March 15, 2009

     They both remember the slowdown game, the 1991 Western Connecticut Conference girls basketball tournament championship, when Masuk held the ball and the boos rained down from the stands, Nicole Myrick said, for the first five minutes.
     "Actually, it was the first 6 1/2 minutes," said her former coach, Dave Strong, who just completed his 33rd season at Masuk-Monroe.
     "The day before I had the kids practice the slowdown game while getting booed. I went out into the hallways and dragged people in the gym to boo us. So when it started happening in the game, they were laughing."
     Said Myrick: "It was at Brookfield High and it was packed to capacity. It was like 'Hoosiers.' You couldn't hear yourself."
     Masuk beat favored Immaculate that day, in double overtime, and went on to win its second Class L state title 45-34 over Lyman Hall-Wallingford.
     When you've performed successfully under that kind of pressure, all sorts of things tend to look a little easier, like acting. Myrick, formerly of Beacon Falls, is a part-time special education teacher in Los Angeles. But she is also pursuing her longtime dream, an acting career, and recently landed a part on an episode of the NBC action-comedy series, "Chuck," tentatively scheduled for broadcast on April 13.
     "I think about it now with acting," said Myrick. "You're under pressure to perform quickly and stay under control. Playing sports really trains you. You can go into that zone."
     Myrick, 34, was an All-State center who was 5-10 in middle school and 6-1 in high school. In her junior year, her team went 27-0, beat Jen Rizzotti's New Fairfield team in the Class L championship game and finished the year No. 1 in the state.
     Three starters graduated. Masuk struggled a little, losing five games, a lot after an undefeated season. Strong slowed things down. The team won. And Myrick, who had nine points, 12 rebounds and six blocks in the championship game, was dubbed "a one-man zone" by then-Lyman Hall coach Nick Economopoulos.
     "There was a lot more on her shoulders," Strong said. "Her senior year, every possession was more crucial and there was less margin for error. A four-point lead is a big lead if you're holding the ball. She saw different aspects of the game and grew from that."
     Myrick went to the University of Hartford but transferred after a year to New Haven, where she was a captain and an all-conference player. She majored in business administration.
     Her only regret about playing basketball in high school was that she never had enough time to devote to acting in school plays.
     "I always wanted to be an actress," she said. "My family wanted me to be realistic. Get a job to feed your family."
     She did, but eventually moved to California, where she had visited her biological father as a child.
     "I met my husband in the business and I started to meet people who made a living doing this," she said. "I started auditioning, taking classes."
     In the "Chuck" episode, Myrick plays what she called a "test proctor for the bad guys," who finds herself in a gun battle.
     "I shoot people, I get shot," she said. "It was so much fun. It was very easy for me. I like physical acting more."
     She loves California but misses some things about Connecticut, like Pepe's New Haven pizza. She'll occasionally catch a UConn women's basketball game on TV. She stopped playing basketball on a regular basis when she was 28 and her knees started to bother her.
     As an actress, she still draws from her high school and college athletic experiences.
     "I learned to use all of me, me being a female athlete," she said. "There are not a lot of female athletes acting out here. There's a natural strong presence I have and I bring that to the part."
     "I'm not the cute sweet one. I tried to do that, but it doesn't work for me. I really pull from what I did as an athlete."