Julia Strand named Scholar-Athlete of the Year at Chapman University

 

Photo courtesy Chapman University
Larry Newman, Photographer

“You don’t replace a Julia Strand. You just cherish the memories.” Chapman University head coach Carol Jue.

Julia Strand (Shorecrest ’18), who led the Scots’ 2016 basketball team in scoring on their way to their only state championship, has received Chapman University’s Female Senior Scholar-Athlete of the year. The award recognizes the top student-athlete with a 3.0 + GPA who displayed excellence in the classroom and on the field of play.

Chapman is an NCAA Division-3 school, with an enrollment of about 4,000 students in Orange, California. It’s a long Shohei Ohtani home run blast from Anaheim Stadium.

When Strand walked off the court following her team’s defeat in the conference semifinals in February, 2022, she believed that was her last game. But with COVID having wiped out the entire 2020-21 season, the Southern California Interscholastic Athletic Conference (SCIAC) decreed that all student-athletes who lost a year to COVID could reclaim that season’s eligibility.

She had already missed enough basketball in her life. She jumped at the chance. A torn ACL wiped out her junior year in high school, and another torn ACL sidelined her for the last third of her second season at Chapman. A third knee operation delayed her start of the 2021-22 season, but when she finally hit the court, she did so with a vengeance, setting the school record with 22.7 points-per-game.

The Panthers finished a disappointing 11-13 this past season, with Strand averaging 21.2 per game, in spite of being the focus of every opponent’s defensive scheme. She added a silky smooth outside jump shot to complement her lightning-fast first step to the hoop that led to many layups over her hoops career.

Strand displayed leadership and maturity on the court and in the locker room that made her a beloved figure in the eyes of her teammates, and earned her everlasting respect from Coach Jue, the only Chinese-American head coach in the NCAA.

“I saw so much maturity emerge in Julia, from when she was a knobby-kneed freshman with a ‘deer in the headlights’ look to her at her first practice, to the player and leader she became.”

For her part, Strand said 

“I’ve learned there has to be a mutual respect between player and coach. I have to be coachable, and Coach Jue let me voice my opinion and tell her what I saw happening and what I thought. There were times when she’d ask my opinion about things. At the end, there was earned mutual respect, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have had her as my coach.”

For her career in Orange, she finished in the top 5 in school history in total points, rebounds, field goals, and blocked shots. If she hadn’t missed over a dozen games to injury, she would have climbed toward the top of the school’s leaderboard. 

She had seven 30-point games; 30 double-doubles (10+ points and 10+ rebounds). She twice was named to the first-team all-SCIAC, and twice was 2nd team All-Region 10 in D-3.

Strand credits having played both basketball and soccer (for Coach Mindy Dalziel’s Scots) in high school for a lot of her success. 

“Playing two sports is good for cross-training, it prevents one-sport burnout, and it allows you to meet so many other people. It also allows you to build a stronger individualized identity, by not limiting yourself to just one sport.” 

After one college game, an opposing coach commented to Coach Jue that the way Julia was able to come out of nowhere to steal his team’s passes, she looked like a soccer player in a basketball uniform.

If the criteria for receiving the award included mental and physical toughness, dedication to the team, overwhelming humility, being a beacon of light to all, and leaving an indelible legacy to which others can aspire, the award would bear her name.

Players like Julia Strand don’t come around very often.

That’s why she’ll be so hard to replace.

--Sports Desk