Elijah Murray is a Cronkite School of Journalism student.

When Mountain View High School athletic director Joe Goodman reflects on the hundreds of students who have transferred into the school during his tenure, one moment stands out. A teenage girl who walked into his office without a parent, without an appointment and with a directness he still remembers.

“My name is Shalaya Roberson,” she said. “I’m a basketball player. I want to play basketball for you.”

Goodman had never experienced such an interaction before. 

“Most kids show up with their mom or dad,” he said. “She is still the only kid who just walked in alone. From day one, you notice this girl.”

Now a senior, ‘Shay’ is one of Mountain View’s most respected athletes and has become synonymous with her infectious initiative, resilience and unrivaled ability to lift the people around her.

But the path to get there was far from simple.

Roberson grew up in Wisconsin, where basketball became her outlet. However, by the end of her sophomore season, her coach said something that would shake the foundation of a once-steady escape.

“He basically told me, ‘Just go with your mom, because you don’t have a shot here,’” Roberson said. “I took that as my sign to try something new.”

Her mother, Linda Walker, had already moved to Arizona two years earlier, seeking a safer environment and a fresh start for her family. 

“I wanted something different,” she said. “I grew up in the hood. I realized what worked for me wasn’t working for my kids.”

The move was difficult, especially since Linda came alone at first, having to work long hours as she tried to rebuild a stable life from scratch. 

“I was depleted,” she said. “But I knew I couldn’t stay where I was and still be the best mom I could be.”

When Roberson eventually joined her mom in the desert, she researched schools on her own, and that’s when Mountain View stood out. She arrived in Arizona determined to make the most of this new chapter in her life, which, in turn led to her unannounced visit to Goodman’s office.

Despite her confidence, Roberson’s transition into the Toros’ program wasn’t seamless.

“I felt like a black sheep,” she said. “I didn’t know these girls, and not to be over my head, but I was better than some of them. A lot of them didn’t like that.”

Shay hadn’t played in the summer program, and she didn’t have childhood ties to the team or school. And with a notoriously tight-knit community, breaking through isn’t an easy task.

“It was definitely hard trying to build a bond at first,” she said. “But once they saw who I was off the court, things changed.”

Assistant coach John Cox remembers those early days clearly. 

“You don’t know anybody, you don’t have friends yet, everything is new,” Cox said. “I just wanted her to know she had people she could trust.”

Goodman said her personality made the difference.

“Mountain View is a tight‑knit community,” he said. “Families have known each other for generations. But she works hard, she’s a good teammate, and you can’t not love her.”

While basketball had always been a safe space for Roberson, it quickly became an anchor for her through a series of life‑altering events.

“Basketball has always been an outlet for me,” she said. “Every time something happened, it was like, OK, pick your head up and keep going.”

But when the family’s home caught fire in March 2025, on Linda’s birthday, there was no season to escape into, and Shay struggled.

“There was nothing to keep me going,” she said. “I had days where I didn’t want to go to school. I fell behind.”

Her mom still vividly recalls the shock. 

“There was no ‘call your mom, call your dad, go to your friends,’” she said. “We had nowhere to go. But Mountain View stepped in. They were our village.”

Ten days later, the family moved into a new home, and Roberson was the one who insisted they apply for it. 

“She said, ‘Mom, the fire happened at 3:11. The new house is [number] 312. This is our house.’”

Around the same time, Roberson was grieving the death of her aunt, who had been murdered in a domestic-violence incident, and the loss hit the family hard.

“I’d go into her room, and she’d have the obituary at the foot of her bed,” Linda said. “Each of my kids found their own way to grieve. For Shay, basketball helped her keep going.”

The pain she faced in such a short amount of time fueled her on-court development. 

“She never takes a night off energy‑wise,” Goodman said. “She’s the hype train. She dives for loose balls. She plays defense. She rebounds. She scores when we need it. She’s probably not number one in any category, but she’s number two in all of them.”

Cox echoed that assessment of her game.

“She’s our most efficient jump shooter,” he said. “She doesn’t take a lot of shots, but when she does, it’s a good shot. She’s our best free‑throw shooter. And defensively, she takes the toughest assignments. Even though she’s 5-foot-7 or 5-foot-8, she bodies up the other team’s post.”

Shay’s leadership grew alongside her game, and in turn, became her signature quality.

“As a sophomore, you feel like you have to know your place,” Goodman said. “By her senior year, she found her voice. She leads with what I call moral authority. Because she works hard, she can call others up.”

Now more than ever, Roberson sees leadership as a responsibility. 

“If my mood’s bad, everybody’s mood’s bad,” she said. “I’ve got people looking up to me. I have to keep going.”

Behind Roberson’s success is a mother who tirelessly works three jobs to keep her daughter’s dream alive.

“I’ve never played sports,” Linda said. “I didn’t understand basketball. But I knew I had to show up.”

“Sometimes I didn’t know where I’d get the $1,500 for AAU,” she continued. “I’d get off third shift and sleep in the parking lot so she could get to practice.”

As a result, Roberson looks up to her mom as her role model for life on and off the court.

“She’s hardworking,” she said. “Even when it’s hard, she keeps going. That’s how I try to be.”

Shay has received interest from Division III programs and junior colleges, and she plans to take the JUCO route, likely back home in America’s Dairyland.

“I want to make sure I let everything go,” she said. “So when I leave again, I’m not looking back.”

Her long‑term goal is to go into dentistry, following in her late aunt’s footsteps. 

“This might have been my sign,” she said.

Cox believes she will succeed in whatever she chooses. 

“She’s not my daughter, but I feel like she is,” he said. “I’m immensely proud of her. And I can’t wait to see what she does next.”

Goodman also has no doubt she’ll succeed. 

“She showed up three years ago saying she wanted to be a great basketball player,” he said. “If she says she wants to be a dentist, she’ll go be a dentist.”

In a few months, Roberson will graduate from Mountain View in a way reminiscent of that when she arrived, on her own terms, with a crystal clear sense of who she is and where she’s going. But the girl who once walked into the athletic director’s office alone is no longer a black sheep. Rather, she is an undisputed leader, a top teammate, a revered role model and a reminder of what resilience and perseverance look like.

“She’s just a stud,” Goodman said. “Give me 10 of her, and we’ll be in good shape.”

As for Roberson, the formula hasn’t changed. As she goes through life, she will always have her head held high and walk through the next door with purpose, wherever it may take her.