Media Native Ready for Final Run on St. Joe's Basketball Court

Basketball has been in Katie Kuester's life since she was about three or four years old. When you are the daughter of a former NBA player, it would be hard to expect anything less.

But the Media native got more than her passion for the sport from her father. As the senior prepares for the start of her final college basketball season at Saint Joseph's University, she is eager to graduate and use the elementary education degree she's completing to give others the same opportunities she's been afforded.

"A teacher is a coach and a coach is a teacher," Kuester said in a recent interview. "My goal is to get a teaching job and then be able to coach and having that education degree will always be helpful with coaching."

Helping and instructing others is in Kuester's blood. Her father, John Kuester, played professionally for three seasons before he started coaching in 1980 as a volunteer assistant at the University of Richmond. He became the youngest head coach in Division I history in 1985 at Boston University, eventually making his way to the NBA coaching ranks and is currently with his seventh team as an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers.

"My dad was a pretty big influence on my playing the sport. He never pressured me to play, I grew up with such a passion for the sport. I saw myself becoming obsessed, watching college games and NBA games," Kuester said. "Having the father I do have, it was very easy for me to grasp and understand the sport the way I do.

"It's opened up so many doors for me and I'm just lucky to have it in my life."

This season, Kuester is in her second season as a co-captain on a Hawks' team returning 11 letterwinners. She was second in scoring last season with 10.4 points a game while piling up numerous postseason honors. On the floor, Kuester was recognized with the Big 5 Sportsmanship Award and named second team all-conference. Off the floor, her academic achievements were acknowledged by both A-10 commissioner's and St. Joe's athletic director's honor roll selections.

"Everyone always ask me what I think was my best accomplishment at St. Joe's and I always say being named a captain," Kuester said. "It means so much that my coaches and teammates trust me. It's an accomplishment to know that I can represent a team of this caliber and a team with such great tradition."

The Hawks opened the season with a road loss at Princeton. But it was Kuester who led the way with 14 points for SJU's first win over Lehigh.

The Hawks are off to a 3-3 start this season after Saturday's win over Sacred Heart, which Kuester missed with a minor eye injury suffered in practice recently. She and her 8.8 points per game will be back in the lineup for Tuesday's matchup against Drexel.

"Katie's going to be taking a lot of the responsibility on and off the floor for us this year," Saint Joseph's Coach Cindy Griffin said. "She has charisma and all the qualities of a leader. She talks the talk and walks it as well.

"She loves to play the game and it's brought out everyday in practice. Whether it's the first practice of the season or the 100th, she brings it every single day and that's the sign of a good leader. Attitudes are contagious and she's been infectious for us."

It's that attitude she tries to take into the classrooms when she observes as a student-teacher. And whether it's in the classroom or at camps she's worked through the years, she enjoys working with children on a regular basis.

"Just to know that I was those kids. It's great to get out to the community and help kids anyway you can because they are just little sponges," Kuester said. "I went to a lot of camps growing up and knowing I'm influencing them the way the counselors used to influence me is a blessing to be apart of."

Katie attributes a lot of her success to her time at Academy of Notre Dame de Namur in Radnor, which she says helped her balance the demands of both academic and athletic life at the college level.

"You are going to be faced with so many situations but I learned at Notre Dame how to make it work," Kuester said. "There's enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done and how to get it done in an efficient way and really make it all work and I learned that in high school. I had great coaches to help prepare me as much as they could for what life would be like once I got here."

And before she departs the St. Joe's campus, she still has some unfinished business on the court left to accomplish. The Hawks received the Women's National Invitation Tournament (WNIT) the last two seasons, but have their goals set higher in this, her final season.

"We think we can get the third or fourth spot in the Atlantic 10 and history shows that usually the top three teams usually get an NCAA bid so that's our team goal and we believe we can achieve it. We're going to do anything we can do day-in and day-out to make that tournament," Kuester said.