STORY & PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON
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In the end, it was impossible to overlook the girl who'd previously been so overlookable. Jence Rhoads, after all, is what you'd call old school. From the short shorts of her
western Pennsylvania club team, Rock Solid, to the economical, pass-first, shot-second approach at point guard, she is an anomaly in the SportsCenter, MTV phase that is
starting to grip even girl's basketball.
Her father, Posey (Robert) Rhoads played point guard at Wake Forest and says, "I didn't have instincts like she has. She can keep track of the defense, who needs the ball, who
hasn't had the ball lately, even where you were sitting in the stands during the game."
Jence Rhoads, a four-star prospect, according to HoopGurlz.com, almost went to her father's school, almost by default. By the time she hit the mid-point of her final summer circuit this past July, Wake Forest's was the biggest scholarship offer she'd received. She'd been hoping for Vanderbilt, truth be told.
So Rhoads dusted off her Sue-Bird-alike game, transporting the ball, erect, at high speeds, locating teammates like so many hidden objects in a Highlights Magazine puzzle,
hitting her form-perfect jumper when needed, and took Rock Solid to the championship game of the biggest tournament in the adidas circuit, the Tournament of Champions,
when they pushed powerful Finest Basketball Club (FBC) Blue right to the brink.
Jence Rhoads |
"It was my best tournament all summer," Rhoads says. "It was the most fun, too. The competition was the best we played all year, and made us play better. Playing against the
best is the most fun for me."
Afterward, Rhoads apparently faded back into the background. She played in the adidas Top Ten All-American Camp and made the upperclass all-star team. And while some of
the luminary talents in the nation put on an unforgettable show, Rhoads played her usual, reliable but no-frills game and hardly was noticed.
Or so it seemed.
Rhoads' phone rang off the hook the following week, a contact period for colleges. Vanderbilt called, finally offering a scholarship. So did every school in the Mid-American
Conference, as well as several Big Ten and Atlantic-10 schools. In all, Posey Rhoads estimates, his daughter received some 30-35 offers.
In typical old-school point-guard fashion, Jence Rhoads determined to focus on the remainder of the summer circuit, then took a few weeks to contemplate before committing
to a place, Vanderbilt, with which she'd been so long enthralled that she'd taken an unofficial visit there after her sophomore year at Slippery Rock High School.
"It is an established program, I like all the coaches, I liked the area and the campus," Rhoads explains. "It just seemed like the right place for me."
The Commodores, who finished 21-11 and advanced to the second round of the 2006 NCAA tournament, are not just getting a skilled, high basketball IQ point guard, they are
getting an athletic one, too. Rhoads plays center midfielder and was regional player of the year for her high-school soccer team, which went unbeaten in sectional play. She also
high jumped 5 feet 5 inches as a freshman and narrowly missed qualifying for state because she lost in district to the eventual Pennsylvania champion.
Rhoads quit high jumping after that to focus on club basketball in the spring and summer, but may resume this spring. Before that, she will lead a pretty inexperienced varsity
basketball team at Slipper Rock, where she will welcome two new teammates with whom she is highly familiar. Her younger, twin sisters, Karly and Kourtney, will be freshmen
and both are guards like their big sister.
"We'll have to share the basketball, I guess," Jence Rhoads says.
Always thinking like a point guard.
Glenn Nelson is the publisher of www.HoopGurlz.com and the editor-in-chief of Scout.com, an online sports network and magazine-publishing company and subsidiary of Fox Interactive Media. Glenn founded and coached the
Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girls basketball teams. He previously was a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle Times.
His work also has appeared in several national magazines and books. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). He can be
reached at hoopgurlz@comcast.net.
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