To look at her scoring statistics, you would never be able to figure out just what Kaela Chapdelaine means to the Oregon women’s basketball team.
Her .254 field goal shooting percentage and her .274 three-point shooting percentage are both the lowest on the team.
But every team needs a workhorse. And that’s exactly what Chapdelaine is.
The 5-foot-10-inch shooting guard leads the team in offensive rebounds (31) and assists (79). And the only player who has played more minutes than she has this season is junior point guard Tamika Nurse. Incidentally, Nurse is Chapdelaine’s replacement at the point guard position that she owned last year, but gave up this year because the Ducks needed someone to step into the shooting guard spot.
“She was absolutely receptive to the change,” Oregon coach Bev Smith said. “She just wants to be on a team that’s going to be competitive and win, and she’s willing to contribute in any way she can.
“Her willingness to take on that challenge, and to be a player who rebounds and does all the grunt work in terms of the defensive assignments that she gets has really been incredible in terms of her sacrifice to her team.”
Chapdelaine, known to her teammates as “Chap,” comes from a family of athletes. Her father, Jacques, is the offensive coordinator of the Canadian Football League’s British Columbia Lions, while her mother Kim is a track coach who competed for the Canadian national team. Both of her younger brothers play football – a sport that she thinks she would be playing if she’d been a boy.
Thus it follows that Kaela Chapdelaine is a ‘coach’s athlete.’ She’s the kind of player who cares less about her own numbers than about the numbers the team is posting, and she’s a fundamentalist who’s more concerned about perfecting the little details of her game than she is about flash and dazzle.
“Kaela’s biggest asset is her blue-collar work ethic,” Smith said. “She’s gonna battle and compete to the bitter end. She’s the meat and potatoes that you absolutely need on a team, and that’s enhanced by her understanding of the game offensively and she’s definitely one of our leading assist getters – which speaks to her understanding of the game and how to create for others.”
After redshirting her junior season with an ankle injury, Chapdelaine has become the Ducks’ emotional leader on the floor this year.
“Kaela’s always kinda been a leader of whatever team she’s been on,” said senior forward Eleanor Haring, who has been roommates with Chapdelaine since their freshman year, and who Chapdelaine says is like a sister to her.
Chapdelaine’s ability to get the team going has a lot to do with the fact that she gets fired up very easily.
“Sport in general gets her fired up, losing gets her fired up, training gets her fired up. Defense gets her really fired up. It’s more like what doesn’t get her fired up,” Haring said.
“I’m an outspoken person and I wear my emotions on my sleeve, and I’ve always been that way. So that’s why another role that I have on the team is that I’m kind of the emotional leader,” Chapdelaine said.
The Ducks will need that leadership more than ever next year because they will lose starters Haring, Cicely Oaks, and Jessie Shetters, and key reserves Carolyn Ganes and Jamie Hawkins to graduation at the end of this season – a bittersweet event for Chapdelaine, who came to Oregon with that recruiting class.
” It is hard that they’re all leaving. But it’s one of those things, you know? It was truly a blessing to have those three with me all four years and they’re the best friends I could ever ask for,” Chapdelaine said. “It’s gonna be hard to see them go, and it’d be fun to finish with such a big class. But I made a commitment for five years, and I want to see that through.”
After she gets done with that commitment, Chapdelaine hopes to continue her basketball career overseas because her fundamentals-first style of play is better suited for the international game than the WNBA.
“There’s definitely nothing flashy about my game,” she said. “If it’s entertaining, great, but I don’t aim to be entertaining.
“I’ve not always really been the underdog, but I’ve definitely always been either the youngest of I’ve just always felt like I needed to be better than everyone else, so I’ve always kinda worked hard. Because I didn’t feel like I ever really had an extra edge naturally.”
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