LABEL: FAMILY

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JERREY ROBERTS

Cassy Sicard kisses her son, Koby, after a game against West Springfield earlier this month at Northampton High School. Sicard and the rest of the Blue Devils begin defense of their state Division 1 title next week.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Cassy Sicard plays with her 21/2-year-old son, Koby, as her mother, Erin Crowley, watches Monday at home.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Cassy Sicard plays with her son, Koby, 2, at home Monday, Feb. 16.

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JERREY ROBERTS

This note to senior Cassy Sicard was written on a spirit poster last week by Ashley Adams, a classmate at Northampton High who plays on the junior varsity team.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Cassy Sicard, center, of the defending state champion Northampton baskestball team, moves the ball against East Longmeadow, Feb. 11.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Cassy Sicard, center right, hugs teammate Alexis Kellogg after getting a bunch of flowers from her during senior night last week at Northampton High School.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Senior Cassy Sicard, top right, shoots for Northampton against East Longmeadow defenders Ashley Brodeur, left, and Laurie Bonano last week.

NORTHAMPTON - Cassy Sicard sat alone in the passenger seat of her mother's car outside JFK Middle School with her mind racing.

Tests earlier that day in May 2006 confirmed she was 7½ months pregnant. She was trying to wrap her brain around the challenges ahead.

"What am I going to do about school?" the 15-year-old freshman at Northampton High School wondered. "What am I going to do about basketball? What are my (friends) going to think?"

Sicard's AAU basketball team, the New England Explosion, was practicing inside the school's gym. But she couldn't bring herself to walk in and give the news to coach Perry Messer and her teammates, many of them friends since first grade.

"That was the hardest thing," Sicard said. "I had to have my mom (Erin Crowley) go in and tell" Messer and the rest of the Explosion.

Along with the initial worry and embarrassment, Sicard felt she had let her teammates down and was concerned about their reactions.

Then she got her answer.

The entire team, having just learned from Crowley that Sicard was outside, stormed out of the gym toward the car.

"Everyone was coming out in tears and they were all hugging me," Sicard said. "They were all telling me that they were there for me, that they love me and that they love the baby."

By the time Crowley returned to the parking lot, Sicard's teammates "were pretty much all in the car with her and then they brought her into the practice with them," Crowley said.

Since that day, May 4, 2006, Sicard's family and friends have been a vital support system through the consideration of adoption and the birth and raising of her son Koby, who has become like a little brother to most of them.

"I wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't have these friends and all the people in my life," she said.

They helped as Sicard has balanced motherhood, remaining an honor-roll student and playing basketball nearly year-round. She's a starter on the Northampton High School team, which begins defense of its state basketball championship next week.

Surprising news

Sicard unknowingly played her entire freshman basketball season at Northampton while she was pregnant.

"I'm sure I was in denial, but I didn't have a lot of the symptoms. I didn't have morning sickness or anything," she said. "I gained 45 pounds, but you never would have known. I didn't get much bigger than" I am now.

A knee injury - likely caused by the weight gain - began the path to discovery, as testing eventually led Sicard's physician to find a small mass in her stomach. She had an extended ultrasound, during which she discovered that she was 7½ months pregnant.

The doctors "were happy that I had been staying active and I have a pretty healthy diet and everything," Sicard said. "But that's why they took so long with the ultrasound because they checked every aspect of (the baby).

"I was sitting there thinking he was going to have an arm coming out of his head. I was so worried that I had caused damage to me or him. ... I wouldn't have put myself or the baby at risk if I had known."

Concerned about the baby's future and her ability to provide for him at such a young age, Sicard considered adoption and met with staff at Full Circle Adoptions on Main Street.

The agency provided her with adoption information. "I met with Koby's potential parents that I was going to pick. We were going through with the process."

Sicard had all the adoption paperwork filled out, except for the final form needed after delivery.

Full Circle gave her a book that eventually could be given to her child. Sicard filled it with pictures and information about herself and her friends and her situation while she was pregnant.

"I thought I was doing the right thing at the time because I wanted to give him a fair chance," she said.

But as her due date approached, Sicard sneaked online looking at baby clothes and toys, thinking over her decision.

Her mom was having similar feelings and walked into Sicard's room one night for a talk that changed everything.

"She told me, ¿I raised two kids. I think I did a pretty good job. I know I have room in my heart for another baby. You think about that and come out and let me know,'" recalled Sicard, who still gets teary-eyed discussing it. "Five minutes later I came out into the living room and said I wanted to keep him."

Becoming a mom

A day after Sicard's friends threw her a baby shower on the last day of school, she felt her first labor pains and headed to Cooley Dickinson Hospital.

The calls and text messages went out and 16 friends were among those in the delivery room with Sicard, who gave birth to 7-pound, 2½-ounce Koby Robert Sicard, on June 25, 2006.

"At the actual time of the birth, we had someone hold up a towel and all the girls had a profile view of Koby being born," Crowley said.

Sicard didn't miss a day of school because of the pregnancy, and the birth gave her a strong sense of focus.

"It made me realize that I have two people to take care of now. That means I have to push myself in school, I have to push myself in sports, in every aspect of my life so I can assure him and myself the best opportunities I can get," she said. "That's why I didn't give up on school, give up on life. Koby needs a life. He needs a fair chance."

It hasn't been easy juggling being a mother and student-athlete, but Sicard has pulled it off for nearly three years.

"I'm most impressed with her making the choices she has to make," Crowley said. "She's so young, but she's so mature. She makes sacrifices, which as her mom is hard to watch. I told her from the beginning not to give up her hopes and dreams for the baby because down the road she'd resent him, and she hasn't.

"She's got an amazing support group of friends, which is a huge reason that she's done as well as she has."

Alannah Driscoll-Sbar, a classmate at Northampton High and basketball teammate, said she marvels over how well things have worked out. "She's done such an amazing job, and I'm so happy that Koby is part of our lives.

"It's too perfect," she added. "I couldn't picture him not being there with us. We all love to have him around because he's so much fun. We get to teach him things and play a lot of games with him."

Sicard's friends have been good about planning activities that Koby can attend, like the kiddie rides at Six Flags New England in Agawam last summer or hanging out at Look Park in Florence.

"Koby is just like a little addition to our group of friends. We joke that he's number ¿.5.'" Driscoll-Sbar said. "He's like a part of our family. We look after him like we do any of our family members."

Sicard's parents divorced in 2007, and she and Koby live with her father, Dana Sicard. Both her parents live in Northampton and see their daughter and grandson often.

In the morning, Sicard gets her brother Joey, 13, to school at JFK and Koby to the same in-home day care since he was just a few months old.

"She's got her son and her brother to look after and does a wonderful job with both of them," Dana Sicard said. "She's really risen to the challenges she's faced. She's quite a girl. I'm definitely proud of her."

While Sicard is at practice in the evening, Koby is usually with the family of his dad, Mike Moynihan, a 2008 graduate of Northampton High who is now a student at Springfield Technical Community College. He remains Sicard's friend, but is no longer her boyfriend.

"We take him whenever we can get him," Karen Moynihan said of her grandson. "He's a great kid, and I told (Cassy) any time she needed us for anything, we'll juggle things around to make it work."

Otherwise, Koby can be found running around the gym at Northampton High with a grandparent or Uncle Joey in hot pursuit.

"Koby is a really good baby, but he's a lot to handle because of his age," Dana Sicard said. "He's definitely a challenge for all of us, but he's got a lot of people who love him."

Koby was a constant presence at Northampton boys and girls games beginning in Sicard's sophomore year and drew nearly as much attention in the stands as the hoop teams did on the court.

"He is the high school baby," Crowley said. "He's got more aunts and uncles at the school than you can imagine. Everyone there loves him. I went from being Cassy's mom to Koby's nana to all the kids in the school."

Peer educator

Friends have asked Sicard if she would go back and change history, if she could.

"I really think they expect me to say yes, but I can't," she said. "I love Koby so much. I need him in my life. He makes me, me.

"Sometimes, when I get stressed, I wonder how things would be different without him. But I can't see my life without him in it. I don't want to."

Still, Sicard goes out of her way to use her example as a tale of caution.

Once, a group of freshmen saw Koby's picture and asked Sicard if he was her younger brother. When she answered, they talked about how much fun it must be to be a mom. Sicard set them straight.

"I shared my story with some of the freshmen to let them realize that teenage pregnancy happens more often than they think, closer to home than they think," she said. "I didn't want to scare them, but I kind of did at the same time.

"I have no problem telling people my story. I'm not ashamed. I think it's good for the younger kids on the team to know."

In the fall, she also became a peer educator and told her story more than once during the semester. She helps students tackle topics of sex and the use of alcohol and other drugs.

"We have posters up in the school talking about some of the key issues," Sicard said. "We want kids to know that they have options. They don't have to be pressured into things and it's better to hear it from your peers and their personal experience. You hear the same things from your parents, your teachers, your elders, but it's not the same."

The future

In the immediate future, Sicard hopes to help the Northampton basketball team win a second straight state Division 1 title when the tournament begins next week.

On the court, the 5-foot-8 post player is an outside-the-scorebook forward who does all the little things a championship team needs.

Sicard is the team's top rebounder and interior defender. Completely unselfish on offense, she can handle the ball and knock down 3-pointers when needed, but she isn't a top scorer.

"She fills the stat sheet up in other ways," said Messer, who began coaching Sicard's AAU team when she was in fifth grade. "Passing, screening, she's our best post defender. She does all the little things, which is what makes her such a great player."

He added, "She had to grow up and was forced to handle a tough situation. Not a lot of people could have handled it in such a classy way. She made the best of the situation and has done a lot of things that most kids take for granted. All that, and she's still playing at the level where college coaches are interested in having her play for them."

Her longer-term plans are all being made with Koby in mind.

Sicard is interested in either nursing or teaching, and she will attend a school that keeps her close to home.

Her ideal choice is to play basketball at Westfield State, a Division III school. She is also considering spending two years playing at Holyoke Community College and then transferring to a Division II college that will give her a scholarship for her last two years.

"I think either (Westfield State or HCC) would work out really well for us," Sicard said.

The book

After deciding to raise Koby herself, Sicard took the pictures out of the adoption book, but she didn't discard it.

When her son is old enough, she'll sit him down, open the book and tell him the story of one mother's love for her son.

"I want Koby to understand this experience when he gets older," Sicard said. "I want to show (the book) to him. It might be hard for him at first, but I want him to understand."

Jim Pignatiello can be reached at jpignatiello@gazettenet.com.