For most high school basketball players, their most memorable moment happens when they sink a game-winning basket or win a state championship.
Pojoaque High School senior Nicole Gonzales has already accomplished both in her career. She sank the game-winning basket in Pojoaque’s opening game of last season at Mora. She hit a 15-foot jumper that fell through the net as the buzzer sounded to give the Elkettes a 43-41 victory.
Later that season, she stood on the floor of the Pit in Albuquerque, holding a banner with her teammates proclaiming that the Elkettes were the Class AAA state champions after they defeated St. Michaels 46-39.
“It was the greatest feeling ever,” Gonzales said. “Our games against St. Michaels are always the biggest games of the year.”
Neither of those memories, however, is the one that matters most to Gonzales.
Her most memorable moment came March 9, 2007, when the Elkettes were playing in the state semifinals at the Pit against the Hope Christian Huskies. Gonzales, a sophomore, was playing in her first varsity season.
“I never got much playing time,” Gonzales said. “I was just happy to be there.”
Gonzales was in for a surprise that morning.
“I looked up in the stands and saw (her brother) Leon,” Gonzales said. “I asked, him ‘Why are you here, don’t you have to work?’”
Leon Gonzales, who was four years older than Nicole, had graduated from Pojoaque and worked at a medical supply company.
“I wanted to see my sister the first time she stepped on to the Pit floor,” Leon Gonzales told Nicole. “I didn’t want to miss you.”
That meant a lot to Nicole.
“He understood that having someone at your games means a lot to you,” she said.
When Nicole and Leon were small children, they moved in with their grandmother Lala Gonzales, who lives in Española’s west side. Their parents, Annabelle and Manuel, were unable to care for them so they were adopted by Manuel’s mother.
“Because her dad was in the pen and her mother was involved with drugs, social services said they wanted to put them in a foster home,” Lala Gonzales said. “I wanted them to grow up together, so I became their legal guardian.
Lala Gonzales had a lot of experience raising children and had already raised two other grandchildren besides Leon and Nicole.
“She had raised 10 kids of her own,” Nicole said. “It was hard to give all of us the attention we needed.”
Gonzales was in the third grade when she began playing basketball at Española Elementary. She not only met an individual that she still calls her best friend — Amy Salazar — but she also found something to take her attention away from her troubled family life.
“It takes my mind off of everything else that’s going on.” she said. “It has kept me on the right path because I don’t want to lose it.”
Nicole played basketball throughout her years at Española Elementary. Lala Gonzales was a bus driver for the Española School District and would take her and Leon with her in the morning.
Her parents both spent time at the State Penitentiary in Santa Fe. Except for times when Lala would take them to visit her parents in prison, they were not a part of Leon’s and Nicole’s lives.
When Nicole was ready to go to middle school, she didn’t want to attend Pojoaque, where her brother was going to school and playing football..
“I was scared to leave all my friends,” Nicole said.
It took her best friend being accepted at Pojoaque to persuade her to attend the school.
Her father came back into her life at that time. She and Leon moved in with him, but it was Leon who actually assumed the role and the duties of being a father.
“He’d (Leon) take me to my games, cook dinner for me, helped me with my homework and stayed on me about my grades” Nicole said.
After two years of living with her father, Nicole moved back in with her grandmother. Her brother had graduated and moved into a trailer near Lala, so Nicole decided she did not want to stay with her father alone.
“(Leon) didn’t go to college after he graduated,” Nicole said. “He pretty much put me ahead of himself and stayed to be with me.”
Just a little over two weeks after Leon had surprised Nicole at the state basketball tournament, tragedy struck.
Lala Gonzales found Leon unconscious March 25, 2007, in the bed in his trailer. He had died of an accidental overdose caused by a combination of oxycodone and alcohol.
“I thought I was going to fall apart, but I used it to make me stronger,” Nicole said. “I knew how proud of me he was.”
Her strength of character is a quality admired by both her teammates and coaches.
“Kids like Nicole are kinda like why we do this,” Pojoaque assistant coach Joe Estrada said. “Nothing has ever come easy for her.”
Gonzales credits Estrada with helping her stick with basketball once she got to high school. Estrada coached the girls junior varsity team and helped Gonzales deal with some of the realities of varsity basketball.
“It was tough for Nicole,” Estrada said. “She was watching other players move up (to the varsity) quicker than she did.”
Salazar, still Gonzales’ best friend, quit playing basketball in her sophomore year.
“I was ready to quit my sophomore year,” Gonzales said. “(Estrada) encouraged me to stick with it.”
Estrada said Gonzales is the only player on the Elkettes’ varsity team who has worked her way up through the ranks, playing for the “C” team and the junior varsity before finally earning a spot on the varsity.
“Nicole has done such a wonderful job of trying to get better and helping others get better,” Pojoaque coach Lanse Carter said. “This is the kind of kid you tend to look out for a little bit more.”
Gonzales played a key role as a reserve on last year’s state championship team, and she has started at times this season for the undefeated Elkettes as they look to repeat. Her teammates rally around her and trust her.
“We call her like our mom,” teammate Janelle Roybal said. “We all just love her because she cares more about us than she does herself. It would have been easier for her to take a bad road, but she doesn’t — she’s a role model.”
Gonzales plans to enlist in the Army Reserve after she graduates in May. It was something she and Leon had planned to do together.
One of the reasons she wants to go into the army is because it will pay for her college education.
“I told myself I didn’t want to be a burden on my grandmother,” Gonzales said. “She’s already done so much for me.’
After basic training, she said she will enter school and study for a career in law enforcement and eventually possibly work for the FBI.
“I pretty much know the bad side of life — I want to be on the other side,” Gonzales said. “I want to be the one who does something positive.”