Over the past three years, fans of the Stanford women’s basketball team have cheered forward Jillian Harmon for her accomplishments on the court. Although she contributes her share of baskets and rebounds, she’s usually not the leader in either category.
Instead it’s the intangibles that she brings to the team -- her energy, alertness, tenacity and determination -- that have earned her the respect of fans, teammates and coaches alike. Just one example of those intangibles can be found on Stanford’s YouTube site, which has the TV recap of the team’s thrilling win over UConn at the Final Four in Tampa this year.
Her Stanford fans and teammates know they can always count on her. She gained even wider respect after the 2007-08 Stanford season ended and she became a stalwart on New Zealand’s Tall Ferns team, which played in the Good Luck Beijing Tournament and the Beijing Olympics.
She has already discussed her Olympics experience in other interviews, so we didn’t go into much detail about it during a telephone chat before she had to go to a class.
However, she talked about playing against former teammate Candice Wiggins, ’08, in the Good Luck Beijing Tournament. “It was great playing against Candice,” she said. The New Zealand and USA teams stayed in the same hotel, so Jill, Candice and Clare Bodensteiner, ’06, who also played for New Zealand, had a chance to spend some time together.
Now that she’s back on campus, the 6’ 1” senior talked about her goals for the year as well as her take on the team. Overall, “I just want to enjoy my final year here at Stanford” and relish each moment, she said.
On the academic side, she’s majoring in psychology and plans to complete her course work by the end of the winter quarter and graduate in June. She has high hopes that the season will extend into the spring quarter. “We always want to be playing in April,” she said. Therefore, she plans to apply for Stanford’s co-terminal program to start working on a master’s degree in the spring.
After graduation, she hopes to play overseas for a few years, perhaps with the New Zealand or maybe the Australian team. Beyond that, she’s not sure, but senior guard Rosalyn Gold-Onwude has been giving her some ideas after spending her summer as an events and marketing intern at Nike headquarters in Oregon, Jill’s home state.
In the meantime, “Now that I’ve played against some of the best players in the world,” some of them much older than she, Jill’s more confident about holding her own against players her own age or younger.
What she hopes to bring to her teammates is her senior leadership and experience. “I want to try to be a calm and steadying presence on the team.” She, like her teammates, also wants to get back to the Final Four. “We beat great teams to get to the Final Four” last season, she said, citing the win over UConn as “our best game of the season.” This year “we definitely have the talent” to go there again.
As for upcoming opponents, she always looks forward to going to Oregon to be closer to her home crowd. Before then, though, the Cardinal face some tough nonconference foes like Duke and Tennessee, which topped Stanford in the NCAA championship game after Stanford had defeated the Lady Vols during the season.
In the Pac 10, maybe Arizona State and for sure Cal will present the biggest challenges, she predicted, especially with Cal’s big three seniors: Alexis Gray-Lawson, Devanei Hampton and Ashley Walker. Nevertheless, she thinks the Cardinal team is more talented overall.
With a roster rich in bigs, Jill was expecting to play more on the perimeter this season, but with three of them recuperating from surgery – senior Morgan Clyburn (feet) and juniors Jayne Appel and Michelle Harrison (knees) – she’s back in the post rotation.
Head coach Tara VanDerveer has said she expects Jayne and Michelle to be ready to play when the season starts at home against Minnesota on Nov. 14, but Morgan’s return is more uncertain. Jill is looking forward to playing with her again. “Everyone looks up to her,” she said.
Besides the talent that Stanford fielded last year, the team was blessed with good chemistry. “Everyone really cared for each other, and it showed on the court,” Jill said. It appears that good chemistry is developing again. “We all love the freshmen,” she said.
There’s also “so much talent,” she said. She expects that it will be “different people’s turn to excel on different nights,” so that someone will always be there to pick up the slack if someone else is having a less-than-stellar night.
Besides the three seniors, Jill cited junior point guard JJ Hones as “a great leader. She has command of this team. We all trust JJ when she has the ball in her hands.”
She’s looking forward playing again with the other juniors: Jayne, who was last season’s second-leading scorer behind Candice; Michelle, who missed all of the season with a torn ACL; and guard Melanie Murphy, who played only a few games before tearing an ACL, too.
She has no worries about the sophomores. Forward Kayla Pedersen “is going to be one of the best players in the country,” while guard Jeanette Pohlen “is a great all-around player.” Guard Hannah Donaghe and forward Ashley Cimino were hampered by injuries during the first part of last season, but both have been working hard and have made good progress, Jill said.
She has good impressions of the four freshmen. Guard Lindy La Rocque is living up to her billing as a three-point shooter. Jill said Lindy reminds her of Krista Rappahahn, ’06. Jill first became acquainted with the other guard, Grace Mashore, when she was Grace’s counselor at Tara’s hoops camp in summer ’07. A point guard, she’s vocal and shoots well, Jill said. Highly heralded forwards Sarah Boothe and Nneka Ogwumike both have great attitudes to go with their basketball skills.
And of course she has nothing but high praise for the four coaches: Tara, Amy Tucker, Bobbie Kelsey and Kate Paye.
As a forward, Jill usually scores closer to the basket, but she wants to expand her repertoire by perfecting her three-point shot. She’s been working on it with the help of one of the male practice players, Matt McEvoy, who rebounds for her. He’s a good friend and “one of the best guys you’ll ever meet,” she said.
Winding up the interview before heading off to class, Jill thanked the Fast Break Club for its unwavering support for the team.
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