Sunday, April 02, 2000
Walz finishes college in 'great way'
Highlands grad led Western Kentucky to strong finish
BY NEIL SCHMIDT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Only 22, Jaime Walz seems an old soul. A decade under an unblinking spotlight surely accelerates one's growth.
And so as the most ballyhooed basketball player in Kentucky high school history hangs up her hightops, she does so with an appreciation of the altitude. After going from living legend to unlikely underdog, Walz relished finishing on top.
“A lot of people had high expectations, and I didn't fulfill every one of them,” said the Western Kentucky senior, a Highlands grad. “I did the best I could. But after three up-and-down years, this year was a great way to go out.”
Walz was determined to cap her star-crossed college career with a super senior season. Though recovering from offseason reconstructive knee surgery, she averaged 15.6 points and fueled an unlikely NCAA Tournament charge.
Reduced to a six-player rotation because of injuries and defections and saddled with a 5-6 start, Walz and fellow senior Jamie Britt called a players-only meeting. From that point, WKU won 17 of its next 20 games, losing only to No.5 Louisiana Tech in that time.
It finished 22-10 with a second-round loss 13 days ago at Duke. Walz earned All-Sun Belt Conference honors and everyone's admiration.
“It's the way the Lord wanted it to happen: She got her rewards at the end,” WKU coach Steve Small said. “Forget all the trophies; she has enough of those. It's how good she feels about herself. We were a bunch of overachievers, and the reason is because Jaime Walz stepped up her game.”
Walz's prep career was a scrapbook on steroids. She scored 4,969 points, more than anyone ever in national history (though the National Federation of High Schools didn't recognize the points she scored in seventh and eighth grade). She was a consensus National Prep Player of the Year her senior season.
When she broke the state scoring record, 3,355 people came to watch. For perspective, WKU didn't draw a home crowd that large this season, even for the Sun Belt Tournament.
The spotlight occasionally singed.
“It took a toll,” Walz said earlier this season. “If I had to do things over again, I wish I was just a normal athlete and not a superstar like I was.”
Her career turned in June 1996, when she announced she wouldn't play in the Kentucky-Indiana all-star series. The news came by fax, and with no other comment from Walz, rumors of why she skipped the games ran rampant.
“It was truly one of the worst parts in my life,” she said. “I saw how easily people turn their backs on you. It's when I found out my true fans and friends.”
She hit every pothole possible her first three seasons in college. Shooting slumps. Benchings. A coaching change. Arthroscopic knee surgery. Whiplash.
And last year, when she finally began to bloom, the biggie: an ACL tear. She had scored a career-high 22 points the game before the injury.
“I remember thinking, "What else can go wrong with me?'” she said.
There was nowhere to go but up. Walz attacked her rehab aggressively and did the same with her game.
She shot .393 this season — .129 better than last year. She led the conference in 3-pointers (94), coming one shy of the single-season league record.
“When my shot came back, it surprised a lot of (opponents),” she said. “They didn't respect me as a shooter.”
When leading scorer ShaRae Mansfield got hurt against Florida International in the Sun Belt Tournament, Walz scored 18 points in the game's last eight minutes, finishing with a career-high 29.
When WKU trailed Louisiana Tech by 21 points at halftime of the Sun Belt finals, Walz's 22 points and 10 assists powered a comeback, and the Toppers lost only on a last-second 3-pointer.
And in the first-round NCAA tourney upset of Marquette, it was a Walz 3-pointer with a minute left that won the game.
It wasn't just her scoring. Walz averaged 5.2 rebounds, a good stat for a guard. She led the team in assists, steals and free-throw shooting. And she averaged 35 minutes per game on a sore knee, including all 40 minutes the last four games.
“I just stepped it up however the team needed it,” she said.
Said Small: “What you hope players learn is character. Through the adversity and tough times, basketball has given her a way to say, no matter what happens in your life, you'll be able to find a way to get through it.”
Walz is staying in shape on the off chance an opportunity arises to play professionally. But the business education major already is making plans to begin coaching part-time next season; she has 18 months of schooling left. She plans to look for a job in Northern Kentucky after college.
“I'm looking forward to the future,” she said. “It's not like I have to quit cold-turkey. Basketball will always be a part of my life.”
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