Oct. 23, 2006
Kate Hobbs -- Anything but Ordinary
by: Justin Kischefsky, Assistant Sports Information Director
Summertime for a college student. Sleeping in until 9 or 10 a.m. Having a stress-free part time job. Spending time at a beach or a pool working on a tan. Catching up with friends at night. Going to bed late knowing you could do the same thing the very next day.
That may describe a typical day for many college students across the nation, but Navy women's basketball senior Kate Hobbs proved to be the exception to the rule during the summer of 2006. Her last carefree summer before graduating from the Naval Academy included not just flying in a $60 million F/A-18 Super Hornet, but also helping deliver babies in a hospital.
And to think, the path to doing "the coolest things I have ever done!" was one the senior dismissed taking at first.
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Born in the Pittsburgh area, Hobbs was involved in a wide range of activities such as T-Ball, softball, riding horses and playing the piano from the time she was young. For a number of years, swimming was her main athletic outlet.
Despite all of her activities, Hobbs admits she wasn't in very good shape physically when she reached fifth grade.
"I was heavy," said the now 6-foot, 2-inch Hobbs. "My mom said I needed to pick a sport and commit to it because I needed to get into shape. She said I could stay with swimming or else try something new, like basketball. I didn't really like swimming anymore, so I said I would try basketball."
Hobbs joined a basketball team that year, but she was the lone fifth grader on a sixth grade team, all of whom had played the year before. She didn't receive much playing time that season, and when she did get in, she didn't see the ball much. She scored one basket all year and it came in the next-to-last game of the season.
Despite the rough going, Hobbs fell in love with the sport and was asked to join a travel team the following year.
"The coach, Jim Dudas, saw me playing and felt I had some potential so he invited me onto the team," said Hobbs. "All of the other girls on the team were better and had more experience than I did, but he really worked with me. I played for him in sixth, seventh and eighth grade and, thanks to his efforts, I made the varsity team as a freshman in high school."
All other sports quickly fell by the wayside once Hobbs was bitten by the basketball bug. Soon she was playing year-round with her high school and AAU teams.
"I loved it," said Hobbs. "Especially playing AAU. I loved traveling and playing all over the country."
After earning first-team all-league honors at North Allegheny High School as a junior and helping her AAU team place fifth in the under-16 national tournament, Hobbs soon was on the radar of college coaches across the country.
As the overwhelming recruiting process went on and she began to hear from more coaches, Hobbs quickly decided she had no interest whatsoever in attending the Naval Academy.
"My mom (Julie) told me not to rule any school out, especially one as prestigious as Navy, so I didn't," said Hobbs. "My dad (Charles) and I then began to investigate all of the schools online and I wrote down a list of pros and cons of those schools which showed the most interest in me.
"The whole process of picking a college was another reason why I am so indebted to my parents. They have always kept me open-minded about everything, from choosing a school to my activities to my outlook on life."
After more research, visits to her home from a number of coaches and official visits to Brown, Illinois and Navy, Hobbs decided she wanted to attend the Naval Academy.
"I really liked the overall school philosophy of Brown and I loved the coaches at Illinois," remembered Hobbs. "But there was something about Navy which was so unique and different from the other places which made me want to come here."
Despite playing behind senior post players Kate Maslowski and Adrienne Roseti and not starting a game during her entire rookie year, Hobbs posted averages of 5.1 points and 2.6 rebounds a game and was named to the Patriot League's All-Freshman Team.
A fixture in the starting lineup as a sophomore, Hobbs improved her numbers to 8.2 points and 4.7 rebounds a game, while also doubling her blocked shots total from her first year to 24.
With high expectations for herself at the start of the year, the 2005-06 season instead began as a rocky one for Hobbs. She started the opening five games of the year, but failed to score more than seven points in any game and grabbed two or fewer rebounds in three of those contests. For the first time in two years, she found herself out of the starting lineup.
"The first half of the year wasn't good," said Hobbs of her junior year. "I was playing lousy and wasn't adding anything to the team at all. I was having mental blocks out there and would get too frustrated. I then started focusing better and concentrating more and, as a result, began playing better and finally started again."
Her third game back as a member of Navy's starting five was against Army and Hobbs celebrated by connecting on 11-of-17 shots from the field and totaling a career-high 28 points.
After some minor ups and downs over the next few games, Hobbs ended the season on a tear, averaging 14.0 points and 7.3 rebounds a game and tallying three double-doubles over the final six games of the season. Included in that stretch was a 21-point, 12-rebound effort against Lafayette, as well as a 14-point, 16-rebound performance against Colgate in the quarterfinal round of the league tournament.
"Over the second half of the 2006 league season, Kate played as well as any player I have ever had," said Navy head coach Tom Marryott. "She was tenacious on the glass and at times unstoppable on offense. With how hard she has pushed herself during this preseason, I expect her to pick up this year right where she left off last year."
As she enters her senior season at Navy, Hobbs' name can already be found towards the top of several school career records, including blocked shots (sixth with 58) and both field goal (11th, 45.7%) and free throw (15th, 67.7%) percentages.
While she will be looking to improve upon those numbers during the upcoming season, Hobbs already has joined a select list of players in Navy history thanks to her teammates voting her as the captain of the 2006-07 squad.
"I was really excited and honored," said Hobbs of her reaction to being voted captain. "I feel any of the four of us seniors (Betsy Burnett, Margaret Knap and Carly Meyer) could be captain. I didn't deserve it any more than the other girls did."
"Kate is such a positive influence on this team, far and beyond what shows up in a box score," said Marryott. "First and foremost, she is a leader, one who leads by example. We know we can count on her to give a maximum effort every time she steps onto the court for either a game or a practice. When your team captain sets that type of example, good things happen."
While the summer of 2006 was one during which she and her teammates spent time together working towards achieving their collective goal of winning the 2007 Patriot League title, it also was one in which Hobbs continued her training to achieve the individual goals she has set for herself for when she graduates from Navy.
"I want to eventually become a doctor," said Hobbs. "Whether I begin medical school right out of college or a few years later remains to be seen, so I felt it was important to learn about another field besides medicine which I would find enjoyable."
It was this investigative process which led her to taking an aviation cruise at the start of the summer at Lemoore, Calif., with VFA-41, the Black Aces.
"Everyone was so welcoming to us," said Hobbs. "I loved the camaraderie they showed."
An example of this camaraderie was displayed when a female officer walked up to Hobbs and started talking to her while she was having lunch on one of her last days.
"After I saw her nametag I asked her where she went to school and when she said Navy I replied, 'You're Laurie Coffey and you played basketball at Navy. I've heard your name lots of times,'" remembered Hobbs. "She and two other officers then sat down and had lunch with me for about an hour until my phone rang."
Hobbs had yet to be able to take a flight with the squadron, but that phone call said if she wanted one she had to get over to the training area immediately.
"I raced over there, jumped into my flight suit and hopped into the plane," said Hobbs. "It was an awesome flight. We hit Mach 1.21, went low level over the Sierra Nevada Mountains and did all sorts of aerobatics."
A few days after leaving California, Hobbs exchanged her flight suit for surgical scrubs as she began an internship at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Being around a hospital has been almost second nature to Hobbs since the time she was young, and being a doctor is what she has always aspired to become.
"My mom is an audiologist, so she would often take me to work with her," said Hobbs. "I used to baby-sit for another family of doctors and my brother (Ben, now 18) has a friend whose dad is a doctor, and they used to let me observe surgeries."
With her lifelong dream to become a doctor, this was an internship Hobbs was very much looking forward to.
"I was able to see all of the aspects Bethesda has to offer," said Hobbs. "After this internship, I am very interested in becoming a surgeon, or a pediatrician or work with cancer research and treatment."
Once her medical internship came to a close, there still remained several weeks of summer. Always looking to keep busy, Hobbs closed her "break" by attending summer school and serving on Plebe Summer detail.
It is this balancing act of not just being constantly being involved with something, but achieving success at everything which impresses not only Marryott, but also other people who know her.
"I have never been around someone who can manage so many activities and absolutely excel at every one of them," said Marryott. "With Kate it is not a question of her succeeding at anything she wants to, but rather knowing she will succeed at everything she wants to."
"It was a great thrill for me to learn that Kate is flying a Super Hornet and interning at a local hospital," said Illinois head coach Theresa Grentz. "But as thrilled as I am, I'm not in any way surprised. I remember recruiting Kate at Illinois and how much I enjoyed meeting her and listening to her dreams and goals. One of the greatest thrills of coaching is watching young people achieve their dreams and it's great to see Kate is doing that at the Naval Academy.
"Kate is a young woman who will definitely make a difference in society when she finishes school and I couldn't be more delighted for her and her success."
After thinking back to that first day when she immediately ruled out attending the Naval Academy, as well as to other days of doubts after her arrival on The Yard in 2003, Hobbs now feels spending four years at Navy was the best decision for her.
"During my sophomore year, anytime I was upset about something I would ask myself, 'Why am I even here?' But then I realized all of the benefits outweighed what we have to go through. I feel myself, and most students who go here, don't take normal, everyday things for granted like the majority of kids who go to other colleges do. I have met my closest friends here, some amazing people who have given me amazing experiences.
"Now that I am so close to the end, I would never question why I stayed."
