ORONO – What gets lost in the glow of the TV lights and adulation surrounding this University of Maine women’s basketball team is that not all of these players have had Cindy Blodgett-like trips through life getting to this point of public adulation.

Take junior forward Stephanie Guidi.

The native of Stormville, N.Y., was a pretty darn good center on her high school basketball team. She wound up scoring 1,125 career points, was a two-time All-State selection, and a three-time All-Section pick for Carmel High.

Only, what Guidi remembers most about a big chunk of her high school career isn’t trophies and scrapbook clippings and the unadulterated love of a city, county or state, a la Blodgett.

When Guidi thinks back on those days she’s more apt to remember the catcalls that rained on her from opposing fans while local fans, her fans, mostly snickered.

“People can be cruel. That’s what I learned then,” Guidi said quietly, a few minutes after she helped give Hofstra the boot with a 17-point, five-rebound performance amid Maine’s 78-67 North Atlantic Conference quarterfinal win Sunday.

Few among the 3,276 fans at Alfond Arena would believe that heading into her junior year of high school, less than five years ago, Guidi weighed 235 pounds.

A weight problem? Steph Guidi? Not after watching this finely conditioned, 6-foot athlete whirl, spin and leap, brunette pony tail flouncing, these past three seasons at Maine.

“I really like the way she plays, don’t you?” was Hofstra coach Leslie Schlegel’s admiring assessment of Guidi’s work Sunday afternoon.

Yes. Of course. Who wouldn’t?

What Guidi, a two-time All-NAC pick, wants to share with anyone who might already be nodding their head in identification with her story is for too many years she didn’t like anything about herself.

“I was very unhappy back then,” Guidi recalled, while the postgame celebration unfolded around her in the Dexter Lounge. “I had the weight problem as long as I can remember. In eighth grade I weighed 220 pounds. It was my own unhappiness. I just had no self-esteem.”

Basketball, which would become so central to her life, actually compounded her unhappiness in junior high and early in her high school career.

“I started playing basketball when I was six. I went to one of those all-day camps. I loved the game. I always played. But I was bigger than everyone… That meant I was the focus of everyone’s attention,” she said.

It was a classic catch-22 at first. The more those amazingly mean and insensitive kids and, yes, some adults in the stands made reference to her weight, the unhappier Guidi became. The unhappier she became, the more she ate. The more she ate, the bigger she got.

“I had no social life. I never went out. Every Friday and Saturday night I would baby-sit,” she recalled.

There was a redeeming element to this situation, Guidi sees now. She developed her strong sense of independence and responsibility early on, thanks to the baby-sitting. She also discovered a love for small children, which has evolved into her studying elementary education with a goal of teaching kindergarten.

Ultimately, however, it was the isolation she felt from those her own age that led to the turning point in her life at the start of her junior year in high school.

“I just got so tired of it. I starved myself for a week. I was sick. I’d come home every night crying from people picking on me,” Guidi said.

She made up her mind to lose weight. She enlisted the aid of a nationally known weight-loss system that she used for 24 months.

Motivated as never before, she improved dramatically on the basketball court through her junior and senior seasons, the exercise complementing her sensible weight-loss program.

“I lost 54 pounds,” Guidi said, still with unabashed pride in her voice. She has lost more since.

If losing weight seems a trivial matter to some, Guidi points out how important the experience was in her life.

“I don’t think there’s any way I’d be playing Division I college basketball if I hadn’t lost the weight. It’s a very big part of who I am. I’m very proud of what I did,” she said, noting she still watches what she eats.

To all those, male or female, who might read this and identify with her past, Guidi offers these words of advice:

“If you want to lose weight you have to do it for yourself. It’s something you have to want to do. No one can tell you to do it. Be happy with yourself. You can do it. It is possible,” said Steph Guidi, as she joined the postgame celebration.