Haylen plays beautiful basketball. She is one of several natural born Huskies in her class. I think she is a rare, two-sport kid. Has UConn ever had a two sport athlete on the basketball team?
Jill Gelfenbien was a fan favorite on the 1995 national championship team. She was also the goalie on the UConn soccer team which reached the final four the prior November. A pretty good year for Jill !
Gabby. Track and field. Well, not at UCONN.
Kelly Schumacher played volleyball on the pro circuit after her WNBA career.
Thats one way to look at it. If I was a highly ranked high schooler I would want to avoid Tenn's coach and her bizzare game style like the plague.
I suspect what a lot of them see is freshmen get a lot of playing time in Kim’s system.
I can see that. However its not the best way to grow your game if you have ambitions for a pro career.
Totally agree. But adolescents don't always make great decisions.
My apologies for not being more soecific in my post (all of your answers are wonderful and informative, as always). In case it’s not widely, Hayden is ranked as the #1 outfielder in all of women’s softball in the 2027 class. You can’t be that good at something without loving it ( well, unless you are Andrew Agassi). I would bet my favorite fishing rod that she wants to play both basketball and softball in college.
You can likely still play both sports, just a few less games of softball where there is little chance to monetize the sport. One potential advantage of playing at UConn is the mental aspect of being a national champion, networking with national champions, etc. which applies to both sports and future professional goals.
I believe the Raybestos Brakettes are out of business. I love watching high end women's softball but there's no $$ in it.
In a recent interview that I can't find the link to, she emphasized that basketball is the primary focus of her recruitment and decision. If softball is possible fine, but it's secondary to BB.
Your post made me think of Gabi Jaquez, who is having a great senior season at UCLA and has played, I believe, two partial seasons of softball as well. There may well be other examples of women competing in both sports at the highest level, but she's the one who came to mind.
Elena Delle Donne also played volleyball at Delaware before returning to basketball. I don't know how good she was.
