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Callan McClurg
THE POINT: Another announcing door opened for me earlier this month when I was brought on-board here at PLNU to become the online broadcaster for the 2015 Baseball season, and so far it’s been a tremendous experience of meeting new staff, making new friends, being asked several times if I actually attend the University, and of course meeting and becoming friends with the student-athletes that suit up in the Green and Gold day in and day out for the Sea Lions. However, there’s just one specific Sea Lion that always comes to mind when I think back to the first time I set foot on campus last November.
Chris Davis serves as the Public Address Announcer for the PLNU Soccer, Basketball and Baseball teams and has been a friend and colleague of mine since we worked together announcing for the San Diego Force this past summer and also doing High School Football over the fall. We had wrapped up touring the Qualcomm Stadium press box to be prepared for a San Diego State football game and had talked sports over pizza at a nearby Oggi’s when I had asked if he was cool with letting me go with him to the PLNU Women’s game that night against Bethesda University (Anaheim, CA).
That night’s game was the Sea Lions’ home opener after two road games against Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Dominguez Hills. Naturally with the first home game, Chris wasn’t sure about name pronunciations for both teams. After getting the pronunciations from Bethesda’s head coach, we made our way towards the Sea Lions bench to gather their pronunciations, the only problem was that the PLNU coaching staff wasn’t on the floor since it was the warm-up period and there was really no need for them to be there that early, until one of the most down to earth athletes I’ve ever seen or met stepped in to help Chris out, and immediately became the favorite player of both Chris and myself.
Jessica Escorza, Point Loma's star senior guard took the time away from her warm-ups to assist Chris with the names he may have had questions about her teammates’ names. I sort of stood back and gave them space to figure out the roster. Once they finished, they had a small running conversation and that’s when I felt it was appropriate to rejoin in. The main reason why I say that Escorza is one of the most down to earth athletes I’ve ever met is when I had rejoined them at the bench she was so kind and she even to introduce herself and extended a handshake to me. I thought to myself “Wow that was really awesome that she did that.” That entire scenario was replaying in my mind all game long, simply because she took the time away from pregame warm-ups to help Chris out with the roster, and the way that this athlete treated us both with so much courtesy, kindness, professionalism, respect and class.
Not only did I appreciate her personality, I also became a fan of her game. I recall typing up a brief scouting report on my phone about what parts of her game intrigued me the most. I think it’s a fair comparison that Jessica’s game down low is similar to Diana Taurasi from the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury. She also has some of the best court vision I’ve seen in 11 years of coming Women’s Basketball. Escorza doesn’t just “score” down low; she is a lethal weapon from beyond the arc. She also brings speed, quickness and tough defense to the table as well.
I've experienced before and I know the feeling, the burden that senior student-athletes carry is extremely large, whether it is in the classroom or in a game that’s going down to the wire. Bethesda would win the game after the Sea Lions missed some crucial free throws down the stretch, including some rare misses by Jessica. After the teams shook hands and the dust settled after the game on our way out of the gym, I saw Escorza grab a warm-up ball from the rack and proceeded to shoot free throws…after the game.
When I saw her putting in the extra work after the game, she earned even more respect from me about her work ethic and mental toughness. She knows that free throws were her team’s Achilles heel that night, but instead of sulking about the loss, she went out there for a good ten or twenty minutes after the game and worked on her free throws. I don’t ever recall seeing an athlete at any level stay after a game and get extra work in whether the won or lost the game.
Just recently, as the baseball season got underway a few weeks ago, we were experiencing a technical problem on our online broadcast, so I decided to grab a drink from the snack bar while the technical team fixed the problem and I just so happened to see Jessica walking towards the Tennis complex next to the baseball stadium. It appeared that she was heading to another class, so I had just enough time to wish her "Good Luck" since they played Fresno-Pacific that same night. As mentioned earlier, her down to earth personality came to the forefront again as she smiled and said “Thank you.”
Lately, I've begun to stay after announcing the baseball games to watch the basketball games and normally our game day staff will engage in a friendly game of HORSE or Face-off on the PLNU side of the floor for the first ten minutes or so. After a while, the Southwest corner doors of Golden Gym swing open and PLNU enters the gym for warm-ups. As the players make their way downstairs, I'm normally hanging around the rack at midcourt with the balls for warm-ups and Jessica is always the first player on the court with her trademark smile and is the first player I toss a ball to for warm-ups. There has also been plenty of times while I've been sitting at the scorer’s table and she’s come over to play the role of In-Game DJ as she’ll mix up the pregame play list to the team’s liking or she’ll come over just to say “What’s up” to everyone at the table.
Sadly, as much fun as it’s been to rub shoulders with her, plus her extraordinary personality, time is almost up. She will play in her final home game next Thursday against Notre Dame de Namur at 5:30pm at Golden Gym. However, her Sea Lion career won’t be ending once the regular season ends on Saturday. Thanks in part to her twenty points in Point Loma’s 73-55 win over BYU-Hawaii last Saturday; it solidified PLNU’s spot in the upcoming PacWest tournament in Irvine, CA from March 5-7th.
In closing and in spite of only knowing her for a few months, it’s still amazing to me that an athlete of her caliber “steps out of bounds” and goes out of her way to give the time of day to treat everyone with such class, whether you’re one of her teammates or a complete stranger. I truly believe that Jessica Escorza envisions the traits of what we wish all athletes had toward not just their teammates, but to everyone around them: courtesy, kindness, professionalism, respect and class.
Escorza is currently putting the final cherry on top of her Master's degree in Education, and she hopes to work with children with special needs once college ends. She also plans on pursuing a professional basketball career overseas, most likely down under in Australia.
