By Jim Hague
When Stephanie Ross arrived at Rutgers-Newark three years ago, she didn’t come with a reputation of being a big-time player. Ross was more of a role player at Nutley High School, but that didn’t deter her from pursuing her dream of playing college basketball.
Ross was able to gain enough attention from college recruiters. She received offers from Dickinson College and Moravian College in Pennsylvania, Stevens Tech in Hoboken and the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., as well as Richard Stockton College in Pomona, but decided to stay close to home and attend Rutgers-Newark.
“I had a few schools that were interested in me,” Ross said. “But I didn’t want to go away from home.”
It also helped that Theresa Hrubash, Ross’ former high school coach at Nutley, had joined the staff at Rutgers-Newark as an assistant coach at the same time that Ross was ready to make her college commitment.
“I was recruited by other schools, but Coach Hrubash helped me out,” Ross said. “I think it was more coincidence that she was coaching at Rutgers more than anything. It did make it easier that she was going to be there.”
“Theresa is a great recruiter and she helped us to get a lot of players then,” said Rutgers-Newark head women’s basketball coach Kevin Morris. “I think Theresa coaching here was a factor in getting Stephanie to come. I think it was the proximity that we have to Nutley, that we were making the effort to turn things around here. They were all factors.”
Ross was part of a recruiting class that brought five talented players to Rutgers-Newark four seasons ago. In that time, the program has improved almost as much as Ross has.
The ascent of both player and program has paralleled.
Ross’ game has also improved leaps and bounds since becoming a Scarlet Raider.
As a freshman, the 5-foot-10 Ross had to sit behind Chrystal Anderson and wait her turn to play. As a sophomore, Ross improved to 5.5 points and 3.9 rebounds per contest.
As a junior, Ross became the Scarlet Raiders’ second-leading scorer (8.1 points per game) and leading rebounder (4.2 rebounds per contest). She averaged 49 percent from the field and 72 percent from the free throw line.
This season, it’s been more of the same, as Ross is averaging 7.9 points and a team-high 5.2 rebounds per contest. She trails only guards Sabrina Sanchez and Nerlande Nicolas on the team’s scoring list.
“I think I know I always had the talent to do well,” Ross said. “I just needed the confidence. The confidence wasn’t there at the start. As a freshman, I was afraid to shoot and I just wasn’t given the opportunity to do so. I knew I had to do something to improve myself, so I spent a lot of time in the weight room. It was all dedication and motivation.”
Morris calls Ross “the hardest worker we have in the weight room.”
“She has consistently been in the weight room,” Morris said. “She puts a lot of time in there.”
“I enjoy being in the weight room and working out,” Ross said. “I feel like when I’m working out, everything just slips my mind and nothing bothers me. In a way, it’s a stress reliever for me.”
Morris said that it’s hard to say whether Ross has been the team’s most improved player over the last four seasons.
“I guess if I had to pick the most improved, Stephanie might be the one,” Morris said.
“She’s made some great strides and she’s definitely a different player than she was when she got here. She has a lot of value to this team. She’s not only a great scorer and rebounder, but she does a lot of other good things that people might overlook in the box score.
Added Morris, “She’s developed a nice outside shot and has good hands. She can score with either her left hand or her right. She can turn right and left and has good footwork. She’s also a strong passer and can beat you with a pass. That might be the thing everyone overlooks the most. She can see the floor and make a pass the length of the floor. She makes you guard the full length of the court. She really has a lot of solid skills and she definitely has improved a lot.”
The Scarlet Raiders own a 19-5 record heading into the final regular season contest this weekend against William Paterson. It will be an emotional evening as the five seniors, namely Ross, Sanchez, Nicolas, Eni Fageyinbo and Toni Roselli, play their final regular season home game.
“It’s going to be a real emotional time for all of us,” Ross said. “It’s an amazing accomplishment to see how far we’ve come since we’ve been there. I knew that we were going to accomplish something while we were here. I know the five of us are very close and it’s been an amazing four years for me. But it’s an important game and we can’t let the emotions get the best of us. Once the game starts, we’re all business.”
Ross said that her athletic skills run in the family. Her mother, Maria, an ESL teacher in Paterson who is one of the Scarlet Raiders’ most avid fans and has never missed a home game, was a basketball player in her native Guatemala. Her father was a soccer player and ran track.
“It means a lot to me knowing how much my mother supports me,” Ross said. “It’s not easy driving from Paterson to Newark to get there for every game. She’s really my inspiration.”
Ross said that her progression as an athlete came from within.
“I guess it was only natural that I played sports,” Ross said. “I remember my parents taking me and my brother (Kevin, a junior at Stevens Tech) to the park when we were little and playing us in basketball. Those games got real competitive. It was my brother and me against my Mom and my Dad. We won most of the time.”
Ross also has another brother, Matthew, who is sophomore at Nutley.
Ross also played soccer at Nutley, but concentrated on basketball when she arrived at Rutgers-Newark.
Morris said that it had been a pleasure to watch Ross mature and blossom as a player.
“She really has come a long way,” Morris said. “As a freshman, if we said something to her, she got a little more sensitive. But she realized that we wanted her to become successful. We coached her aggressively and she’s really come a long way.”
Morris enjoys Ross’ popularity with her teammates and other R-N athletes.
“Because of the way she’s always in the weight room, she’s really become the favorite of the men’s team,” Morris said. “They’re always telling me to get the ball to Ross. I always joke with Stephanie about that, how she has the men’s team cheering for her. But she also has the respect of her teammates as well.”
Morris said that each week, there’s a vote on who has been the hardest working player of the week.
“Stephanie wins that most of the time,” Morris said. “Her teammates really respect her the most. She may hear certain things from her coaches, but for her teammates to recognize her, it’s an indication of how they think of her.”
Ross is majoring in psychology at Rutgers-Newark. She hopes to become an elementary school psychologist when she’s done with school and done playing basketball. She also hopes that she can serve as a role model to other Nutley girl athletes who aspire to play in college.
“Most definitely, I hope I can be that,” Ross said. “When I was younger, I really didn’t have anyone that I could look up to. Since there weren’t many from Nutley who went on to play in college, I didn’t have a chance. I just hope I can be a positive influence to the young girls of Nutley. I’m just so happy to have chosen to come to Rutgers.”
However, if there’s one thing Ross could change, it would be…
“Oh, the traffic patterns from Nutley to Newark,” said Ross, who is one of the few Scarlet Raiders to commute to school every day. “That’s the only thing at all that I would change.”
