Ask Shalee Lehning about playing driveway basketball with her older brother, Matt, and his friends when she was a precocious young girl and she will tell you that it all seemed natural.
Ask the former Sublette High School all-around standout athlete about playing pick-up games with the guys when she was in middle and high school, and she will tell you that it all was just the way of life in a small southwest Kansas community.
When Lehning started playing organized sports and the girls and boys were separated into their own competitions, that too seemed natural. She said she just never really thought about what those opportunities were and how they came to be at such a young age.
However, once she arrived at Kansas State University to play basketball for the Lady Wildcats after her legendary prep career, Lehning learned the meaning of the value of women's sports and how Title IX of the Education Act of 1972 became the law of the land.
"It all took on a new meaning for me when I was in college," said Lehning, who now lives just outside of Philadelphia, Pa., and works for a non-profit organization. "The women's program had a basketball reunion when I was there and the players who had been in college at that time (early to mid and late 1970s) had an opportunity to share their stories and their interpretation of women's sports. I started realizing more and more how far women's sports had come since then."
It is not every day, however, that a young girl from a small southwest Kansas town becomes a household name throughout her home state.
From 2001 to 2005 at Sublette, and then from 2005 to 2009 at Kansas State, mention women's basketball and the name "Shalee" and everyone knew who they were talking about.
Talk about the consummate teammate, the ultimate team player – one better start with Shalee Lehning.
Her two years of middle school basketball delivered a 32-0 won-loss record. Her four year high school career for the Lady Larks produced a fourth-place finish in Class 2A her freshman season, and back-to-back undefeated 26-0 seasons and two state championships in Class 2A in 2004 and 2005. Tack on a 94-6 high school team basketball mark and she was 126-6 (.955) in that span of time.
This is what makes up a winner. Get in line behind one of Kansas' all-time greats.
Upon her graduation from high school, Lehning ranked No. 1 in Kansas prep history in career rebounds with 1,336 and 804 career assists (those records still stand 16 years later). She is second all-time in career steals (543) behind recent Central Plains (Claflin) and now Iowa State standout Emily Ryan. Her 245 assists in a single season is still a state benchmark. Nearly two decades after graduation she is No. 5 all-time in scoring with 2,510 points, trailing legendary stars Jackie Stiles, Laurie Koehn, Susan Wolf and Ryan. She was a four-time all-state selection by the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association and was named both Miss Kansas Basketball and Gatorade Player of the Year in 2005.
That is just her basketball exploits.
In track and field, she won seven gold medals, claiming 300-meter hurdle titles in 2003 and 2004, 100-meter hurdles in 2003, 2004 and 2005 along with javelin golds in 2004 and 2005 when she tossed the spear a then state 2A record 147-05, a record that stood for nearly a decade. Her best hurdle marks were 15.22 in the 100 and 45.86 in the 300s. Additionally, she had a pair of seconds and thirds and one fourth, bringing her state track haul to 12 medals.
With those two sports being in the spotlight, people tend to forget that she was an all-state volleyball player, helping her team to a Class 2A state runner-up finish in the fall of 2004, losing a three-set match to Sacred Heart in the championship. To even consider what playing in a state championship match means to the very southwest corner of Kansas, no other small-class school west of Dodge City has ever played for a volleyball title in any class with the exception of Meade winning the title in 1980 and a handful of appearances since with coach Ron Ryckman.
It would be four months later that the two schools would meet in the Class 2A basketball title game with Sublette capping off a two-year unbeaten string of 52 straight wins with a dominating performance of the Knights.
Her four-year career at Kansas State was filled with an arena of memories, including seeing her No. 5 jersey raised to the rafters of Bramlage Coliseum in her final regular season home game her senior year of 2009. Such are the memories of greatness.
"I am very thankful for the experience at Kansas State," Lehning said in a telephone interview in November 2021. "When I look back, we had what we needed to be successful. Where others may have experienced a discrepancy, I felt we had great support."
Inserted into the starting lineup early in her freshman season at K-State, Lehning and her Wildcats would compile an 88-43 record during her four-year stay in Manhattan. Included was a WNIT championship and runner-up finish, a Big 12 title and an NCAA second-round appearance. In her senior year, the Lady 'Cats went 25-8.
Double-doubles in points and rebounds were not uncommon, but Lehning also excelled in an area reserved for only the best – triple-doubles – and she had five of those while playing for KSU.
The record-setting performance continued during her collegiate career – first player in Big 12 history to score more than 1,000 points (1189), grab more than 900 rebounds (914) and register 800 assists (800). Her assist totals for each of her four seasons with the 'Cats are still school records. She played more minutes than any player did in KSU history. She ranks No. 4 in all-time rebounds for KSU, an amazing statistic considering she was a 5-9 point guard.
Her collegiate coach, Deb Patterson, once stated that she felt Lehning had perhaps as well as court vision as any player she had ever coached.
"She sees the game ahead of when plays occur," Patterson said during Lehning's senior season. "She always seems one step ahead of others. She plays at a pace with instincts that are rare."
It was not until after her collegiate career ended in the spring of 2009 when she was drafted in the second round of the Women's National Basketball Association that she began to see things differently regarding disparities between men and women's sports.
"There was a different feeling in the WNBA," Lehning said. "How we traveled, where we stayed, all the financial aspects of the WNBA were so much different than the NBA. The overall support was not the same and there was no comparison to the NBA as they were on a much bigger scale but we felt the discrepancy."
The immediate impact of Lehning on the success of the Atlanta team cannot be understated. A team that had won only four games in the 2009 season, played for the WNBA title the next year by going 20-14. A shoulder injury at the end of the regular season prevented her from postseason action. The Dream would post 19-15 and 18-16 records in years two and three of Lehning's tenure. Another injury, this time an ACL tear, kept her out of another postseason appearance.
Lehning, who saw her professional career shortened to just three seasons due to both shoulder and knee injuries, says she is encouraged by some of the progress for more equity in sports in the last couple of years.
The consummate team player saw her amazing journey, her life dream of playing professionally, end much earlier than planned. The result was a career that saw he play 357 games from middle school to the WNBA, winning 273 of those against just 84 losses. It added up to her winning 76.5 percent of the games in which she played. Her dream of playing professional basketball had been realized.
"I think there is some progress in the works and that organizations are moving in that direction to make things more equitable," Lehning said. "Athletes are being more vocal about these inequalities and people are becoming more aware. And with more awareness, I hope things will continue to improve."
It has been a little more than three years now since Lehning was deeply involved with collegiate athletics. Upon her retirement from playing in the WNBA, she returned to Manhattan where she served as an assistant coach to Deb Patterson for the Wildcats.
When KSU made a head coaching change, Lehning followed fellow K-State assistant coach Kamie Ethridge to Northern Colorado where she served as the first assistant for one year. In 2015, she made a career and life decision to leave the coaching ranks, moved to Laramie, Wyo., where she earned her master's degree attending seminary and then remained in Laramie where she worked two years as an academic coordinator for the University of Wyoming athletic department.
In the late summer of 2018, she had an opportunity to take an internship with an organization, Harvest USA, in Philadelphia and moved across country to venture into a new career.
Following the one-year internship, she was offered a full-time position with Harvest USA, a position she continues in today.
"I'm pretty well removed from college athletics today, but I think there is now a dialogue and a growing awareness to improve women's athletics and improve things even more for Title IX," Lehning said. "I had many great coaches, but Coach Patterson was one who made such a big impression on me. She was certainly someone who understood the value of women's athletics and competition. There was such an emphasis on respect, teamwork, and the value of competing together."
That learning experience provided Lehning with a valued lesson in competing at the highest level.
"She was an advocate for instilling work ethic and competitiveness in all of us and she was willing to be a voice on our behalf to make sure we had the things we needed to be successful," Lehning said.
Lehning said she is grateful that she was able to experience how sports can create a positive movement outside of the sports world.
"We have seen the influence from athletes and coaches that trickle into other spheres of our lives," Lehning said. "Sports influences others and it can develop unity that brings people together. Team sports has that power to reach outside itself. Sports can be a driving factor in all of that."
Lehning said that she has learned, and been influenced, to see herself in a different light than when she was younger.
"Sports made a major impact on my life and what I've learned from them is that being a woman doesn't have to hold me back from being successful," she said. "What I see in women who are speaking up is that they are advocating for us, defending us and making sure we are treated with equal respect. We can and should all advocate on behalf of others."
Growing up in that small town of Sublette provided her with many life lessons that have served her well through her high school, college, professional careers and beyond.
"I have roots in Kansas and that is something I am proud of," she said. "There is a strong work ethic and culture that I really respect. We are a blue-collar people who know what challenging work is."
While Lehning also excelled in individual sports like track and field, she said her best memories are the basketball and volleyball teams on which she played.
"I've been reflecting on that recently," said Lehning, who turned 35 in late October. "The beauty of being part of a team is with that came more success in many ways. The friendships, being a part of a team, working through adversity and facing challenges together. You learn how to persevere through physical and emotional hardships and that failure has as much to teach you as success does."
Lehning said that her experience at early ages shaped her for who she became as a competitor.
"All of that shaped me as a person and I would not have experienced that without being a part of team sports," she said. "Overall, I look at all my experiences as a journey. It was preparing me for life experiences because at the end of the day, we all go through trials, we all have failures, but these equip us to handle the challenges of life in positive ways."
Lehning's post-playing career was highlighted by election into the Kansas State High School Activities Association Hall of Fame in 2013 and into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2015 at the age of 27.
There have been many outstanding women athletes in Kansas high school history, but few have captivated the state like a girl named "Shalee." Her benchmark of team first will be etched into the permanent memory of all Kansas high school athletes.
We are grateful to partner with WIN for KC, an organization with the mission to empower the lives of girls and women by advocating and promoting the lifetime value of sports through opportunities for participation and leadership development. WIN for KC and the KSHSAA believe involvement in activities and sports lay the ground work for supporting well-rounded citizens in our communities and beyond. For more on WIN for KC visit: https://www.sportkc.org/win-for-kc