#489 Heather Bassett Skelton

Have you ever known someone who was a force of nature?  Someone who would enter a room with such life and energy that you weren’t quite sure what was happening?  Someone who seemed to know everyone and could strike up a conversation with a total stranger?  When I think of these characteristics, one person immediately comes to mind:  Heather Bassett Skelton. 

I first got to know Heather when I was a freshman at Auburn University.  She was a junior.  We were in the same “sorority” – the Auburn Lady Tiger basketball team.  I came to Auburn as a shy, reserved young woman, attending college far from home.  I always marveled at Heather.  She knew everybody on campus and would talk to strangers on our road trips.  How did she do that?  Why did she do that?  

Two years was not enough to be on the team with Heather, but I have a lifetime of memories.  She bounced a check she’d written at McDonald’s to pay for fries.  She flew into and out of the locker room before and after practices.  Always on the go.  She was smart.  She was gorgeous.  She was tan.  She had a megawatt smile. 

Heather, me and Patty - 1987

Team Halloween party - 1987

She didn’t get a lot of playing time on the basketball court, but you wouldn’t know it.  She was one of the hardest workers I’ve ever been around.  We designated her our “All American Practice Player.”  She was assigned to be a player on an opposing team and would shoot the lights out.  Once our coach got so mad at us at a practice that he walked out.  We all looked at each other like, “Well, I’m outta here too.”  Not Heather.  “C’mon y’all!  Let’s keep practicing!”  I can’t remember if anyone stayed.  We thought she was crazy. 

Lisa, Heather, Vickie, me, Lotta - 1988

Front:  Lisa, Lynn, Heather
Back:  Karen, me, Vickie, Lotta, Sharon
1988 Final Four banquet
Tacoma, WA

Roommates Heather and Lynn at the 1988 Final Four

She had a huge heart.  She was dramatic.  You never knew what would happen to her next.  She fell going up the metal stairs at an Auburn baseball game and split her jean mini skirt.  I’m sure she was embarrassed, but she laughed it off and added it to her repertoire. 

During my sophomore year I had a crush on a guy and Heather offered to give us a ride in her two-seater car one afternoon.  He sat in the passenger seat and I sat on his lap.  Thanks for the assist, Heather! 

After graduation, Heather married and settled down in Georgia with her husband and two sons, running her own marketing company.  She was generous, sending cool office gadgets and creating funny T-shirts for our basketball reunions.  I was fortunate to meet her youngest son Blake on one trip back to Auburn.  Not soon after, I helped to arrange a basketball care package for him after he’d devised a way to give personal hygiene products to the homeless – Blake’s Blessing Bags.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  At the time he wore the number 45 for his basketball team and I called him my “45 Twin” (that was my high school and college basketball number too).  Having a big heart himself, he soon switched back to his mom’s number 22 in her honor.

Heather with her youngest son, Blake
Auburn, 2016

Me, Heather, Vickie
Auburn, 2016

Heather battled cancer for many years.  She was a fighter, so I always expected her to ultimately be ok.  She embodied the line from the Auburn Fight Song we sang before every basketball game, “Ever to conquer, never to yield.”  She drove three hours to and from our last reunion (see Post No. 483), picking up a teammate at the Atlanta airport along the way (and apparently driving way too fast).  She kept us laughing the two days we were together once again as teammates.  Valiant and full of life.  During that weekend, I finally understood that things were much more serious, but I still believed she’d get the W.  I was wrong. 

Lady Tiger reunion
Auburn, 2020

After the reunion, Patty, another teammate, sent the occasional update from Heather’s husband.  Last week we got the message we were all dreading.  Heather, always the winner, was losing.  We quickly arranged a Zoom call and last Friday had a three-hour chat in honor of our friend.  We all took turns talking about what she meant to us and to the Lady Tiger program.  We laughed.  We cried.  We tried to get Patty to unmute Charlene.  Patty put together a slideshow of photos with Heather and some of us, and played England Dan and John Ford Coley’s song, Love Is The Answer.  One of the lines goes, “Who knows why, someday we all must die.”  Later on, the chorus repeats, “love one another.”  

When you need a friend, love one another

When you’re near the end, love one another

We got to love, we got to love one another

Heather passed the next day.  Even though she left this earth much too soon, she earned her ticket to paradise and she will be shining down on us all.