One day, they are Brittanys. The next, Sophies. A week later, Lilis.
On Tuesday, they may be dominant three-point shooters. On Thursday, they may be quick to drive to the basket – their purpose is adaptation.
Most are unaware of their work backstage – every week behind a different facade, not demanding recognition or reward.
The UCLA women’s basketball scout team, which was formed four years ago in Cori Close’s first year as head coach, has been sharpening the women’s team for peak performance every week – ensuring that UCLA’s starters meet their competition at half-court each week undaunted, with no surprises.
Joining the troops
Wendale Farrow, the video coordinator for the Bruins and the person in charge of the scout team, sits at the end of a row of practice players who wait for assistant coaches to call them to the court.
“Initially, when I started my roster, there were only about five to seven consistent guys that came,” Farrow said. “I started recruiting guys from Wooden and other facilities like (the Student Activities Center) on campus. Once you get one, they bring their friends.”
Winston Boyce, Aaron Willis and Preston Dillingham now belong to the group of 18 scouts largely due to word of mouth.
Dillingham, a third-year business economics student, had hoped to earn a walk-on spot on the UCLA’s men’s basketball team after high school. The team didn’t have tryouts that year, but one of the assistants for the men’s team contacted Dillingham with Close’s number.
Dillingham was advised to try out for the women’s scout team, get better, and help the team before trying out for the men’s team.
Dillingham accepted, putting his dream of Division I basketball on the back burner, and spread the word to Boyce, a third-year civil engineering student.
Willis, a fourth-year anthropology student, didn’t know about the scout team until last year. He, too, had aspirations of eventually joining the men’s roster.
“I tried out for the (men’s) basketball team but it didn’t work out. … Fortunately, I still got into UCLA,” Willis said. “I still wanted to play basketball in some fashion.”
Every year, about four or five freshmen join the scout team after Farrow notices their potential or older players recruit them – a chain reaction the program relies heavily upon.
A different player every day
Close laughed while recalling a comment she overheard a player on the scout team say to another in the seats behind the bench during a game.
“See? You didn’t play that shooter well enough, she just got off a three.”
The scout team’s main focus is to mimic the characteristics of tough competitors that the Bruins will face during games. In order for their role to be effective, the members of the scout team must put aside their individual playing styles and study the playing styles of entirely different female players.
“We get assigned a specific player, and we’re supposed to play like them,” Willis said. “Then (the women’s team) knows how to defend them.”
Farrow said sometimes the men watch scouting reports first, then the coaches assign them to different players, and put them through a simulation of plays the Bruins’ opponents may run in upcoming games.
Close said she looks at the scouts’ ability to mirror the competition as a major asset for her team.
“They’re so good at learning the other team that week,” she said. “They’ve got to play that style and they’ve got to learn two teams every week to the extent that they really play their role.”
Resurrecting basketball
The first time it happened, Willis said he was playing basketball in his junior year of high school.
He fell ill with pleurisy, an infection of the lungs.
He couldn’t breathe or walk and was confined to the emergency room for a week and a half in a town far from his home in California. Pleurisy kept Willis away from basketball for two months and severely affected his playing intensity.
“It’s my junior year of high school – prime time – I’m about to get a scholarship,” Willis said. “That sent me all the way back. But I still wanted to play basketball.”
The scout team became his outlet to continue playing basketball. Although the infection resurfaced six months ago, limiting the extent to which he can play, Willis continues to attend practices and work with the women’s team.
Dillingham, too, understands setbacks after tearing his ACL at the Wooden Center the week before finals in his first year at UCLA.
“It was a whole new experience,” Dillingham said. “I had to go through surgery and therapy, and (I wasn’t) able to play basketball for a year. … But I got through it, and I’m clear.”
For many athletes who aren’t on a Division I team, injuries are easy excuses to stay off the court.
Not for the scouts.
“It hurts me when I don’t come (to practice),” Willis said. “Like I’m missing something that’s a part of my life.”
An expanding family tree
The players on the scout team don’t leave practice until they get the OK from Farrow. But even when they do, they don’t leave in a hurry.
As the season progresses, the players and staff of the women’s team and the men on the scout team evolve into a single unit.
“They’re like my little brothers, so we have a bond and mentorship,” Farrow said. “I spend a lot of time with them, not only in practice, but I eat with them at the dorms and spend some time playing with them in Wooden.”
Boyce went with the team to its annual shoe drive this year and has gone to the team’s Christmas party at Close’s house the past two years.
Close sees the scout team as an integral piece to the Bruins’ success on defense. But more importantly, as a part of the family that she has worked to build on the court of Pauley Pavilion over the last four years.
“I don’t believe that we can go and win a national championship without a great scout team. Period,” Close said.
Selfless acts
They aren’t paid. In fact, the only material thing the scouts get is a few items of official Adidas gear.
Yet the immaterial satisfaction of knowing that their efforts are preparing the women’s team to face the challenges ahead brings the scout team back to practice every day.
If one of the players scores on a scout or a scout makes a mistake and one of the players capitalizes on it, the rest of the scouts will clap and cheer from the sideline.
“I want to see my team win,” Willis said. “I want to see my school win.”
The little things the scout team does for the players don’t go unnoticed.
Their names won’t be announced as the team runs to the court from the locker room before tip-off. They won’t have fans running to get their names signed on a poster.
In the coming weeks, they’ll head back to practice to be Rachels, Stephanies and Caitlyns.
No matter what identity they embody, they ensure that the spotlight is continually tilted in the right direction – not at themselves, but at the women in the jerseys.