BLOOMINGTON — Sara Scalia’s strength was never a question.
She grew up as a small, skinny kid, her father, Peter Scalia, said. But even when the IU women’s basketball guard was little, she had some kind of superhuman ability to heave a ball just as far as she wanted.
Take the Scalia family vacations, for example. The Scalias are an athletic family — Peter played basketball at Centenary, her mother, Sheri, played volleyball and softball at Minnesota-Duluth, her older sister, Taylor, played volleyball, and her younger sister, Amber, plays basketball. So, they would always pack a deflated basketball and football in their suitcases for their trips.
On these vacations, Sara wasn’t too interested in swimming.
She was always a twig,” Peter told IndyStar. “Every spring break, we would go on family trips … We’d go to the swimming pools, and she could barely keep her chin out of the water.”
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Instead, she and Peter would throw the football — not an official regulation football, but a smaller one — across the pool.
Sara, as an elementary-age student, didn’t have the look to be able to chuck a football, even a small one, as far as she wanted. But she mesmerized everyone with her ability and adults would approach Peter and wonder just how she got that strong.
“She would jump out of the water to get her arms free, and then throw the best spiral you’ll ever see in your life — about 40 yards,” Peter said. “I could not believe how this little thing could one, throw it that far, but two, it was a spiral every time. … Guys that are in the pool, they go, ‘What is going on here? How is this little thing jumping out of the water and throwing this football 40 yards through the pool?’ And I would just laugh because I’m like, again, I can’t explain it.”