TicketsMarch 6, 2009
By MARK SCHMETZER
The iconic image of Indiana basketball -- bolstered by "Hoosiers," the 1986 movie about a small town high school team winning the state championship -- is of basketballs being shot at hoops raised on backyard poles or perched on garage walls. In the case of the Roudebush family of Noblesville, the hoops weren't on the garage. They were in the garage, where bad weather couldn't dampen the family's love of the game called by Shooter, Dennis Hopper's memorable "Hoosiers" character, "the greatest ever invented."
He'll get no argument from Kahla Roudebush. Basketball has always been No. 1 on her list. Sure, she dabbled in karate for a couple of years before she was 10 and indulged in piano lessons for a few years, but neither activity came close to replacing hoops in her heart.
"I think my parents put me in karate because I was a mean little kid," she recalled. "When your sister is six years older than you and your brother is 12 years older than you ... well, I was a competitive little kid. Karate calmed me down, but I had to quit. Basketball started being more important to me. I loved the piano, but I got lazy, and basketball was more important."
You've heard about great professional athletes who love their sport so much that they'd play for free? The University of Cincinnati junior -- born in the same year "Hoosiers" was released -- is so there.
"It wasn't like it is now in college, where you've got to do this or that," said Roudebush, who once drove all day before her Hamilton Southeastern High School senior year with her father to the University of Maryland -- about a 12-hour trip one way -- to play pickup games and check out the campus before driving back the next day. "When I was younger, I just loved it. I would go out there and shoot and play around. I would act like I was coaching the team. I was just young. I would go out there and have fun. If it was too cold, we had little baskets in the garage -- kind of in between regulation size and what you put on the back of your office door."
Jump ahead to 2009 and Roudebush is relishing her third full season as a Bearcat and second since she missed all but one game of the 2006-07 season while dealing with knee and shoulder surgeries. The fourth-year junior is leading the team in scoring for the second consecutive season and leading the BIG EAST in average minutes per game, putting in two more minutes per game than last season, when she was forced to play a lot because UC had just nine players on the roster.
Last year, she had to play a lot. This year, she wants to.
"I've always been the type of player who hates coming out of a game, but I don't argue about it," the 5-foot-8 guard said of her increased playing time. "When they take me out, I'm like, `Sweet, I get a break.' I haven't paid attention to it. I don't know if it's because of last year and I got used to it.
"Before, I couldn't get on the court. Now, I can get on, so I don't want to come off. Coach (J. Kelley Hall) has given me the opportunity to play, and I want to go out and give it everything I have. He has faith in me, and it feels great." Roudebush's classmate, guard-forward Shelly Bellman, isn't surprised to see her teammate spending so much time on the court.
"I know I want her out there," said Bellman, who missed last season after undergoing knee surgery.
Bellman played at Ottawa-Glandorf High School in Ottawa, Ohio, but she played a significant role in Roudebush's decision to attend UC. The two met on a recruiting visit.
"When we were getting recruited, we both came to the same game," Bellman recalled. "We were sitting in the stands, just talking, and we connected. Our dads got along, too. It was cool to meet her then -- cool to have somebody I knew and liked."
"Our personalities are similar," Roudebush said. "We're competitive. We hit it off that day. The only official visit I made was to Cincinnati. I had it set up to go to Michigan State a couple of days after visiting Cincinnati, but after my official visit here, I pretty much knew where I wanted to go.
"What really got me was how we were treated like family. They acknowledged me. This was the first school where they really made me feel welcome. They gave my parents hugs and just made us feel welcome. You could tell it was genuine."
Roudebush suspected the Bearcats could be building something special with her class. She knew Michelle Jones had played on an Ohio Division I state championship team.
"I knew she knew how to win," Roudebush said.
She also knew that Jones, Bellman and Angel Morgan had earned all-state honors in Ohio and that Jill Stephens was a three-time all-state selection in West Virginia, but she became concerned when the coach who had recruited them, Laurie Pirtle, retired shortly after the 2006-07 season.
"That whole thing was a hard situation," Roudebush said. "She's a great coach, she was our coach, and not knowing who we're going to get and that it was up in the air for as long as it was, it was weird. That was the first time I'd ever gone through a coaching change."
Roudebush admits to thinking about transferring, but only in the context of reasons to not do it.
"I trusted them that they were going to bring in somebody who knew how to win," she said. "My whole thing with transferring was whatever problems you might have with a coach, most of time it's not the coach, it's the player. The coach isn't the problem. It's the player, so whatever problems you have, transferring doesn't mean you're going to fix yourself.
"The coaches we have are awesome," she added.
Besides, Roudebush had enough to deal with in her comeback from her injuries. She set a high-identity example for Jones and Bellman in their comebacks from medical issues that cost them the 2007-08 season.
"For me, personally, I sat out the whole year, just like she did," Bellman said. "She is an example, and a good example. Injuries happen, and you can't do anything about it, but she fought through the rehab and came back stronger than ever, and she was so happy to get out on the court. When I got injured, I talked to her a lot, because she knew what I was going through. We all did. She's proof that you can come back."
That's the kind of leadership Roudebush hopes to exhibit after she's through with her playing days -- which she hopes will extend to a professional career, perhaps overseas. The secondary education major can see coaching in her future. She's just not sure at what level.
"I'm pretty much like my sister (Erika) was when she graduated from Cleveland State," Kahla said. "She tried college coaching, but it wasn't for her. I mean, she loved it, but she got sick of living out of a suitcase. I would love to try college coaching and see if it's for me or not for me, but I know I'm not done playing for a long time.
"I would love to go overseas. Any opportunity, I would take it. I've heard from people who've been over there that it's a great thing to do. If I get the chance and don't do it, I'll wonder what it might've been like for the rest of my life."
(This story was previously printed in the Bearcat Sports Digest.)