Staying close to home
SRA’s Gagan earning her keep at URI
Local girls’ hoop standout Kasey Gagan will be staying in the Ocean State as she plans to play for URI.
KINGSTON – The faceto-face meeting between Kasey Gagan and URI women’s basketball head coach Daynia La-Force was merely a formality. Gagan had a burning desire to suit up for the Rams, and La-Force wanted to clear a path for the recent St. Raphael graduate and 2016-17 Call/Times Girls Basketball Most Valuable Player to join her program.
The mutual interest was clear, yet La-Force still needed to look Gagan in the eye and see just how badly she wanted it. Like a fastbreak opportunity, Gagan made sure that not much time elapsed in her conversation with LaForce before conveying how badly she wanted the chance to play at the Division I level.
“I can’t tell you how good it felt when the coaches said I was going. I’ve been trying to prove that I should be on this team.” – SRA graduate Kasey Gagan
“It wasn’t a hard decision to have Kasey become part of the team. By the same token, it was very important for her to sit down in front of me and give her the opportunity to hear where I think she could fit in and how she can help the program,” La-Force said recently. “The first thing I really realized is how much she wanted to be a part of our program. It goes back to her wanting to stay close to home and share her college experience with her family. That meant a lot to me.”
Officially, Gagan is classi- fied as a freshman walk-on. From the sound of it, the 5-9 point guard will not be your typical non-scholarship student-athlete with La-Force’s Rams. She will have a role that’s atypical of a walk-on, known primarily in NCAA Division I athletics as a thankless duty where plenty of sacrifices are made.
“Walk-ons in my program are just as key as scholarship players,” La-Force said. “They’re given an opportunity to impact the team.”
When URI takes a working vacation to Spain and Portugal beginning next Friday, Gagan will be right there along for the ride. The daughter of Pawtucket native Scott and Plainville, Mass. native Christine has already done plenty this summer to earn the trust and respect of her teammates and coaches. Now comes a golden opportunity to make even more of an impression against foreign competition.
“They’ve definitely treated me well and just like anybody else. I’m no different,” Gagan said. “I’m relieved that I can play in college now. I was getting worried for a bit.”
What Gagan is referring to is the tough call she made to reopen her recruiting after verbally committing to New York’s Binghamton University during her junior year at St. Raphael. Binghamton was the first D-I college to express significant interest in Gagan, but she opted to reopen her recruitment with the goal of finding someplace closer to home.
“I thought (Binghamton) was the right choice. As time went on, I didn’t want to go as far away as I originally did,” Gagan said. “I thought I was going to be able to do it, but the closer it got to making it official, I knew I would get homesick.”
Back on the market as a highschool senior, Gagan mainly drew interest from Division III schools. Prep school for a postgraduate year was a distinct pos- sibility.
“It was definitely hard,” Gagan said about watching her SRA classmates go through the college process while her own was stuck in limbo.
“We didn’t know what was going to happen,” said SRA girls basketball head coach Tammy Drape, “but I kept telling her to trust the process. Something would work out.”
After a 2016-17 season that saw Gagan earn a second straight second-team all-state berth, she opted to attend an Elite Camp on Rhode Island’s campus. Ultimately, she opted to matriculate through the school’s Talent Development Program, a decision that helped kick-start the possibility of her joining the women’s basketball program.
“Maybe I can tryout and hope for the best,” Gagan said about what her mindset was heading into the Elite Camp. “Nothing was promised to me.”
Gagan has sworn by a simple creed ever since La-Force gave her a No. 23 jersey with “Rhode Island” on the front. “Earn your keep,” she said. For much of the summer, Gagan took classes and worked out with the Rams. La-Force used two of the 10 practices that NCAA teams can hold before going on an overseas trip prior to this past Monday when everyone reconvened in anticipation of crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
“I can’t tell you how good it felt when the coaches said I was going,” Gagan said. “I’ve been trying to prove that I should be on this team.”
On summer weekends, Gagan stayed with her scholarship teammates. Any free time she had, the Rams made sure to grab her for team functions and meals. It didn’t matter that Gagan wasn’t receiving athletic aid. She was being embraced at every conceivable turn.
“We make sure that each player is treated with respect. We preach family every single day within our program,” La-Force said. “Team bonding is very important … learning to count on each other. That doesn’t happen on a basketball court. It happens off the court … the dorms and on-campus.”
The Rams presently have just one scholarship point guard eligible for the 2017-18 campaign – 5-5 senior and career 17.3 ppg scorer Charise Wilson. Backing her up will be Gagan, who only a few short months ago didn’t know what her next step would entail post-St. Raphael Academy.
“Kasey’s interest came at a perfect time,” La-Force said. “She’s a great kid and handles the ball very well and makes great passes. She definitely fits in at the Division I level.”
“(Point guard) is the position I’m most comfortable at, but I would be okay with playing anywhere,” Gagan said.
Down the line, perhaps the opportunity to receive a scholarship will become available. Even if said scenario never happens, don’t expect it change Gagan’s mindset. She’ll still be a Division I player, a distinction that doesn’t ask questions about specificities.