage to Eddy DelSignore. The couple will celebrate their second anniversary in September. Hard work helped Rollins DelSignore become a Miss Maine Basketball winner and state champion at Augusta’s Cony High School, helped her excel at Harvard and earn her season of pro basketball in Germany, and now helps in her career as a marketing manager with Coca-Cola.
“Playing with Emily in Germany, it took the homesickness away,” DelSignore, 33, said in a recent phone interview from her home in South Boston, Massachusetts, which she shares with her husband, a lawyer specializing in business and employment law, and dachshund, Jules.
The 6-foot-3 DelSignore graduated from Cony in 2005, averaging 22.4 points and 10.2 rebounds per game as a senior, leading the Rams to a 58-40 win over Catherine McAuley in the Class A state championship game. She was named Miss Maine Basketball, moving on to Harvard where DelSignore was an all-Ivy League team selection as a junior and senior. As a junior, she led the Crimson in scoring, averaging 11.4 points per game, and led the Ivy League in field goal percentage, .536.
In Germany, she helped Vierheim reach the league championship series. It wasn’t a chance to earn life-changing money, DelSignore said, but it was a chance to play basketball and see Europe.
“I am so grateful for basketball… the skill set and character it helped me build,” DelSignore said. “The time managment and stress management cannot be stressed enough. Basketball tests you in a lot of ways , in ways the real world never will.”
When she was balancing basketball with the academic load at Harvard, DelSignore knew she was building skills she would use throughout life. If I can take that on, she thought, I can take on anything.
Playing at Cony for Paul Vachon was a special experience, she said.
“In the middle of it, you don’t see the big picture,” DelSignore said. “The people who push you the hardest are the most invested in your success. Don’t lose the message in the delivery.”
In her job at Coca-Cola, DelSignore manages marketing promotion of the company’s products in CVS Pharmacies and Dollar General stores nationwide. If you walk into a CVS in central Maine, for example, and see a Coke display, DelSignore probably created it. In a previous sports marketing job with Coca-Cola, DelSignore worked closely with former Boston Red Sox star David Ortiz on marketing campaigns.
“It’s cool to see what you worked on in the marketplace. I’m really lucky to work with such an empowering brand,” DelSignore said.
DelSignore scratches her basketball itch working at basketball camps, and is considering getting into coaching.
“It’s really fun to see how (players) grow and progress. I think I understand that fulfillment you feel when you see progress in a player,” she said. “You get a taste of it, it’s when you remember, ‘This is why I love this so much.'”
In February, DelSignore and her husband attended the Class A North boys basketball championship game between Cony and Hampden. Being in the stands at the packed Augusta Civic Center brought back memories of her time playing at Cony. When Hampden rallied to overcome a late 10-point deficit and beat the Rams, DelSignore teared up, knowing they Cony players would not get to experience what she did, winning a championship.
“I played at all levels, and there’s nothing better than Maine high school basketball,” she said.
Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM
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