Jamie Grover, from follower to forward
From Jeff Hornecek and George W. Bush to Keifer Sutherland, Jamie Grover says, “They are all very cute.”
Grover is one of this year’s forwards on the College of Eastern Utah’s women’s basketball team.
She started her basketball career in the seventh grade when a friend didn’t want go to tryouts alone. Grover agreed to go to with her and ended up being the only seventh grader to make the team, and she had never played before.
This archived article was written by: Shelly Gledhill
From Jeff Hornecek and George W. Bush to Keifer Sutherland, Jamie Grover says, “They are all very cute.”
Grover is one of this year’s forwards on the College of Eastern Utah’s women’s basketball team.
She started her basketball career in the seventh grade when a friend didn’t want go to tryouts alone. Grover agreed to go to with her and ended up being the only seventh grader to make the team, and she had never played before.
The sport that she was used to playing was soccer. She started soccer when she was four and played until she finished high school. Because she likes basketball more and says that it isn’t as hard on her knees, she continued on with the sport.
Although Grover grew up in North Salt Lake and attended Woods Cross High School, she had never heard of CEU until Coach Dave Paur called her one day and asked her to come tryout.
Grover declares that she likes CEU and says that the people here are fun, although some nights can be quite boring.
When at home in the city, she enjoys hanging out with her friends and doing dumb stuff that can get her in trouble.
One time her parents got really mad, she admits, when she pulled a prank on her high school coach Mitch Smith. The seniors on the team got together one night and spent five hours spray painting his lawn and pouring paint on his driveway and steps.
Smith and Marci Howey were Grover’s high school coaches, and two people that she greatly looks up to in her life.
“Besides being my coaches,” she says, “they have always been there for me. They continue to call me to see how I’m doing. Last year I was having a hard time and they were always there for me.”
Grover enjoys her team this year and says that they all have their own unique qualities; although she admits they haven’t had the best season.
“We have a lot of potential on our team I think, but we have had a lot of stuff happen. We’ve had some people get in trouble, then we’ve had a lot of injuries. So it’s been really hard to work at it as a set team.
“At the beginning of the year we were unstoppable, then adversity hit and we were screwed.”
Besides basketball and soccer, Grover enjoys Disney movies and admits to being a true kid at heart. Hercules is her favorite movie and she watches it at least once a week. If you ever go to her room at four a.m., there’s a good chance she’ll be watching Hercules.
She also admits she likes to eat a lot. “Everything and anything,” she says. “There isn’t a food I don’t like. Which can be good and bad. Good because you’re not picky, but sometimes you don’t stop eating because everything looks so good.”
Grover is a huge Jazz fan. She has met all of the players because her dad, Mike, works for KJZZ as a chief engineer. She loves going to the games and being able to talk to all of the players.
Country and punk are her two favorite types of music, although she says she’ll listen to anything because she doesn’t really care
“I want to be a cop when I grow up, or when I’m older. It’s just something that I’ve always wanted to be, but haven’t done a lot to get closer to that,” she says. She also thinks she would want to be a P.E. coach for junior high people.
