Five years ago in her eighth-grade yearbook, Elissa Brown predicted no one would wear No. 22 after she left high school.
Her written will-and-testament came true Friday as the Elmore County girls basketball program retired her No. 22 jersey.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Brown said. “It’s funny because in our eighth-grade yearbook, when you’re leaving that year you write like a will-and-testament. And I put in my yearbook as my will-and-testament something about, ‘I don’t want anyone to wear No. 22.’ I don’t know what it said exactly, but I think that’s so funny and now it’s actually happening. But yeah, it’s just an awesome experience and an honor.”
Brown, a current University of Alabama softball player, wrote the words down five years before, then proceeded to work hard enough to make it happen.
“I just did all I could do when I needed to do it. I guess it turned out positive,” she said. “I had some great years here, and as an alumni now looking at it, it was fun times and I’m going to miss it definitely.”
Over her four-and-a-half seasons on the varsity basketball team – she was pulled up in the middle of her eighth-grader year – Brown amassed a school basketball record 1,947 points and earned Second-Team All-State honors at point guard her senior year, an Elmore County girls program first, averaging 25 points per game.
“Elissa is one of those players that just comes along once in a lifetime,” Lady Panther head coach Amy Rachel said. “You don’t get to see those players a lot. Coaching her, pretty much anything you do in life, you just don’t get to see that kind of caliber of individual come along very many times.
“When she set the record for the school in scoring, girls or boys, that’s just something that I think is special enough that that number needs a huge recognition. For her jersey to be retired, that sums up her career here at Elmore County. I think she was completely deserving of it.”
Brown tried to set an example while at ECHS and, as she still has friends at the high school seeing her come back and be honored, she hopes that example is continuing.
“It is an honor. I just take advantage of it, like a mentorship,” Brown said. “All of my friends are still in high school, and they’re always asking me about college. That’s a good thing.”
