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February 10, 2000
Being ordinary makes Benson extraordinaryBy BOB VARMETTE Journal Sports Writer STEWART -- Like any other 14-year-old girl, Melissa Benson occasionally complains about her hair. She likes spending time with her friends, and she enjoys listening to music and watching TV. She lives on a farm north of Stewart with her younger sister Alison, and her parents Doug and Marlene Benson -- a dairy farmer and a working mom. She wears glasses, has braces and is a B honor roll student. An ordinary girl from an ordinary family, Melissa plays trumpet in the band. And she plays basketball. A 5-foot-9 starting wing for the McLeod West Falcons junior varsity team, the freshman averages four points per game, wants to improve her free-throw shooting and thinks her defense needs a little work. She's just an ordinary girl. And that is what makes Melissa extraordinary. "I think of myself as someone different than everybody else and I just try to do normal things," Melissa explained. "I try to act normal, as normal as I can be. I like being normal." Melissa was born with an incompletely formed right arm and fingers, and has only three fingers on her left hand. Everything -- from learning to zip a jacket and tie her shoes to learning to shoot a jump shot -- has come harder for Melissa. Often, the things other basketball players, and other 14-year-olds, take for granted every day are obstacles for her. None of which has dimmed her enthusiasm for life. "I'm happy most of the time," Melissa said. She's well-adjusted for a high school freshman -- she has plenty of friends, most of whom are teammates or other athletes. Melissa hasn't shut herself off from the world in order to hide her disability -- the stares of strangers have been a part of Melissa's life for so long she rarely takes much notice. When Melissa is not playing basketball or softball or football, or studying or doing household chores, she and her friends do rather ordinary things. They go to the movies; after school they hang out at a small restaurant about three blocks from the McLeod West campus in Brownton. She doesn't have a boyfriend now, but has in the past. Melissa, of course, wonders which boys like her and which don't, and while she engages in the usual boy-oriented conversations of typical teen-age girls, she doesn't allow her thoughts about boys and boyfriends to rob her of any sleep. "They've all accepted me, they've all accepted how I am," Melissa said. "I don't think it's a problem." Doug and Marlene Benson never allowed Melissa to expect anything less from herself. From Melissa's very first day, they were determined to make her life as normal as possible. "I think that's where she wants to be," Doug Benson said. "She doesn't want to be to either side, she wants to be straight down the road. She's a bubbly, happy type of person. We've always tried to keep it that way." When Melissa started school, they consulted with her teachers and special education advisers about how to make her school experience as ordinary as possible. And other than needing help when she was younger carrying a lunch tray or tying a shoe, Melissa has had nothing extraordinary done for her. "She's just an average teen-ager, an average ninth-grader," Marlene Benson said. "She doesn't demand anything special from anybody. Actually, she refuses or won't ask for the help. She'll try and do it herself." There is no name for Melissa's disability. Doctors don't know why her right arm never developed from her elbow down or why her left arm, which is one-half inch shorter than it should be, has a hand with only three short fingers. Marlene Benson neither drank nor smoked during her pregnancy with Melissa. The rest of Melissa's immediate family is normal. Doug and Marlene Benson said the doctors are confident the problem is not genetic. The reason is a mystery. Melissa is philosophical. "This is the way God made me," she smiled. Her family, her friends and her teachers have done everything they can to make Melissa's life as normal as possible. So has the community. Melissa was born in Hutchinson and has spent her entire life in the area. The community has known her all her life, so much so that she is just another teen-ager. There is no sense of awe when she takes the floor. The incredulity has long since passed into routine when Melissa dribbles the ball down the court, takes a pass or drains a 15-footer. "You forget about (her disability), you think she's normal because she is," said Alison, Melissa's 12-year-old sister, and often her opponent in driveway games. "She's taught me a lot, about how to deal with things, helped me understand more things. You just totally forget about it." Coach Mike Gunderson, though, is in his first year leading the Falcons' varsity. Seeing Melissa play for the first time was a jaw-dropping experience. "I was very impressed," he said. "I was impressed with not just that she could play, but with the quality of the basketball that she plays -- she's a good shot. She's feisty and that helps her out. It really says a lot about her that we've made no modifications for her." Melissa's feisty nature has long proved to be her biggest asset. Her competitiveness and determination have been part of her since she was a baby. Doug and Marlene Benson first noticed it with little things like trying to crawl out of her crib -- repeatedly. It progressed to children's board games and learning how to ride a bicycle, and then to sports where Melissa never shied away from pick-up games with the boys at lunch and recess. Other than nixing a foray into wrestling when Melissa was in the third grade, her parents have always been supportive of her participation in sports. Not that Melissa needed much encouragement -- she has always wanted to play, especially basketball. "I love the game," Melissa said. "I love shooting, I love dribbling. I just enjoy playing. I wasn't the best player out there and it took a long time to accept that I couldn't do everything, but I knew I wanted to play basketball all the way through high school. "I knew that right away. But I didn't know how good I was going to be. I was kind of iffy on that. It took me a lot of practice." But Melissa is there. It hasn't been a fairy-tale journey, though. There were plenty of obstacles along the way and there are still some aspects of the game that continue to be obstacles. She has trouble going to her right, and she can't do a cross-over dribble. She can't dribble between her legs or behind her back. Despite her height, she plays the perimeter because playing inside would require her to play bigger than she's able to with her limited armspan, and at only 120 pounds, Melissa doesn't have much weight to throw around in the battle for rebounds. But she starts and she contributes, having played 75 percent of the minutes so far this season. Her teammates are glad she's there. "I think it's good for her because it's something that she's good at," said Becky Duehn, a fellow freshman on the McLeod West junior varsity squad. "She's got a great attitude. ... Nobody thinks of her as anyone different because of her disability." Another junior varsity teammate -- freshman Katie Stockmann -- agrees. "She's real good," Stockmann said. "It's really awesome what she can do. She just fits in with everyone else." It's other teams that notice her. "When I talk to other coaches, they just can't believe how well she does," McLeod West junior varsity coach Angie Klockmann said. "I haven't had a coach yet not make a comment. The other teams look at her and say, 'Wow!'" Melissa's plans for the future are no less ambitious than her accomplishments. She hopes to be a varsity starter by her junior season and she'd like to eventually play in college. "She amazes us every day with things, and what she can do," Marlene Benson said. "She's always surprised us. That's just the way she is. She wasn't going to let her disability bother her in life." And that is what makes Melissa extraordinary.
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