The warm-up shooting session for the women’s team was still an hour away and their game against Coppin State didn’t tip off until noon, but Szabo had a good idea this would be one of those rare days where she would play some extended minutes.
Coppin State was coming in 0-12 and had just played the night before in Cincinnati where the UC Bearcats had drubbed them by 46 points.
On Monday, UD coach Shauna Green had told her team she hoped to play everybody against the Eagles and she wanted each player to be ready.
Szabo took that urging to heart and showed up early to work on her shot in the deserted arena.
“I just shot 2s and 3s until I felt good about how many I was making,” she said. “I just really wanted to be extra confident in my shooting today, knowing that I was more likely to get in than at other games.”
The strategy paid off.
With 1:24 left in the first half, Green sent the 5-foot-10 Szabo into the game. She got a defensive rebound with 16 seconds left, passed off and then headed up court to a spot deep on the Flyers’ baseline. With three seconds left she got pass from Kyla Whitehead and without hesitation launched a three that was perfect.
The UD players on the bench leaped to their feet cheering and high-fiving each other.
On the other side of the court — directly across from the Flyers bench where she always sits so she can watch her daughter during the games — Emily Szabo was warmed, not only by Christine’s success but by the way her teammates celebrated her.
After a brief appearance in the third quarter, Szabo got in again with just over four minutes left in the game.
She was quickly fouled and before each free throw she twirled the ball once around her back — similar to the way former NBA star Gilbert Arenas did — and then swished each toss. She began that move in middle school and no one at UD has tried to change her.
She leads the team in free-throw percentage this season, having made all six of her attempts..
Tuesday she hit her second three-point attempt as well, then backpedaled down the court smiling. She missed only once on the day and finished with eight points, a season-high and one off her career mark.
When the game ended — the Flyers winning, 78-48 — she was greeted by her teammates with high fives, leaping chest bumps and hugs.
UD personnel sent her back onto the court to do an interview with ESPN+, which broadcast the game. It was her first TV appearance in four years at UD unless you count the times she was the interviewer, not the interviewee.
During the fall, the communications major worked as a sideline reporter for ESPN broadcasts of UD soccer and volleyball matches. And this past summer she worked for ABC News in Washington D.C.
But in those sessions she was telling things about other people.
On this day, she was the story.
And no one was happier than Green:
“I told the team afterward about her getting here early. She knew her number was going to be called and she was ready to go. That’s life, isn’t it? You know something is coming and you prepare.
“I can’t say enough about her. She’s done so much for this team. She brings energy and consistency and a positive vibe. There’s something about being around someone like that. I feel it and the team does. She’s just a person who makes everyone around her better, everyone around her happier.
“That’s who she is to the core. She’s always trying to uplift people.
“And she does whatever we need, whether it’s being on the scout team or playing defense all practice long or telling people what she sees from the bench … or getting into the game herself and hitting a three right off the bat.
“I absolutely love that kid!”
Tribute to dad
Szabo had a solid career at Dublin Coffman High School. Her team made the Final Four her junior year and as a senior she was a team captain, an all-conference player and ended up third in career steals.
Although she drew interest from Division II and III programs, she wanted to play D-I basketball and sent a highlight tape to then Flyers coach, Jim Jabir, who eventually invited her onto the team as a walk-on.
But no sooner had she gotten here and Jabir resigned. Green replaced him and knew nothing of Szabo.
“I wasn’t part of the process of her becoming a walk-on, but we soon formed a great bond,” Green said,
The Flyers had a veteran team that won the A-10 Tournament and made the NCAA Tournament that year. Szabo got in just six games, played 11 minutes and made one three-pointer against Liberty.
The following season she played in 17 games scored 26 points and had her nine-point effort against Arkansas Pine Bluff.
Green had an open scholarship the second half of the season and gave it to Szabo for a semester as a reward, not just for her dedication on the court, but for her classroom excellence. She has a 3.9 cumulative grade point average and last semester had a 4.0.
The Flyers again made the NCAA Tournament Szabo’s sophomore season and though UD lost to Marquette, she got in the game. It’s a moment she won’t forget.
“My dad got to see me play in an NCAA Tournament,” she said quietly.
Six weeks later, 58-year-old Lajos Lazlo Szabo died from complications of multiple myeloma.
A month after her dad’s death, the grieving Szabo found a unique way to remember him.
She took samples of his handwriting to a tattoo artist, who used her dad’s lettering to ink his three initials on her ring finger. The guy then took the bubble part of an R her dad had written and created two halves of the heart he put next to the initials.
She said she purposely put the remembrance on her ring finger:
“My dad will never be able to walk me down the aisle … so it kind of symbolic.”
Team player
Her junior season the scholarship went back to a player who transferred in, but Szabo didn’t pout: “It was really nice while it lasted.”
Junior year she played in just nine games — a total of 22 minutes — and she’s played in nine of 14 games this season.
“There have been hard times definitely, but never to the point where I thought I’d quit,” she said. “I love the game way too much and I love my teammates and coaches way too much. And I’ve learned so many valuable lessons and had great experiences.”
After Tuesday’s game her mom took her to lunch.
“I just told her how proud I was of her,” Emily Szabo said. “She has an amazing work ethic and she’s persevered through everything that’s come her way. And through it all she’s kept a great attitude.”
She recounted how one of the TV announcers marveled at the way her daughter – game after game, season after season – is so overjoyed on the bench by her teammates’ successes.
Tuesday the script was flipped.
When she finished her on-court TV interview after the game, Szabo passed a small crowd of people in the stands and they all applauded and cheered her. Several called out her name.
“Even though I don’t score 20 a game and I’m not a starter or anything, they still supported me,” she said afterward. “People I didn’t even know were cheering me. It made me feel good.”
And that was only right.
She’s spent four years at UD making everybody else feel good.
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