"Coach is a coach, a friend and even a Mom figure," Ryneldi says of McKeon. (Ryneldi always calls McKeon "Coach." McKeon usually calls Ryneldi by her last name.) "She proved herself at an all-black school back in New York. She knows what it's like to have to fight for what you get."
Ryneldi's already-solid game blossomed as she warmed up to her ASU teammates and coaches last season. She set a single-season school assist record and averaged 13 points a game.
"She amazed everybody the way she gets the ball to you," says teammate Stacey Johnson. "I'd be thinking, 'There's no way she can get it through there.' Then, I'd be like, 'Dang!'"
As the season wore on, Ryneldi opened up to the racially diverse team--about an equal number of black and white women, plus one Navajo.
"You have your little stereotypes about people," says Johnson, a northern California native. "I had never met a Native American before. I learned a lot about her home life. She can be a clown when she wants, a scream. But when it comes to basketball, she's the hardest worker I've ever seen."
The Becentis attended almost all of Ryneldi's home games. Often, several dozen Navajos make the long trip from the reservation to watch her play. Though women's basketball still isn't a big deal at ASU, the team set attendance records as word of its run-and-gun style and fabulous point guard spread around campus.
Led by Ryneldi, ASU's shining moment last year undoubtedly came in a win over eventual national champion Stanford. Her personal low point probably came in the final game of the regular season, when she missed a crucial last-second free throw against the University of Washington.
"She just stood there with her head in her hands," Margaret McKeon recalls. "I told her it wasn't the end of the world and that we'd work so she would sink it the next time."
The Sun Devil women's team won 20 games and earned a spot in the coveted NCAA tournament for the first time in nine years. ASU then lost a first-round squeaker to DePaul.
Numerous honors came Ryneldi's way after the season: Pac-10 all-conference team, Basketball Times honorable-mention All-American.
Convinced she could "still take my game to the next level," Ryneldi stuck around Tempe much of the summer. She took classes--she's a solid-C student majoring in sociology--and worked out on the court and in the weight room. She also spent some time at home on the reservation, where she gave some speeches sponsored by Navajo president Zah.
"You could hear a pin drop when she spoke to kids," says Zah, who once played basketball at the now-defunct Phoenix Indian School. "She spoke about the obstacles Indian kids will face even when they don't use alcohol and drugs. They really were listening. Ryneldi is going to succeed at whatever she wants to do. Maybe someday, she'll have my job."
@rule:
@body:Ryneldi's senior season has started well for her and her Sun Devil teammates. ASU lost its first game to the University of Nebraska, but has reeled off four wins in a row. She's averaging 16 points and ten assists per game--All-American numbers.
This semester, Ryneldi took a class in the Navajo language. Her mom and dad used to speak Navajo to each other but rarely to their kids, who have forgotten most of it.
"It's something that is missing out of me," says Ryneldi, who was born into the Tabaaha clan--it means "Edge of the Water." "I want to know more of it for when I go back to the reservation someday."
The key word is "someday," because Ryneldi is fairly certain she won't return to Navajoland immediately after graduation. "I always have dreamed of going back home to live someday," she says. "But I have other dreams, too."
Basketball-playing opportunities for women are extremely limited after college. But Ryneldi dreams of playing pro ball in Europe and maybe, just maybe, getting a shot at the U.S. Olympic team in 1996. "I'll just be 25 at the time," she says, "just hitting my peak. And who would have thought that I'd have made it this far?"
Back in Fort Defiance, Ryneldi's dad isn't sure what to make of his daughter's drive and ambition.
"She's restless," Ray Becenti says, "like a fast train. I tell her that even a train has to sit down every now and then. Sometimes we argue about it, and then we laugh about it."
Others in her hometown are torn about what Ryneldi should do with her life. "I wouldn't necessarily come back if I were her," says her onetime coach, Sharyl Williams. "It would be nice if she did, but if I had a choice, I would go where life took me.
