By Nick Forbes Assistant Sports Editor
basketball team is one game away from finishing one of the most successful seasons in program history, an accomplishment that would not have been possible without senior point guard Steven Weidlich.
Weidlich has been an important figure for the team for the past four years on the court. Ever since his freshman year, Weidlich has stepped into a scoring roll for Susquehanna, tallying 1186 points in his first three seasons.
In his senior year, Weidlich has already surpassed his 467-point single-season performance last year, posting 495 points through 23 games. And after the team lost two of its biggest scoring leaders last year in guard Brandon Hedley and forward Josh Miller, Weidlich is the undisputed leader of his team.
But Weidlich is more than just a basketball player; he is also a community activist.
Recently, Weidlich was named to the 2017 Allstate National Association of Basketball Coaches Good Works Team, an award that recognizes a unique group of men’s college basketball student-athletes who stand out for their charitable achievements and community involvement. Out of a pool of 181 nominations, Weidlich is one of five Division II and III NCAA basketball players to earn the honor.
“I don’t think it has really hit me yet,” Weidlich said. “Talking to my parents, I was just happy to be on the list of [181] athletes. To be one of five is unbelievable.”
From the minute Head Coach Frank Marcinek met Weidlich, he knew he was special.
“The vibes I got when I first met Steve, they were the best,” Marcinek said. “First impressions are lasting impressions and not much has changed. He’s still the best.”
Weidlich first got involved in community service in the sixth grade, when he, his friends and his mom made regular trips to the soup kitchen.
“It almost became a thing where we would skip school to do it,” Weidlich said.
“It was just one way I could give back. Eventually, basketball and school started taking up a lot of my time, so I didn’t get to do as much as I wanted to at home, but I still tried to go to the soup kitchen as much as I could,” he added.
Weidlich attributes his resurgence in community work to his faith.
“It started when I started going to church here. We had a group of us who started going to the Sunday night mass,” Weidlich said. “I became close with the pastor and asked what I could be doing to give back even more.”
One of the pastor’s suggestions was that Weidlich visit the Selinsgrove Center, a state-owned facility assisting members of the community with varying levels of intellectual disabilities.
Weidlich jumped at the opportunity and still visits the center weekly to hang out with its residents and accompany them to Catholic mass.
In addition to the center, Weidlich also spends some of his volunteer time reading to kids at Selinsgrove Elementary School and with the help of his teammates organized a food drive for the Sunbury Salvation Army.
But one of Weidlich’s most personal campaigns began back in May of 2016 when he found out that Coach Marcinek had been diagnosed with throat cancer.
“Coach has gone through some tough things during my four years here and he’s kind of had a rough patch,” Weidlich said.
“When you go through these rough patches together, you grow tighter. My mindset was how can we raise awareness of this horrible disease,” he continued.
During the fall of 2016, Weidlich and his teammates sold bracelets raising awareness about cancer, donating all the proceeds to the Throat Cancer Foundation.
“The relationship I have with Steven and my relationship with the rest of the players is pretty tight, so I was absolutely touched, but not shocked,” Marcinek said. “I love them and they love me; I think the feeling is mutual. When I heard from the [NABC] that Steven won the award, it brought a tear to my eye because of everything he has done for me.”
As a recipient of the Allstate Good Works team award, Weidlich and the nine other winners will attend the NABC Convention, as well as the NCAA Men’s Final Four in Phoenix, Arizona, where they will participate in a community project in the city.
The River Hawks are having a stellar season, currently 20-4 thanks in large part to Weidlich’s performance. But in usual Weidlich fashion, he downplays his importance.
“We have a great group of guys this year and we’re super close,” Weidlich said. “It’s killing us that Glenn [Nanius] is hurt, and then you have guys out there like Adam [Dizbon] who play extremely hard. Me and Ryan [Traub] have been doing the scoring for the most part, but it’s those guys who are winning the games for us.”
If you ask any other player on the team who their leader is heading into the Landmark Conference playoffs, Weidlich’s name would certainly be the first response by most.
