To her friends, she could “make you smile when you didn’t even want to.”
To her teachers, she had “great joy in her life.”
To her coach, she was “the real deal.”
To everyone else, she was the six-feet, five-inches basketball star who helped her team achieve championship status.
A celebration of life
After alumna Paige Armstrong-Maltos, ’10, died on Jan. 9, the community came together to honor her life at a memorial service in the FCS Gym, Jan. 15.
Nearly 400 chairs on the court and hundreds of seats in the bleachers were filled with students, parents, teachers, administrators, coaches, friends and family whose lives had been impacted by Paige.
Throughout the service, speakers shared their fondest memories of Paige: her talent, her joy, her humor, her affinity for superheroes, her propensity to cheer up others. As her coach of four years, Josh Tosland shed the most light on her life in basketball.
“What made Paige special on the court was not just her size. It wasn’t just her soft hands that could tally up put-backs,” Tosland said in his speech. “Paige loved being out there, and her passion for the game made her an amazing basketball player.”
Although she was named MVP of the West Sequoia League in 2010, she never assumed a special importance among her fellow players. She focused on her team, not on herself.
“She made what she did on the court look easy, but it wasn’t. She never thought of herself as the best player on the team or the most important, and she never felt like she was owed anything,” Tosland said. “If she played, she was grateful; if she sat, she cheered for her teammates. There was never any selfishness showed by her, and she just wanted to have a good time with her teammates.”
A connection to her college
After concluding her basketball career with a Division V Valley Championship title, Armstrong-Maltos went on to play for Concordia University in Irvine. To honor her contributions there, both the women’s and men’s basketball teams at Concordia attended the memorial service.
“We really wanted to be here for Paige’s family,” Jenny Hansen, coach of the women’s team, said. “We all loved her very much, and everything we can do to honor her, from here on out, we’re going to do everything within our power — whether it’s playing basketball or being up here to support the family anytime they need us.”
From the outset of her experience with the university, Armstrong-Maltos and her family developed a significant bond with the Concordia coach and team.
“I think everybody knows what a joy she was,” Hansen said. “I remember when she first came to try out with us in open gym. After she left, I had several of the girls look at me and say, ‘Can we have her, Coach? Can we have her?’ And I kept telling them, ‘That’s up to her.’ We did the home visit with her and her mom, and we sat and talked there for hours, and our cheeks hurt when we left, and we just instantly felt like family.”
Although her college career was cut short, Armstrong-Maltos had already made an impact on her teammates.
“These girls [Concordia players] loved her very much, and we didn’t have enough time with her,” Hansen said. “She has changed all of our lives in the short time that we knew her. We just want them [Armstrong-Maltos’s family] to know that they’re a part of our family, and anytime, anything we can do to help them out as they go through this, that Concordia University is here for them.”
The team that was her family
In a single row of chairs sat a group of women who knew Armstrong-Maltos on a unique level: these were her former teammates who had spent four years and overcome three close losses to finally win the championship title with her. These were her family.
“Paige loved playing on a team, but team was so much more to her. Team was family. And what a great family member Paige was,” Tosland said in his speech. “After an incredible win, Paige would be smiling and hugging and laughing. After a devastating loss, Paige would cry and then be smiling and hugging and laughing. Not because she didn’t care about winning — because that girl was a serious competitor — but because she loved her teammates and understood why we play the game.”
To the group in that row, she was not just a friend; she was a sister.
“Paige was not only a friend; that word doesn’t even begin to encompass what I had with her or what she had with the rest of our basketball team throughout high school,” alumna Tatiana Fontes, ’10, said. “It was a deep love and sisterhood that is hard to understand if you did not take part in it.”
Although they had spent four years on the court with Armstrong-Maltos, her former teammates remember not just how many points she scored but the love and commitment that she demonstrated toward everyone.
“Paige had an amazing capacity for love,” Fontes said. “She loved so many people, but with great intensity; her love and attention were never spread thin. Everyone can attest to the fact that she could light up a room and make you smile when you didn’t even want to. I will never forget the strong and beautiful woman of God she was, embodied by her love for every person she met.”
To senior Bridget Teixeira, Armstrong-Maltos will be remembered most for her humor and personality.
“Paige will always be my twin sister, and I loved all of her jokes,” Teixeira said. “Everything reminds me of her. The other day I went to Target, and there was an Iron Man and Spiderman right next to each other, and it reminded me how much I hated Spiderman. And how our arguments were if Spiderman or Iron Man were better. So I had to put on this Spiderman shirt; I really didn’t want to, but I did it for Paige.”
Her place in the community
When Armstrong-Maltos was not playing on the court, she was building relationships in the classroom, in the halls and in the community.
“Almost all of us feel socially awkward at one time or another, some of us more often, but Paige had this magnetic ability to just smile confidently and put someone at ease,” Tosland said in his speech. “Awkward would never be a word to describe Paige. She was comfortable in any environment. Everywhere we went, she would know someone. Everyone wanted to be her friend.”
Although Armstrong-Maltos dedicated much of her time to basketball, she also is remembered for her commitment to the people in her life.
“She knew that people were most important. Her life exemplified that. I admired that about her so much,” Tosland said in his speech. “We loved her like our own daughter, and she loved my wife, Amy, and our two boys right back. I will never forget that. She made us smile, she made us laugh, she made us adventurous, she gave us joy. Paige was the real deal.”
Her senior English teacher and academic adviser, Molly Sargent, appreciates the chance to have known Armstrong-Maltos before her life ended at age 18.
“I’ve been to services for old people and young people, and they’re never easy,” Sargent said. “It is important for us to express love and appreciation. This was particularly hard because she had her whole life ahead of her, but we are also grateful for knowing her as long as we did.”
Despite any obstacles she faced, Armstrong-Maltos found a way to be joyful. It is for this joy that Sargent remembers her.
“I went through a lot with Paige, and a lot of the hard times she went through resulted in great joy in her life,” Sargent said. “It is so great to see that in the end, all that we really remember is the joy she had in life and the joy that surrounded her.”
For more specific information, read the Jan. 9 article, Paige Armstrong-Maltos, ’10, passes away. To read the family’s submitted obituary, check out the Jan. 14 article in the Fresno Bee, PAIGE ARIANA ARMSTRONG-MALTOS.
Nick Avery, Mary Hierholzer and Danielle St. Marie also contributed to this article.
