Plumley still has a long way to go

Commentary

By Clay Horning

Another call to Red Rock, to the residence of Jenna Plumley’s parents, brought nothing Friday. Just the same answerer, who sounds like he’s been taking a lot of calls just like the ones I’ve made the last couple of days.

Bully for him, whoever he is, he seems to understand the calls must be made. Bully for him, from Plumley’s perspective, he’s giving nothing away.

Thursday, two officials with two different college basketball programs contacted by The Transcript said Plumley was headed to Lamar. There’s no reason to believe it’s not true, though Plumley’s becoming a Cardinal in any way that matters remains a feat to accomplish rather than a waiting game to endure.

Perhaps the Texas Gulf Coast isn’t as demanding as Oklahoma women’s basketball coach Sherri Coale, yet it remains a good bet whatever got her in trouble here — a shoplifting charge and other unspecified and unmet expectations — likely won’t be overlooked there.

So it would seem the tiny point guard with so much game and fire and charisma and range, who seems to carry the hopes and dreams of so many admirers in ways her teammates who don’t happen to be Native American will never understand, will have to be a good citizen, a good teammate and a good enough student to return to the court.

One hopes it’s easy.

I fear, it’s not.

When Plumley burst on the scene her freshman season she was the most exciting thing to hit Sooner women’s hoops since Kendra Moore beat Baylor the year before in Waco. But if Moore had a couple games like that, Plumley seemed to have them more nights than not after coming off the bench to save OU’s season.

The most beloved Sooner cager since I hit town is Hollis Price. Eduardo Najera is close and Courtney Paris, awed and adored in equal measure, is in the conversation, yet there were times I was sure Plumley would pass them all.

A freshman, a Native, 5-foot nothing and cute as the dickens, she was the best story going. Maybe it would have been easier if she’d been the same player and none of everything else. Maybe it would have been easier if she’d been Erin Higgins.

A fast talker, who never inflected uncertainty, she seemed like a fine interview back in her salad days, which lasted about six weeks. It took another season, one in which she suffered a severe sophomore slump, to realize it was always the same. She never quit sounding certain, but she didn’t make any sense, and she could never turn it off.

It was as though in the half second between your question ended and her answer began, she conferred some internal bank of casettes, found the one she wanted, popped it into the player, also internal, and hit the button. When the tape ran out, the interview continued.

It was as though she’d been answering questions about her great ability to play the game in a frame so slight since the beginning of time and it was just easier that way.

She was the pride of more than one tribe, the pride of Frontier High School, the pride of tiny Red Rock, the pride of so many little girls destined never to reach 5-6, who have nonetheless fallen in love with basketball and she was the pride of the “Jenna Plumley Fan Group,” a Facebook creation that counts 91 members, whose last posting belonged to Carol Wahpepah, who Aug. 7 wrote “Everyone makes mistakes but when you’re semi-famous, everyone knows about your mistakes. I still believe in you.”

That’s more than anybody should ever have to not let down, even while Plumley, all those who claim her aside, has to understand she has at least let herself down.

I’m believe she’s headed to Lamar.

But she still has to get there, do the work, stick it out and, eventually, perform. Here’s hoping she does it, all in the name of pleasing herself.

Maybe then she’ll answer the questions and sound like a real person, the casettes and player thrown away.

Clay Horning

366-3526

cfhorning@normantranscript.com