The Path to Play

BY ANJALI KAKARLA

Playing college basketball wasn’t Jill Boynton’s dream growing up. In fact, basketball didn’t even become her main sport until middle school; she had identified as a soccer player up until that point. But once Boynton started playing with her Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team Common Bond, her love for the game became undeniable.

“Ever since sixth grade I’ve been playing basketball every year, nonstop, and it’s been really, really good for me,” Boynton said. “I found so much love for basketball and, in that process, it made me realize that I don’t actually love soccer that much.”

In her freshman year, Henry Ford College (HFC) in Dearborn, Mich. began showing interest in Boynton. She is now committed to play for HFC, but Boynton’s journey to get there has been far from a straight shot. Boynton’s first setback came during her freshman year when the pandemic cut her season short. It didn’t stop there. In her sophomore year, the season was delayed until February and shortened with required no-contact practices for much of the season.

“The COVID-19 year definitely made my progress a little bit more stagnant because I wasn’t getting as much playing time and we weren’t practicing as much,” Boynton said. “A lot of things just came to a standstill.”

The following year — Boynton’s junior year — started off well. However, only three games in, a season-ending ACL tear dashed Boynton’s hopes of having a full junior season for recruiting. Her main priority became recuperating through hours and hours of physical therapy to recover from her multiple surgeries. Throughout all of this, HFC stuck with her.

“After I tore my ACL, they told me that they were still interested,” Boynton said. “It just gave me a lot of hope because they said that they do see a future for me in the sport. They had a lot of confidence in me and I think it made me have confidence in myself.”

That hope brought Boynton to her senior season. With her hard work paying off, Boynton was selected as team captain in a unanimous vote by her teammates and was cleared to play two games into the season. It was 11 games later, while she was sitting in the Pioneer High School gym, that Boynton got a text from the HFC coach expressing just how much they wanted her.

“We were about to play against Pioneer and the coach texted me,” Boynton said. “He was like, ‘Jillian, we really want to get closer to moving towards a commitment. We want you.’ And he was talking about all these plans they have for their season and stuff like that. I talked about it with my [high school] coach for a while and then a couple of weeks later, I did end up committing.”

Boynton’s official signing day was in April. However, she feels as though she has already become part of the HFC family.

“They had everyone who was getting recruited come to this game,” Boynton said. “The environment was really good. The coach seemed like he really wanted to make a difference in that program. It’s all literally what I would describe, for the boys team especially, it’s like all D1 talent. But, none of them have the grades to be able to do that for themselves. So, they’re just taking that opportunity and like seeing what comes of it and that’s like something that I really admired about them.”

On that same trip, Boynton met a fellow signee who tore her ACL. The signee had just had her injury and was still on crutches at the time. Boynton was able to offer her experience to the signee and the two bonded over the shared injury.

Over the next four years, Boynton is not only looking to grow as a basketball player. She also hopes to become a true student athlete.

“One thing that led me to committing was the fact that as a student athlete the school gives you all these tools and access to tutors that can help you stay on top of your work and make sure that you are staying academically eligible to play,” Boynton said. “That was one of the main things that made me commit because if I am playing with them, they want to make sure that I’m doing [well] in school as well.”

Boynton’s goals for the next four years are to be aggressive and to not shy away from the spotlight. She hopes to get better at shooting off the dribble and being more consistent with her ball handling. Her goals aren’t solely basketball-related, though.

“I hope to gain a lot more skill,” Boynton said. “But I also hope that I grow as an individual, not even close to basketball, just as a human being. Basketball has taught me a lot of things that don’t even have to do with [the sport] like teamwork, leadership and all those things and I feel like taking that to the next level is going to help me develop that even further.”