LAYNEE STANLEY – Fort Gibson
Written by Mike Kays
It’s been a long off-season for Fort Gibson basketball standout Laynee Stanley.
There’s been those spring trips to Dallas for practice with the Lady Jets, a member of the elite Adidas circuit. That continued through summer camps and workouts back at Fort Gibson, taking part on the Elevated Native Basketball Tournament, her regular season with the Jets through July going from San Antonio to South Carolina, and then the return to practice at Fort Gibson.
It’s the price one pays for major college dreams.
And in November, a month before her final regular season as a Lady Tiger gets underway, Stanley cleared that path somewhat by putting her name on a letter of intent to make the University of North Texas her future college home.
“Laynee has devoted her life to this,” said Scott Lowe, the Fort Gibson head coach. “There are times that I hate it for her. Your friends are at the lake and you’re going to a basketball tournament. And it all sounds like fun to some but when you’re going week after week and even on your off weeks you’re training.
“You’re out there auditioning all the time and I’ve seen it take a mental toll on kids. She loves the game, and I truly believe she’d be playing whether there was a scholarship at stake or not. Still, I think she was ready for it to be done and is in a good place right now.”
A late recruiting run by Tulsa was negated by the comfort zone of the 6-foot Stanley, a VYPE Top 100 player, developed with UNT coach Jason Burton, who recruited Stanley at first as the coach at Texas A&M-Commerce. That relationship continued as he made her his first offer as UNT’s mentor.
“People who trust you and want the best for you, that’s the type of people you want to surround yourself with,” she said.
And the grind, she says, was worth it. Some friends may have been hanging at the lake, but a best friend became Jets teammate Janiyah Williams out of Edmond Memorial who recently signed with Oregon as one of the nation’s top recruits.
“It’s stressful, but it’s a lot of fun,” she said. “I’m super blessed to have two parents (Derrick and Ashli Stanley) in my corner. Just the sacrifices they have made in support of me. All the time they put in and the weekends off they lose because of this, it all just means a lot.”
It’s an adjustment between cultures where you’re playing alongside a cast of players like Williams on one hand and the high school level on the other where not everyone is Division I caliber or maybe not even with college hoops in their future at all, but solid kids who love being part of a highly successful system that operates for the open shot, whoever gets it.
“You come here to Fort Gibson and realize that no matter the differences in talent level or skill level in both situations, success still means a lot, but in both cases, it’s about family and being able to trust in each other,” said Stanley. “Some of it was a tough adjustment the first two years (she transferred from Little Kansas), but we have the same intentions, and it works for everyone.”
She averaged 13 points and 8 rebounds as a junior, consistent with what she’s had the previous two years as part of a program that put together a state record 19 consecutive state tournament trips. That ended last year in the area consolation finals, and it’s fuel for one last accomplishment on this side of life in Denton, Texas.
“More than anything I want to take it back to (Class 4A) and tell them ha, we’re not done,” she said. “It’s probably the most pressure I’ve been under. But I love pressure.”
With the deal sealed for college, her focus is totally on that.
