Nicknamed “Tae Tae,” “Starburst” by her mom or “The Showstopper” because she’s usually a featured player for opposing defenses, three-year starter Hewins dives for loose balls, fights for rebounds, scores points and youthfully snickers with her Tem-Cat basketball teammates.
That’s the side of Hewins - who averages 14 points and seven rebounds per game, both team highs - most Temple sports followers see and know.
“Shantae is what you see out on the court - caring, always encouraging her teammates,” said Tem-Cats coach Tamarah Sanders, whose 8-8 team will play Victoria Memorial at 2:30 p.m. Monday in Copperas Cove’s Bush’s Chicken Holiday Classic. “After our last game against Waco (on Dec. 9), she stepped up and is my leader. That’s the quality she has.”
But it’s when the Tem-Cat senior steps away from the hardwood that sets her apart from “normal” teenagers.
On Sunday evenings and immediately after practice on Monday, Hewins leaves Wildcat Gym and heads to work at McDonald’s until the wee hours of the night, earning money to help support her family.
Then she drives home to check on her mother, Corin Teverbaugh, who has two tubes in her chest and is on dialysis while battling lupus - a disease in which the body’s immune system produces antibodies that start attacking themselves, producing inflammation of the skin, joints, blood vessels and other areas.
After chit-chatting with her mother, Hewins hastily completes her homework and scratches out a few hours of sleep before the next day begins.
“People just see me,” Hewins said. “They don’t see the background or what I’m going through because I never try to show it.
“With all of it, it’s a challenge,” she adds, “but with God anything is possible.”
Hewins started working at McDonald’s last year, usually on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after practice while playing basketball or volleyball games on the other weekday nights. Most of what she earns goes toward paying the water or cable bill because her mother is on disability and doesn’t receive enough money to cover all the expenses.
Just like her 22-year-old brother, Antwon Teverbaugh, who is in the Air Force, and soon-to-be-20-year-old sister Caska Hewins, who lives in a Temple College dormitory while working on her nursing degree, did when they lived at home, Hewins has accepted her role as caretaker and partial financial provider. Without reserve, she’ll say, “I just do what I got to do.”
Her childhood changed 10 years ago when Corin Teverbaugh was diagnosed with lupus, setting off an emotional roller-coaster for the family.
Corin received a kidney transplant in 2004, only to discover that the kidney had a virus. Her weight ballooned more than 60 pounds while her skin turned dark as coal.
Doctors at Scott & White Memorial Hospital spent the next year trying to save the kidney, but to no avail. They removed the kidney, and through the help of prayer, Corin says, she avoided an amputation of her right leg and has been on dialysis since January 2007.
Along with Corin’s physical status, the family had a car engine blow up, a tire go out on the way home from its mother’s appointment in Dallas and nearly became homeless in 2000.
And yet the strong-willed Hewins hasn’t allowed the misfortune to affect her.
“With all my mom’s been through, it’s been a big blessing,” Hewins said. “A lot of times I thought we weren’t going to make it but she always found a way. I’ve never seen her just give up. That’s what inspires me to keep going because she never gives up with all she goes through.”
Then around May or June of last year, Corin awoke at 3 a.m. feeling that something wasn’t right. Hewins rushed her to Scott & White and learned that when doctors removed the kidney an aneurysm had formed and was growing.
For the next three months, Corin remained at the hospital, leaving her youngest daughter to maintain the home by herself during the day. After school, Hewins returned to Scott & White to stay with Corin. She’d eat dinner in the cafeteria, take a shower, then return to her cot that was set up in Corin’s room to work on her homework and eventually fall asleep. In the morning, she’d eat breakfast and head to school just like the rest of the regular high school students.
“Without Shantae, I would probably be dead,” Corin said. “There were nights I was debating and I was hurting. She didn’t shed a tear, wasn’t ‘Mom, I’m scared’ - nothing.”
Most important, Hewins never offers an ounce of protest for what’s transpired in her not-so-typical teenage lifestyle.
“Shantae scares me because she don’t complain. Ever!” Corin said. “I just watch Shantae. I’m scared maybe she has a breaking point because she does a lot for being only 18.”
Hewins drops her mother off at the hospital three days a week, takes care of her grades and extracurricular activities, picks up the groceries and helps with laundry and other things around the house while earning a paycheck to make ends meet.
Corin, a Temple graduate who played basketball nearly 25 years ago for the Tem-Cats, is back on a kidney transplant list awaiting a donor. Who knows what hurdle lies next for Hewins and her mother, but it’s clear that however large the obstacle, the mature Temple teen is capable of handling the situation.
“I’m so blessed and shocked at how good she’s doing,” Corin said. “I cannot count the number of surgeries I’ve had but she finds a way to stay focused on her basketball. Her grades, oh, my gosh, are excellent. I love to tell everyone how she does it.
“I tell her every day, ‘God is good. Keep your head down. We’re going to be all right,’ and she gets through every time. I’m so blessed with my baby.”
