Outside the Forker Building in Ames, the late February sun tries to burn away all that winter created.Inside Forker and down a flight of stairs, the smell of sweat hits your nostrils 10 feet before walking into the gym where the ISU women’s basketball team occasionally practices.Open the door and you’ll see her there, shooting a three on this end, playing defense against a starter on the other.Of the 1,080 minutes of game time available this season, senior Sarah Robson played in 88 of them. No bother. “The practice is my game,” Robson said.Attitudes like that are seldom found, the ISU coaching staff believes. “Those people like that are few and far between,” ISU head coach Bill Fennelly said. “She’s totally committed to everyone else.”Brian Eisbach, a teammate of Robson’s on the practice squad, steals the ball this February afternoon during a scrimmage. He streaks to the other end, laying the ball in completely uncontested.As the ball hits twine, Robson slows her churning legs that trail Eisbach by ten feet. She turns around her 5-4 inch frame, the shortest on the team, and rejoins the other eight players on the other end of the court, her black shoulder straps on her two-sizes-too-big jersey bouncing all the while.There was no need for Robson to hustle down the hardwood to watch a teammate of hers lay the ball in.But that’s the point.”Those who work hard are luckier,” Robson said.She learned that from her father, Brad Robson, while growing up in Belmond, Iowa, a quiet town that plays class 1A athletics. Robson played in four of them: basketball, softball, track and field and cross country.It is surprising. Even though she grew up a three-pointer away from a park that offered a full-length basketball court, cross country was her first love.In fact, “basketball is the one [sport] she least excelled in,” Brad Robson said.Robson did finish among the top ten at the state cross country meet three times. And she does hold track records in the 800, 1500, 3000 and distance medley. But Robson also started all of her four seasons of basketball, earning all-conference three times and honorable mention all-state once.So did Dad view Robson too critically on the basketball court?”Dad is a basketball junkie,” Robson said.After every high school game, regardless of the social functions that might follow it, Brad would sit with Sarah, watching and critiquing her performance on the video tape that Sarah’s mother Jane filmed.”It was our time together,” Brad said.Few things have changed.

After nearly every home game in her collegiate career, Robson was greeted by her parents, grand-parents, and aunts and uncles who came to watch her sit on the bench.”We wanted to support her in whatever she did,” Brad said. “And we enjoy the team.”So does Robson. She said those who look at her situation and think otherwise are “dead wrong.””I love basketball. Just being able to practice with [the rest of the team] is fun for me.”Jane Robson said she gets this type of attitude from growing up with Michael, Sarah’s older brother, who has down syndrome.”It helped her become the lovable person that she is. She accepts people for what they are,” Jane said.”[Michael] has taught me never to take anything for granted,” Sarah said.And she hasn’t.She joined the team as a walk-on. It was an “ideal” time to join, Sarah said. Fennelly had less than ten players on scholarship.Although she has never started at Iowa State, this year Fennelly rewarded her with a scholarship.”She’s earned it,” Fennelly said. “Both on and off the court.”Robson, a senior in management information systems and finance, was recently selected to the 2001 Big 12 academic all-conference team for the second time.But the accolade won’t be what she remembers anyway.”Oh, the memories,” she said, that’s what will linger.Like the times the team went shopping on their off day at the Big 12 Basketball Tournament.Or when the team played truth or dare on the bus on road trips.Or the time the team forgot about the two managers, Jeff Laboe and Brian Eisbach, and left them at a bus stop returning from a game. “I’m lucky,” Robson said.