Sharpe’s next shot

Raiderettes standout to sign with UAH, where her father leads the women’s basketball program

2:20 p.m. May 6, 2026

Moore County Observer

At 11:30 a.m. Thursday at Moore County High School, Ally Sharpe will sign with the University of Alabama-Huntsville, where the head coach is also her father.

That makes this signing different.

Sharpe has spent most of her life in gyms, close enough to hear the whistles and huddles. Her father, Allen Sharpe, has been a college coach for much of her life. But he has never officially been her coach.

That is about to change.

“I am excited to play for my dad and see that side of my dad from the player’s perspective,” Ally said. “It will be a challenge, but it is exciting.”

The strangest adjustment may not be the speed of the college game.

It may be what to call the man on the sideline.

“I’m going to try to avoid it and not address it,” Ally said. “Maybe I’ll try to get the assistant’s attention. If I have to, I’ll probably just call him Coach.”

Raised in the gym

Basketball has always been part of Sharpe’s life.

“My first steps, I took in a gym,” she told the Observer in 2024. “We were always at Dad’s practices.”

The “we” includes her brothers, Garrison and Anderson. Basketball did not just fill the Sharpe family calendar. It set the rhythm of the house.

Garrison is already at UAH, where he plays for the Chargers’ men’s basketball team. Ally said being on the same campus with him is one more reason this next step feels right.

“Yes, I am excited to be there with him,” she said. “We have grown really close over the years.”

Her younger brother, Anderson, is a member of the Raiders’ varsity team. Ally once joked that their one-on-one games can get heated.

“It gets intense,” she said. “Fights happen, arguments, just all of it.”

Around the Sharpes, somebody was always keeping score.

So Thursday’s signing does not feel like a sharp turn. It feels more like the next natural step.

Finding her place in Moore County

Sharpe has spent most of her life walking into new gyms and finding a way to belong.

“I was born in Cullman, moved to Monticello, Arkansas, then was in Livingston, Alabama, back to Cullman, and now here,” she once said.

Moore County was her sixth new school.

That kind of move is hard on any teenager. It is harder when the team you are joining is already good, already close, and already expecting to win.

Sharpe became part of one of the strongest stretches in recent Raiderettes history. As a junior, she shared District 9A Player of the Year honors with Ellie Graham after averaging 12.5 points per game, shooting 50.4 percent from the floor, 30.8 percent from 3-point range, and 73.9 percent from the free-throw line.

She helped Moore County go 25-3, finish unbeaten in regular-season district play, and win the district championship for the third time in four years.

During the 2025-26 season, she eclipsed 2,000 career points.

UAH is getting the scorer Moore County fans know well.

Coach, Dad, and freshman year

At UAH, Sharpe will join a program with momentum.

Allen Sharpe led the UAH women’s basketball team to the program’s first NCAA Division II Elite Eight berth this spring, finishing with a 31-5 record and making school history in his second season with the Chargers.

Now, his daughter will join that program.

For Ally, it means stepping inside a coach-player relationship she has only watched from the bleachers.

“No, he has not been my official coach,” she said. “My mom was my coach in the fifth or sixth grade, but he hasn’t been before.”

It also brings much of the Sharpe family's basketball story to one campus. Her brother will be there. Her dad will be on the bench. Ally will be trying to prove herself the way every freshman does – not as the coach’s daughter, but as a college basketball player.

That will require balance, and probably a little humor.

At some point, she will probably have to say something from the court to the sideline. And when she does, “Dad” likely will not be the word.

“If I have to,” she said, “I’ll probably just call him Coach.”

What she leaves behind

Before she leaves Moore County, Sharpe said she knows what message she wants to leave for the teammates coming after her.

“Don’t put too much pressure on yourself,” she said. “And enjoy it.”

That advice fits her story.

Sharpe has moved enough to know you cannot force belonging. She has to show up, stay steady, trust her game, and let the right people come her way.

Moore County became one of those places.

On Thursday morning, Sharpe will make her next move official – from Raiderette to Charger, from coach’s daughter to college player, and from the little girl who took her first steps in a gym to the young woman still walking toward the game.