By Rich Palzewic
Sports Editor
GREEN BAY – Green Bay Southwest High School junior Jaddan Simmons had her pick of where she wanted to continue her basketball career in college.
In the end, the 5-foot-9 point guard verbally committed to Arizona State University (ASU).
“I’m happy the recruiting process is over,” Simmons laughed. “It was a bit stressful with all the calls and trying to decide what the best fit was. I won’t be getting phone calls daily now, so I can concentrate more on playing basketball – the stress is gone.”
Simmons, who was a first-team, all-state selection this past season, averaged 21.4 points, 7.2 rebounds and three assists per game.
She was the Fox River Classic Conference player of the year after her sophomore season and has a career scoring average of 19.6 points per game.
Both of Simmons’ parents attended ASU, but she said that had no bearing on her picking the Pac-10 school.
“One of the reasons I picked ASU was how competitive the team is and how hard I’ll be pushed,” said Simmons, who had 18 Division I offers. “My parents are happy that I picked ASU, but we didn’t talk about, ‘Hey, you should go to this school, or you should go to that school.’ There was none of that – they left it up to me. I made a list of the schools and put in different categories. Arizona State ended up being at the top of almost every category.”
Simmons’ dad, Jason Simmons, played football for the Sun Devils and had a successful 10-year NFL career.
He is now an assistant coach with the Green Bay Packers.
With her 1,410 career points, Simmons is 363 points away from Natisha Hiedeman’s total of 1,773, which is the Green Bay metro girls’ scoring record.
Hiedeman was a Southwest graduate now playing with the Atlanta Dream in the WNBA.
“It’s not something I’m thinking about at all,” Simmons said of Hiedeman’s scoring total. “If I can stay healthy, have a good year for my team and help us win, that is more important to me.”
Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, Utah and Kansas State were also among Simmons’ top choices.
Wisconsin was her second choice after ASU.
“I don’t plan on redshirting [at ASU],” said Simmons. “I’ll go there and go as hard as I can each day. They don’t guarantee anything. I’ll have to work hard on earning that starting spot.”
Before she heads off to ASU in the fall of 2020, Simmons is concentrating on getting her Southwest team as far into the postseason as possible.
“My mind is on getting my team as far as I can in the playoffs and help us get to state,” Simmons added. “That’s my focus for this upcoming year. We’ve fallen short every season in regionals. First, we need to get to sectionals.”