Here’s looking (up) at you, kids

It’s usually a drudge. Players report to school and have to get measured for workout gear, standing still while a stranger stretches a tape up, down and around. Hit a growth spurt, gain or lose a few pounds and it has to be repeated. Most athletes would cheerfully volunteer for a six-hour exam rather than go through the yearly equipment pickup day.

For a South Carolina’s women’s basketball player, it’s Christmas. Everything in the room fits, and they don’t have to search for it.

“I found myself being 15, 14 years old in the women’s department,” said freshman A’ja Wilson, the team’s tallest player at 6-foot-5. “Not the juniors, because even the juniors weren’t my size. It taught me to grow up a little early, because I’m not wearing ‘old lady clothes,’ but I’m not in the section for the other girls.”

The Gamecocks have four players 6-4 or taller, and they’re each enjoying their status as part of one of the country’s best teams. USC became a winning team under Dawn Staley, but it climbed to elite level once it began signing the “big girls.”

 

The pains of being big while small have mostly been erased. There are still struggles – try finding a cute pair of size-13 shoes, 6-4 Jatarie White says – but with a never-ending wardrobe from Under Armour and the fame of playing for the Gamecocks, life at USC is a whole lot of fun.

“People on campus are always like, ‘Do you play basketball?,’ or modeling … they ask me that one, too,” said Elem Ibiam, the team’s 6-4 starting center. “Sometimes, if I’m with my teammates, we say, ‘Yeah, we’re on the soccer team!’”

“There’s a lot of looking up at you,” agreed 6-4 Alaina Coates. “Then you see them again and they’re like, ‘Do you …’ and I say, ‘Yeah.’ I do get out-there ones. Somebody asked me if I was a swimmer one time.”

All knew they were going to be tall – Coates is from a family that includes former NFL tight end Ben Coates (6-5) and Wilson’s father Roscoe Wilson (6-9) played professional basketball overseas. The process of getting there was often awkward.

“I was always taller than everyone. I was probably like 5-10 in sixth grade,” White said. “The girls would always be in the front for class pictures, and the guys would be in the back, and then it’d be me. I started accepting it, ‘This is me, so I’m just going to own it.’”

“I was wondering why everybody was so short,” Coates said. “In my grade, there were a lot of really short guys who hadn’t shot up yet. I was looking around, thinking, ‘Well, this is how it’s going to be for a while.’”

Ibiam fit in with her family, all around 6-0, until the summer before her ninth-grade year. She didn’t notice it until she came back to school.

“When I came back to high school, it was, ‘She’s tall,’ and ‘Oh my gosh, you got so much taller!’” she remembered. “I literally came back from the summer, and I was looking down on my friends.”

Wilson had a similar experience.

“Kaydra Duckett (5-8) and I were teammates, and we were the same height,” Wilson said. “We ran out for games by height and I see myself gradually making my way to the back of the line. Maybe eighth grade, going into freshman year, I judged my height compared to my mom. I was seeing the top of her head and was like, ‘Uh oh.’”

Each found their way on the court while spending hours going from store to store trying to find something to wear when the game was over. Trying to match their friends was hardly ever an option.

“I have to go to stores for plus-size, and I’m not plus-size. But it fits right, length-wise,” White said. “I can’t just go to any store and buy the same thing that other girls buy. Finding shoes is really hard. Especially because they run out of the big sizes a lot, because men have them.”

“I always wanted to wear what my friends were wearing, and all the sleeves were too short,” Ibiam said. “And I couldn’t wear the girls’ shoes, I had to wear the mens’ shoes, and they didn’t have the cool colors.”

The attention at USC is mostly the look-at-the-tall-girl variety, something with which the players have learned to have fun. Wilson, used to the spotlight since she was pegged the No. 1 recruit in the country during high school, never liked basketball until she got into it.

“Oh my goodness, I hated that sport,” Wilson said. “People would ask me if I played and I’d say, ‘No, I’m a ballerina. No, I play table tennis.’ Then people would say, ‘Well, that’s a waste’ and I’d say, ‘Well, excuse me. ”

“The only thing that’s hard about being tall is finding clothes and shoes, so from that aspect, it’s hard,” White said. “Everything else, you get a lot of attention. So I guess if you don’t like attention, it’s pretty hard for you, but I really like attention, so I don’t mind it.”

Their profiles, as cogs in a Final Four team, have been elevated. It’s started to stop the random passerby asking if they play and turned into, “I know who you are!” with the standard request for a selfie or autograph.

All part of the routine. Tough moments while being singled out when young are embraced when old.

“I knew I was going to be tall, but you never really know, you know? I was average height going into high school,” Wilson said. “I love being tall … once I got there.”

This story was originally published April 3, 2015 at 7:33 PM with the headline "Here’s looking (up) at you, kids."