Shan Foster
New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Basketball, 2001-13
Bonnabel HS/Vanderbilt/NBA
Inducted: 2025
Photo Courtesy of Vanderbilt Athletics.
They say that it takes a village to raise a child to be a productive and successful adult. Children raised by strong villages often continue the cycle by becoming integral leaders of villages themselves. And those leaders not only affect future children but everybody around them.
Shan Foster had a village. And his awareness and intelligence allowed him to take full advantage of the lessons learned to become an individual who is a leader and a driving force in making the world a better place.
“It takes a village, and I was so fortunate to have a huge one,” Foster said. “My grandparents, they raised me [for the first six years of my life], my grandfather is 94 years old, he taught me the value of hard work, how to be a man, how to worship and lean on my faith.
“My mom [Anita], being a single parent, working two jobs and going to school, trying to provide opportunities for us; I get my work ethic from her as well.
“My dad [John] played basketball at Southern Miss, was always in my life, helped me so much with the game of basketball and making sure I was the right kind of person, as well as right kind of player.
“My Aunt Tracye and Aunt Tamara – they were like my big sisters; we’re very, very close. I was one of the best dressed players in college, because my aunt Tamara owned a high-end clothing store.”
And he learned basketball. He played AAU basketball for Dannton Jackson, the coach at Xavier University, and he joined pick-up games with college players at Xavier and Tulane.
In addition to his prowess in the AAU ranks, Foster was a star at Bonnabel High School for Coach Glenn Dyer. The 6-6, 195-pounder was a four-year starter and a three-time captain for the Bruins. He was named First Team All-State, the Metro Most Valuable Player, and all-district. As a senior he averaged 23.4 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks per game as he led his team to the district championship in 2004.
“Shan has always been a strong-willed, strong-minded, independent, individual type of guy,” said his high school teammate Micah Hagans, now the basketball coach at their alma mater. “He wasn’t always the best player growing up, but he worked harder than anybody and he was more motivated than anybody. If you know Shan, you know that whatever he does, he’ll be successful.”
“Micah was my best friend,” Foster said. “This award [New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame] is as much his as it is mine. So many days and nights in the gym together, challenging each other, holding each other accountable. We dreamed together, worked together, cried together, supported each other at every stage of our life. I’m the godfather to his children and he is to mine. I wouldn’t be where I’m at if not for him.”
After being recruited by schools around the country, he chose to play at Vanderbilt University under coach Kevin Stallings. As his collegiate career began, he expanded his village to Nashville, learning the college game during summer pickup games with older players – players like former Vanderbilt stars Drew Maddux (All-SEC guard in 1998) and Ronnie McMahan (No. 4 in school history in scoring), as well as Nashville natives like Odell Bradley (the Summit League Player of the Year at IUPUI in 2004) and Dontaé Jones (NBA first round pick who attended Mississippi State).
“Those guys were pros, older, they knew the old man tricks,” Foster said. “That’s what taught me to approach every single play the right way. It fueled my competitive nature.”
As a freshman at Vanderbilt (2004-05), he was selected to the SEC’s All-Rookie Team after averaging 9.2 points per game and burying 44.5 percent of his three-point attempts. Then in 2005-06, his numbers jumped to 15.9 points per game as he earned First-Team All-SEC recognition. The team reached the NIT both years.
He also forged another outstanding friendship with classmate Alex “Red” Gordon, who was at his side for all four years of his Vanderbilt career.
“Alex was my Micah in college, my best friend in college, we had all the same classes and we held each other accountable,” Foster said. “When we were in games, he was able to push me in a different kind of way. His mindset was if I could score on him, then I had to be able to score on anybody else.”
Despite the early personal success, it wasn’t enough for Foster. His goal was to help get the Commodores to the NCAA Tournament and to show they could compete with the best. He and some teammates approached Stallings about changing the atmosphere and culture of the program.
“As we evaluated and were critical of ourselves, we realized quickly, a part of our downfall was that everybody didn’t have the same excitement about working hard, about coming to work every day and being the best,” Foster remembered. “It was about challenging everyone, players and coaches. We created a better environment for not only athletes, but for Coach Stallings and the coaching staff. I felt like it would cause us to work harder, work better, and ultimately, it would show up in the win column.”
The Commodores went 22-12 in 2006-07 and 26-8 in 2007-08, making the NCAA Tournament both years.
“We had a completely different attitude; the whole team came together to make each day the best day possible. Ultimately, we had a lot of great days together.”
Photo Courtesy of Vanderbilt Athletics.
The highlight of that stretch is a day that every Vanderbilt fan will remember for the rest of their lives – Foster’s Senior Day on March 5, 2008.
Senior Day is always hoped to be a celebration; for Foster, it started as a nightmare. With 10:57 to go in the game against Mississippi State, an NCAA Tournament bound team, the Commodores trailed by three. And Foster had six points while shooting 0-for-6 from three.
Stallings said in a timeout, “Shan, if you don’t start making shots, we aren’t going to win this game.”
Foster took the criticism and looked at his teammates and said, “Fellas, I’m going to start making shots. I swear I am.”
For the final 15:57 (including overtime), Foster hit nine straight three-pointers. He drained two in the final 26 seconds of regulation, then knocked down the game-winner with 2.7 seconds to go in the memorable 86-85 win. Vanderbilt was either losing or the score was tied at the time he made each of his nine threes. He finished with a career-best 42 points in the game.
“I’ve said many times, it’s the best single-game performance that I witnessed in my 24 years in the SEC,” said Rick Stansbury, the Mississippi State head coach at the time. “There is no question. Including all of those great players who went through Kentucky, and we had some good ones (at Mississippi State), but none of them was equal to what Shan Foster did that night in Nashville. We got beat by one of the greatest individual performances in the history of the SEC.”
“I wanted to say thank you to the fans,” Foster remembered. “That was the biggest thing for me. I wanted my play to tell the fans and Nashville and the Vanderbilt community, ‘Thank you for embracing me these last four years, thank you for helping me for becoming the man I am today.’ And that’s what I was able to do.”
He also learned a valuable lesson from that game.
“If you remain faithful, dig a little deeper, don’t give up, be persistent, and try to overcome, sometimes you can overcome. That sums up my life, there were some times early on that were very difficult and hard. I found out that it’s in those moments when you truly build character, resilience, you learn who your real friends are, who’s really in your corner, and you’re able to learn how much is actually inside of you. That game, I started 0-6 from three, six points. Not wanting to let my teammates down, my family, the coaches, our fans. I just went out and refused to give up, pushed a little harder, dug a little deeper. Just like in life, even when you feel like you don’t have any more left, you can fight one more time, one more day, one more shot.”
Foster had other huge games in his career – he scored 32 points as the Commodores knocked off archrival Tennessee, who was ranked No. 1 at the time. And as a junior, he scored 24 points to key an upset of No. 1 Florida – the eventual national champions.
Photo Courtesy of Vanderbilt Athletics.
He graduated as Vanderbilt’s all-time leading scorer with 2,011 points and the school’s all-time leader with 367 three-pointers. As a senior, he was named SEC Player of the Year by a poll of coaches and by the Associated Press as well as an AP All-American and a Rivals.com First-Team All-American.
He also was presented with the Lowe's Senior CLASS (Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School) Award at the 2008 Final Four. The award goes to nation’s outstanding senior athlete (from 10 NCAA Division I sports) displays great class, leadership, academic excellence, and service to the community.
“The Senior CLASS Award meant a lot to me,” Foster said. “It was a testament not only to me, but more so the work that my village did investing in me and supporting me, keeping me on the right track, making sure I was around the right people, staying out of trouble. My family, we put what we had together and supported each other, as they supported me, I owed it to them to live my life in a way that said thank you.”
Next on the agenda for Foster was the NBA. He was selected by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round. But then he realized something else about himself.
“I realized, my dream was to get drafted by the NBA, not to have a long NBA career,” Foster said. “The purpose for my life was much bigger than basketball. It was about making a difference in other people’s lives.”
He played multiple years in the NBA Summer League and played overseas in Italy, Belgium, and Turkey. However, he chose to retire from the sport in 2013.
“I truly believe that basketball was the vehicle to carry me to what I do now,” he said.
Foster, who has done extensive work to end violence against women and girls as well as with mentoring young people, is the Director of Community Engagement at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He’s also the Co-Founder of Fostering Healthy Solutions, LLC, an organization that cultivates healthy solutions to diversity issues through education, training, and execution.
“I’ve been able to transition in such a way that when I’m in the airport, people come up to me and say thank you for what you’ve done to end domestic violence, thank you for what you’ve done for education, thank you for your leadership, thank you for investing in my town, that’s what’s most important,” he said. “They remember the jump shots, the threes, the wins, but what folks are most proud of, what matters the most in the world I’ve done after basketball.”
“I’m so proud of Shan, all his accomplishments, everything he’s done,” said his grandmother Gwendolyn Miller. “He was always so humble, always willing to do what you asked him to do. If he didn’t know how, he had no problem asking. We always tried to teach him the right way. And he was always kind and gentle and always trying to do what he could to help people.”
