Amber Bullard recently started playing hoops. She heads to La Salle after a rapid rise that didn’t come easily.

In February, Dean Reiman, founder and coach of the AAU’s Lehigh Valley Fever, held a practice to get a look at then-junior Amber Bullard of The Christian Academy. After a few drills, he asked the players — several of whom were going to play Division I ball — how long they had been playing basketball.

Most players there had been playing since kindergarten, or least third grade.

Bullard didn’t start playing until her sophomore year of high school.

“The kids’ mouths just dropped,” Reiman said.

Now a senior at The Christian Academy in Brookhaven (Delaware County), Bullard is signing with La Salle.

“I love basketball and building up my confidence,” she said. “It definitely pulled me out of the darkest place of my life.”

The Philadelphia native played a handful of sports growing up, competing in softball and swimming. She loved to compete. Bullard is the youngest of four girls and was influenced by one of her sisters, Taylor, to try volleyball at Plymouth Whitemarsh High in her freshman year.

But it wasn’t completely out of genuine interest. Bullard needed an outlet. A fresh start.

“Freshman year was one of the hardest years of my life,” she said, letting out a big breath.

Standing 6-foot-3, Bullard said she was bullied because of her height. She never saw it as a unique part of herself. Reiman had to convince her that height in basketball is a great thing.

“I was really surrounded by the wrong crowd of people,” Bullard said. “I just would never want to put myself out there because a lot of people were making fun of my height and it made me really insecure within myself.

“If I was still going on about how people made fun of me and stuff like that, I would not be doing basketball.”

She turned to volleyball, looking for a way to put herself out there. Yet, her mother stopped her, saying she could not go back to the school for her sophomore year. “She said, ‘I had a dream, and God is saying that you don’t need to be there anymore.’”

The family turned to TCA, where two of her sisters had attended. Taylor played volleyball there, but when Amber arrived, the school did not offer the sport.

Before her time at TCA, Bullard had only played basketball casually with her father. At open-gym practices, the sport seemed natural to everyone else but Bullard. The coach had to carefully go through everything with her, leaving her out of the loop with the rest of the players. The coach later told her she would not be seeing much playing time, if any.

“I was so heartbroken, and I definitely took that personal but in a good way,” Bullard said. “It was kind of more of, ‘OK, what can I do better to become a better basketball player?’”

Suffice it to say that Bullard’s game has improved rapidly. She won TCA’s player of the year award in her junior year, when she averaged 15.6 points per game. The most important game came against Faith Christian. That performance set up her future.

One of Reiman’s Fever coaches is David Forker, who is also the head coach at Faith Christian. Forker noticed Bullard’s improvement and knew of Reiman’s need for height on his Fever team. He told Reiman she was raw but had God-given talent.

“Well, I’ll never forget it,” Reiman said about meeting Bullard for the first time at a practice he invited her to. “I was blown away by just her naive spirit, her humbleness, and just her willingness to know that she didn’t really know a lot about basketball.”

She struggled with dribbling, as she didn’t bother with it as a post player. However, Reiman explained how today’s game is a positionless one and continues to grow that way.

“I think part of that was due to the fact that of the things that she didn’t know, she didn’t have a lot of bad habits,” he said. “She just didn’t have any habits.”

Bullard quickly realized this. During water breaks at the practice, she stayed at the basket, working on the pointers Reiman had given her.

“I kind of knew in that instance this kid was pretty special,” he said. “She was all-in with regard to being respectful to the coaching, listening, applying it, trusting that we kind of knew what we were doing. And then just went out and did it.”

Soon enough, Bullard began playing competitively with the Fever in games against players who were taller than her usual high school opponents. She showed flashes of brilliance among her missteps, and it was clear her ceiling was high.

“Understanding that a lot of people come from different backgrounds and a lot of people put in different work than others,” she said. “So, you cannot really be down on yourself and compare to others.”

Reiman contacted La Salle’s Mountain MacGillivray and other coaches, encouraging them to see her play.

“They saw the potential and what could be down the road,” Reiman said.

As a result of Bullard’s progress, and to her shock, colleges began to look at her — many of which were from out of state such as Colgate, Niagara, and American University. The two schools that sent her offers were La Salle and St. Joseph’s.

La Salle’s diversity stood out to her, along with the plan the coaches set out for her. “I think just knowing your kind of people are there,” Bullard said. “It’s all about being comfortable and feeling welcome.”

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Now, as Bullard is about to head into her senior season, she is more confident in her game and herself. She looks to continue her hard work physically and mentally, with the goal to get to the state championship and be a leader on the team in her final year. The past two years have forced her to test her mindset and faith.

“For me to be where I am now,” she said, “I am definitely doing something right.”