So intense
It was a Sunday in June and the Gonzaga Prep gym was mostly empty when Mt. Jewell erupted. The latest of too many whistles interrupted a relatively meaningless basketball game so a referee could point out another infraction by Raeanna Jewell.
Her reaction was swift and without thought – she kicked a chair.
That type of incident – certainly not the first or last – defined Jewell’s career at Central Valley High School in the eyes of rivals who watched the Bears go 72-17 and win three state trophies in her three years.
“She was probably misunderstood in high school because she was so intense,” CV coach Judy Walters, then an assistant, said. “A lot of times she appeared cocky or angry at somebody, but actually, it was just that intensity. People misunderstood that. I think people, now that they’ve watched her, see that’s just her personality.
People have been able to watch Jewell because after leading CV to the state championship in 2001 she went to Gonzaga University, where she is a starter for the 25th-ranked West Coast Conference championships who are sporting a 24-2 record and a nation best 20-game winning streak.
But tonight’s Senior Night game against Portland at the McCarthey Athletic Center is the last chance to see Jewell live as her seven-year run on the local basketball stage rushes to an end.
“I’m sad in a way, I’m sad leaving this team,” Jewell said. “We’re going to Europe this summer, I’m hoping I get looked at. I want to try and keep going. I’ll see if that works for a couple of years and then start my life after that.”
Jewell, a sociology major who one day hopes to be a counselor and coach, goes out with her name in more places in the GU record book than almost any other Bulldog, starting with durability. If the Bulldogs reach the championship game of the WCC tournament next week and play one postseason game, Jewell, Ashley Burke and Shannon Mathews will set a record in games played with 120.
Jewell is ninth in career scoring (1,036) and eighth in rebounding (604), making her only the fifth Bulldog with 1,000 points and 600 rebounds. She is fourth in steals (170), 3-pointers (131) and 3-point attempts (432), fifth in free-throw percentage (80) and eighth in assists (256).
“You have to have players like that, who just do whatever needs to be done in any given game,” fifth-year GU coach Kelly Graves said. “She does a lot of the dirty work. It just goes back to her competitiveness, her toughness. Maybe a jack of all trades a master of none – I don’t know what to call it. She’s just a solid player.”
Jewell was on Graves’ radar when he got the Gonzaga job, but there are countless 5-foot-10 players out there, even ones who are two-time Most Valuable Players like Jewell was in the Greater Spokane League.
“I obviously knew her, but I remember (a sportswriter) saying she might be the most competitive kid they’ve ever seen. Spokane Stars coach Ron Adams said the same thing,” Graves said. “Those are the kinds of kids we like. Herbeing a local gal that is someone we really needed… . They’ve both been proven right.”
The toughest on-court adjustment for Jewell was defense, after playing zone in high school.
“She did struggle defensively,” Graves said. “Most do because we play a lot of man-to-man defense and she comes from a system that didn’t. She just had to adapt to a new style, and she certainly made it, partly because she’s so competitive. It was an ultimatum: We just told her you have to play defense or you’re just not going to play. She’s responded and became a great defender. Not just a good one, a great one.”
These days, with so many teammates capable on the offensive end, Jewell relishes her role.
“My role is doing what I can, be the defensive stopper,” she said. “I don’t really see myself as a key player. I hated defense and I got yelled at every day for it. I like it now. It’s really fun.”
Felice Moore, a junior and three-year starter for Eastern Washington and former CV teammate, isn’t surprised.
“She’s a very hard worker. If she sets her mind to it, she’ll do it,” Moore said. “It doesn’t surprise me at all. She’ll do whatever you ask her; she’s a hustler. Just knowing her over the years, I know how hard she works. Now it’s paying off.”
But that was just one part of adapting to the college game.
“The other part is her emotion,” Graves said. “That kind of fire … you can kind of tone them down, but it’s hard to push them to make them have that kind of emotion and intensity. I much prefer that… . She just had to learn to control it, manage it differently, make it a positive instead of a negative.”
It was the intimidating Jewell people saw before they got to know her.
“My first impression was that she was real tough,” Mathews said. “She’s become one of my closest friends. We didn’t get along right off the bat. I think it’s because we have such strong personalities. But once I got to know her, she was like the sweetest, the most … she was like a big teddy bear.
“On the court she is very tough, physical, aggressive, but she still has that soft little look to me.”
Juliann Laney, an All-GSL rival at Gonzaga Prep but a teammate on the Spokane Stars, has seen the best and worst of her teammate at GU.
“She’s very emotional, always wearing her emotions on her sleeves,” Laney said. “Also, just playing AAU with her in the summer, I knew she was up for every game and the most competitive person I’ve ever met.”
Laney got to know the other side of Jewell when she missed two seasons at Gonzaga with injuries.
“She was always in the training room asking how I was doing and just making sure I felt included,” Laney said.
That’s the person Walters knows.
“Off the court she can be funny, really funny,” she said. “You wouldn’t think it, but she was really pretty quiet in the classroom. Wandering the halls, she would probably go unnoticed except for her athletic ability. She doesn’t make herself stand out.”
That is why many people assume the Bulldogs have gone national because of all-leaguers Burke and Mathews.
“As far as being in their shadow, that might be the case to a lot of people, but it’s not to the coaches,” Graves insisted. “Portland coach Jim Sollars just thinks the world of her. He thinks she might be the heart and soul of our team. I feel that way too.
“She is a leader on the team because she brings it every day.”
Minus the eruptions, of course.