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Thursday, February 10, 2000
Backup role suits
Forsberg just fine
Wahine's point guard has
By Al Chase
found success coming
off the bench
Star-BulletinFive years ago, former Hawaii-Hilo head men's basketball coach Jimmy Yagi noticed Maj Forsberg's skills during his annual trip to conduct clinics in Europe.
Yagi called Vince Goo to see if he was interested. Forsberg sent tapes of her games with Denmark's junior national team and her club team.
"Jimmy just asked if I wanted to come and play in the United States and if I would be interested in coming to Hawaii," said Forsberg, who is of Danish and Japanese ancestry. "He told me about the state. I kind of liked the idea that it was close to Japan and it isn't exactly the mainland."
Forsberg had been to this country before, once to a basketball camp in New York and a second time when her Danish club team toured the Midwest.
In July 1996, then-UH assistant coach George Wolfe, called Forsberg. That August she was on a plane to join the Wahine.
"It was a pretty quick recruiting process. It definitely didn't take long to make up my mind," Forsberg said.
When she arrived, Hawaii's the pace of life and the racial mix of the population caught Forsberg by surprise.
MAJ FORSBERG
Position: 5-4 senior point guard
YEAR G PTS AVG. 1996-97 10 11 1.1 1997-98 26 45 1.7 1998-99 21 14 0.7 1999-00 14 21 1.3
"I think it was the very notion of time standing still ... there wasn't the whole fast pace of a state capital," she said. "I was surprised at how few Caucasian people there were here. I wasn't prepared for that. It was America, but it was so different from the America I had experienced before."
The 5-foot-4 point guard spent her first three seasons backing up BJ Itoman. This year she battled Kyla Evers, Ki'i Spencer-Vasconcellos and Michelle Gabriel for the starting point guard job. Evers won.
Throughout her four years as a back up, Forsberg never entertained the thought of giving up basketball. She just kept challenging herself to improve.
"I don't know if it's because I'm older, but maybe five years ago I might have handled it differently," she said. "I had to weigh the benefits of getting a very good education and having the chance to network with people in Japan. I really like the community and climate. Hawaii is like my third home.
"You have to be a realist. With 12 to 15 people on the team and you can only play five at a time, you just have to understand the situation and why the coach plays the people he does. The most important thing for a player to do is back the coach up no matter what he does.
"Sitting on the bench for 40 minutes two times a week was not a reason for leaving."
However, when Evers had to sit out the first meeting between Hawaii and Texas Christian Jan. 15, Forsberg was ready to handle the point. She ran the offense for 34 minutes, had two assists, four steals and just three turnovers.
Turnovers were what hampered her limited playing time earlier in the season. She would get into the game, make a turnover and be right back on the bench.
"Maj has stepped up her game. She is taking care of the ball much better and she knows how to get us into our offense," Goo said.
"She gives us another option. We can bring her in at point guard and get Kyla into the offense more by moving her to the wing."
A good example was last Saturday when the Wahine struggle with their perimeter shooting at Fresno State. Forsberg took the control for 12 minutes and Evers was able to hit two of Hawaii's three successful 3-pointers. Forsberg took one shot and made it, had two assists and no turnovers.
"It's hard to describe how different it is to play a minute, make a mistake and get taken out or going in because you have an asset the team needs at that point. It's a whole different state of mind," Forsberg said.
"TCU was a turning point for me. It was extremely exciting to be playing a whole game. Through that, I've found myself."
Fluent in Danish, Japanese and English and able to get by in German, Swedish and Norwegian because Denmark is surrounded by those countries, Forsberg will graduate in spring 2001.
She is majoring in finance and management information systems with a minor in speech. She had a 4.0 grade point average last semester and has a cumulative 3.71 GPA.
"I probably won't end up in Denmark because it's small and when you've been out in the world you see so many opportunities," Forsberg said "I would like to work for an American company in Japan or a brokerage firm in the U.S."
She also has taken advantage of being just a six-hour flight from Japan, visiting with her mother and brother there each spring vacation or during the summer.
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
Ka Leo O Hawaii
