LaMendola’s leaving a legacy of perseverance and success

Ava

Johnson

Staff Writer @avakjohnson4

TWEET! Coppell senior guard

Jules LaMendola is knocked down once again after driving to the basket, the opposition doing everything in its power to deter her from scoring. Her teammates rush to her side, supporting her as she picks herself back up, embodying the Cowgirl spirit.

LaMendola’s resume is extensive; leading the Coppell girls basketball team to the area championship in 2022, named District 6-6A MVP last season, selected to the Texas Class 6A All-State team, ranked No. 53 in the country according to ESPN’s class of 2023, is a McDonald’s Top 100 All-American nominee and signed to Indiana University to continue her basketball career.

While all of these titles illustrate the accomplished athlete LaMendola has become, those outside the arena may overlook the countless hours of practice and the level of sacrifice it took to become a player of that caliber.

“She’s self-made,” Coppell girls basketball coach Ryan Murphy said. “She’s gone from a zero star that was on nobody’s radar to a top 100 player in the nation and committed to Indiana. That’s a lot of hard work when nobody else is around that she’s put in to make herself that player.”

While Murphy’s words echo truth, if you ask LaMendola about her success, she’ll respond by describing the Cowgirls’ accolades rather than her own, demonstrating her complete willingness to put her team above herself.

“[In] my junior year, we went from being an unknown team in the state of Texas to being a top ranked team in the state, and proving everybody wrong,” LaMendola said. “Proving that we are a team that can compete [and be] successful.”

LaMendola’s junior year is the one that turned her high school career, as Murphy describes her sophomore year as a year of growth. She was inconsistent and missed time due to contact tracing during the pandemic, prohibiting her from reaching her full potential.

Every time LaMendola pulled herself up to go to the gym, gave up social time for the sport, or stayed after practice to get in extra shots, she was faced with a simple question.

“Is this what I want to do with my life?”

Every time, she answered yes. It was all of those moments, all of those small sacrifices, rather than a singular one, that defined her career and herself.

Besides her own love for the sport, another influence inspiring LaMendola to play is her mother, Janice LaMendola. She describes how her mother played basketball in college (Kankakee Community College in Illinois and University of Arkansas at Little Rock) and instilled the sport into her childhood, her own competitiveness bleeding through to LaMendola and her twin sister Skye LaMendola.

Every play LaMendola makes, every foul she takes, every point she scores reinforces that bond with her mother, leaving a familial feeling on the court that other players can’t help but pick up on.

“Jules is like a big sister,” Coppell junior guard Ella Spiller said. “We all look up to her because she’s one of the biggest pieces on our team, and we always take what she says to heart.”

LaMendola describes how the basketball programs she plays for - ProSkills 17U of the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League and the Cowgirls – creates little families wherever she goes, bonds that she can reignite later down the road as her career continues.

Whether it’s running sprints together, or pushing each other in the weight room, everything the Cowgirls do reinforces the bonds between the players, creating a sisterhood that will last for decades to come.

Despite the sheer size of LaMendola’s influence on the team, from being a vocal leader to taking a foul to win a play, it is the bonds of the players that hold the team together; something that LaMendola has been cultivating for years, creating a Cowgirl family that she will always be able to return to.