When Pittsburgh basketball history gets discussed, the men’s names usually dominate the conversation.

But Western Pennsylvania has produced some unbelievable female basketball players. And if we’re going to tell the real history of basketball in this area, their stories deserve the same attention.

For Part 4 of Pittsburgh’s Greatest “What If?” Athletes, we’re going back to the late 1980s.

Before social media. Before YouTube. Before girls basketball received anything close to the exposure it receives today.

And we’re talking about a player who wasn’t simply considered great around Pittsburgh. Shannon Davis was considered one of the best high school girls basketball players in America.

 

Three-Time Parade All-American

Davis starred at Sacred Heart High School. And her resume was ridiculous.

She finished her high school career with 2,275 points. She was a three-time Post-Gazette Fab 5 selection. She helped Sacred Heart win a PIAA championship.

But here’s the accomplishment that really tells you how highly regarded she was: Shannon Davis was a three-time Parade All-American.

Not once. Not twice. Three times.

By her senior year, USA Today named Davis one of the top five high school girls basketball players in the country.

Think about how difficult that level of recognition was to receive in the late 1980s.

There weren’t thousands of highlight clips floating around. There weren’t national recruiting accounts tagging players every day. There weren’t AAU highlights being watched instantly across the country on somebody’s phone.

You had to build a reputation.

And Shannon Davis built a national one.

 

Pittsburgh Had One of America’s Best Players

Davis was a 6-foot-1 forward who could score and rebound and had the type of size and ability major college programs wanted.

She averaged approximately 22 points per game as a senior. By the time she left Sacred Heart, she had a state championship, more than 2,000 points and national recognition.

That’s not just a great Western Pennsylvania career. That’s an elite high school basketball career anywhere in America.

And that’s what makes what happened next so frustrating.

 

Virginia Came Calling

Davis signed with Virginia. At the time, Virginia women’s basketball was becoming a national power.

This wasn’t somebody going to college hoping to prove she belonged at the highest level. The highest level already wanted her.

She had the size. She had the production. She had the national accolades. Everything suggested another chapter of greatness was coming.

Then came the knees.

 

The Cruelest Part of Sports

Knee injuries plagued Davis’ college career at Virginia.

And suddenly one of America’s most decorated high school players never had the opportunity to build the college resume people expected.

That’s what makes injuries different from almost every other “what if?”

You can’t negotiate with your knee. You can’t decide you’re going to work harder and magically make the damage disappear.

Sometimes an athlete does everything right and the body simply changes the story.

That’s why Shannon Davis belongs in this series. What happens if Shannon Davis stays healthy?

 

How Good Could She Have Become?

We have to remember where she started.

Three-time Parade All-American. Top-five player nationally. PIAA champion. 2,275 career points. Major Division I recruit.

That’s the resume before college.

So imagine four healthy years at Virginia.

Does Davis become an All-American? Does she help Virginia make deep NCAA tournament runs? Does she become one of the most accomplished women’s college basketball players Pittsburgh ever produced?

And then there’s another fascinating question. What happens professionally?

Davis graduated high school in 1989. The WNBA didn’t begin playing until 1997.

That’s an entirely different basketball world.

Even if everything had gone perfectly, there wasn’t an American women’s professional league waiting for her immediately after college.

That’s why comparing generations of women’s basketball players is especially difficult. The opportunities weren’t the same.

 

Imagine Shannon Davis Being Born 30 Years Later

Now imagine this exact player coming through Western Pennsylvania today.

A 6-foot-1 girl starts dominating high school basketball. She scores more than 2,000 points. Wins a state championship. Becomes one of the top five players in America. Every major recruiting service ranks her. Her highlights are everywhere. National basketball accounts post her. College coaches follow her on social media. Fans know where she’s committing before she ever signs.

Then NIL enters the conversation. Her name becomes a brand before she even reaches college.

That’s a completely different world from the one Shannon Davis played in.

And yet she still became nationally recognized. Without any of it.

 

Women’s Basketball History Gets Forgotten Even Faster

This is another reason I wanted a woman in this series.

Old high school sports history already disappears too quickly. Old girls high school sports history disappears even faster.

For decades, women’s sports didn’t receive the same coverage, television exposure or historical documentation as men’s sports.

So younger Pittsburgh basketball fans might know today’s stars while knowing almost nothing about women who were dominating Western Pennsylvania 30 or 40 years ago.

That’s a problem.

Because Pittsburgh women’s basketball didn’t suddenly become good. There were monsters here generations ago.

Shannon Davis was one of them.

 

Look at the Company She’s In

When the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette selected its all-time Western Pennsylvania girls basketball team, Davis was ranked among the area’s greatest players ever.

Look at some of the women from this region’s basketball history.

Edna Campbell. Lorri Johnson. Kim Calhoun. Gina Naccarato. Charel Allen. Kamela Gissendanner. And Shannon Davis.

Those are serious basketball names.

Davis belongs in that conversation even though injuries prevented her college career from becoming what many expected. That’s important.

Because we can’t judge somebody’s high school greatness only by what happened afterward.

 

The Resume Doesn’t Disappear

This has become one of the biggest themes of this series.

Something happening later doesn’t erase what happened before.

An injury doesn’t erase 2,275 points. It doesn’t erase a state championship. It doesn’t erase being named a Parade All-American three times. And it definitely doesn’t erase being considered one of the five best players in America.

Those things happened. Shannon Davis earned them.

 

One of Pittsburgh Basketball’s Greatest “What Ifs”

Maybe Shannon Davis becomes a college All-American if she stays healthy. Maybe she doesn’t.

Maybe she eventually finds a professional basketball opportunity. Maybe her career takes an entirely different direction.

We’ll never know.

That’s why she’s a “what if?”

But we shouldn’t allow the unanswered part of the story to overshadow what we actually know.

Shannon Davis was one of the greatest girls basketball players Western Pennsylvania ever produced.

And she was doing it during an era when becoming nationally known as a female high school basketball player was considerably harder than it is today.

Three-time Parade All-American. More than 2,000 points. State champion. Top-five player in America. Virginia recruit.

That’s not folklore. That’s a resume.

So when Pittsburgh talks about its basketball history, don’t only talk about the men. And don’t only talk about the players you can find on YouTube.

Some of the greatest athletes this city ever produced played before everybody carried a camera in their pocket.

Shannon Davis was one of them.

And healthy knees might have given Pittsburgh an entirely different basketball story to tell.

This is Part 4 of DrewSchifino.com’s series, “Pittsburgh’s Greatest ‘What If?’ Athletes,” preserving the stories of Western Pennsylvania athletes whose talent deserves to be remembered.