Wide smiles and watery eyes alike were in attendance as Kayhi senior Jenae Rhoads signed a letter of intent to play basketball for Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, Washington.
Sitting beside her during Monday’s ceremony in Kayhi’s Clarke Cochrane Gymnasium were her parents, Mike and Danielle, along with Kayhi Lady Kings basketball head coach Kelly Smith and assistant coach Andy Berntson. Her three brothers, Joey, Josh and Jared, were also in attendance, as were a large number of her classmates. SVC pennants and a stuffed cardinal (the school’s mascot) decorated the ceremonial signing table.
Kevin Johnson, one of Kayhi’s activities directors, started the ceremony by listing some of Rhoads’ most notable athletic accomplishments as a Kayhi athlete. During her four years as a varsity basketball player, Rhoads accumulated 769 points, 543 rebounds and helped the Lady Kings win three Region V championships. Rhoads was named to the All-Conference and All-State tournament teams twice, and was a 2nd Team All-State selection. Among a long list of notable in-game performances, Rhoads hung a career-high 24 points on East Anchorage High School in the state tournament during her junior year.
Rhoads is also a four-year member of the Kayhi track and field team, and is a standout in the shot put and discus events.
Smith and Berntson shared their experiences coaching Rhoads, and both had glowing praise for an athlete that has played a central role on the Lady Kings basketball team for the past four years. According to Smith, Rhoads has exemplified the values of hard work, toughness and accountability that he prides his team in.
“What an honor to be here and be a part of these special moments,” Smith said to the crowd. “These kids in Ketchikan, Alaska, don’t get the credit for the things they do throughout their high school careers. Jenae is just an amazing young lady, she is the perfect example of everything good about high school activities. She comes to us her freshman year really shy and timid and she leaves us confident and blossoming into a wonderful young lady, and that’s what sports are for.”
In a subsequent interview, Smith predicted that Rhoads will have a chance to be named a Northwest Athletic Conference player of the year and will compete for freshman all-tournament team selections at SVC because “she puts up numbers; she makes things happen.”
Rhoads may have been shy as a freshman, but that didn’t stop her from scoring 10 points and grabbing 12 rebounds off the bench in the 2019 Region V Championship game to help seal a victory over the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears. After that, Smith said her confidence and production grew each year, as did her role on the team.
Berntson echoed Smith's sentiments while speaking to the attendees, and later shared that Rhoads and his own children have gotten to know each other through different sports and related travel over the years.
“I’ve watched Jenae grow up, and I’ve watched her watch my kids grow up,” Berntson said. “As an assistant coach for this program, it was my job essentially to take everything I’ve seen — which is her being a nice, sweet young lady — and change that. As a practice dummy, my goal was to get her to pound the crap out of me in practice, which she did. She gained confidence, she found her voice, and she became a pretty awesome, talented ball player with the awards to show for it. To know her as a person and have conversations with her and watch her interact with my kids is pretty special. To see that she wants to go into early elementary education, I think she’ll be fantastic.”
Rhoads fought back tears as she thanked her coaches, family, teammates and everyone else who has supported and believed in her — even at times where she didn’t believe in herself — over the course of her career. She also thanked her brothers who “always beat on me and pushed me to be better.”
In a follow-up interview, she said she thinks growing up with three brothers toughened her up and made her more so than some of the other girls she’s competed against.
“It’s made me a lot tougher, I’ve been able to handle more of the physical demands when it comes to [taking a] beating on the court,” Rhoads said. “I can put up with more than some of the girls, which has definitely helped me along the way.”
Skagit Valley College girls basketball head coach Deb Castle first saw Rhoads play while watching the state basketball tournament. In a statement to KDN via email on Wednesday, Castle detailed that she and her assistant coach “fell in love with her style of play and how hard she worked” while watching her at an exposure camp put on by the Alaska Basketball Coaches Association. Castle first met Rhoads before the senior All-Star game during the state tournament weekend, describing her as “fun to talk with, and very positive.” Castle said she knew her team wanted Rhoads after the game was over.
“Jenae caught our eye by her hard work efforts, her ability to finish with both the left and right hand, her drive to the basket and her attitude,” Castle said. “We will use Jenae in our read and react offense on the wing spot where she can drive against players that are bigger and slower than her. We will also move her into the high elbow area where she can drive to the hoop with a dribble and finish. We are more than pleased that she selected Skagit over a few other NWAC schools. She will be very successful here if she continues to improve and work hard.”
The newest Cardinal anticipates spending the next two years at SVC continuing to pursue her love of basketball. She would like to continue playing at a different school afterwards, but explained that those plans depend on how those two years go. Rhoads said she “doesn’t have anything set in stone” beyond those plans. Rhoads plans to major in early childhood education. She “loves kids” and wants to become a kindergarten teacher. She described working with young children as “her passion.”
The choice of school for Rhoads was based on proximity to family, as well as similarity to the hometown she loves.
“I’m a very big family-bound person and I wanted to stay close to home,” Rhoads said. “I love the area of Ketchikan, I just wanted to get out of the small town and Mount Vernon is a lot like Ketchikan with the mountains and beautiful weather. The coaches are super nice and loving and they described a very family-based organization that I’d love to be a part of.”
She hopes her parents will visit often, as she will “definitely be missing them.”
Her father — a college track and field athlete himself — expects his daughter to grow as a person over the next two years. Whereas “a really big” school might’ve been too much at first, he thinks SVC will be a good fit for her. He remarked that the whole process has been a lot, but has appreciated watching his daughter make a name for herself throughout her athletic career.
“It’s crazy, it’s overwhelming,” Rhoads said to KDN. “She’s pushed and pushed and made a spot for herself in everything she’s been involved with over the years. It’s going to be interesting, it’s going to be rough, but I think the biggest thing for all of us is, as a high school track coach, I watched the kids grow and excel through their different sports and for me, basketball has just been so much fun to watch. All three of my boys and my daughter excel in it and are big parts of the teams they’re on and it's just amazing to watch.”
*This article was originally published in the Ketchikan Daily News*
Comments