There’s a little bit of buzz about NYU’s Jessica McEntee today, thanks to a New York Times feature on the All-American forward. The Times piece linked to D3hoops.com (and thanks for the traffic) and it looks like people are searching for more about her and hitting us as well.
So I thought we should put our Jessica McEntee feature from last March back up where it’s a little easier to find.
“She’s a great competitor, really skilled, very smart, and very coachable,” said NYU women’s head coach Janice Quinn. “Fans love watching her play. She’s one of the smartest players I’ve ever coached. I can tell her something that she can process and apply to situations that we haven’t even talked about yet. That’s different from being skilled, being an athlete or being strong. That’s a rare kind of player that can do that.”
The mask she wore on the road to the Final Four last year is no more, obviously, but the player remains. Read on at: http://www.d3hoops.com/notables.php?item=971
I nominate this for the most incredible placement of a D-III story in history.
Consider:
1. It’s arguably the nation’s most important newspaper.
2. It’s a feature article and not a “nugget”.
3. It ran 10 days before a New York team plays in the Super Bowl.
4. It wasn’t run because it weird, quirky or involved 15 laterals.
5. It didn’t have “bigger picture” human interest story (ie, major illness, childhood tragedy, parent serving in Iraq, etc.).
It was simply an article about a great student-athlete who chose D-III for the right reasons and is thriving because of it.
It has to be the single greatest piece of recruiting journalism any D-III school could ever hope for. If I was NYU I’d make 10,000 posters of this article and mail them to every recruit east of the Mississippi.