Brink found her niche in basketball

Article about Wendy and her induction into the Butler Area Hall of Fame.

Article published April 19, 2008 in the Butler Eagle



Brink found her niche in basketball

This is the sixth in a series of articles profiling the 2008 inductees into the Butler Area Sports Hall of Fame.

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — When she was 13, Wendy Brink was afraid to go into her eighth-grade basketball game. Four years later, she graduated from Butler High with 1,619 points, a total that still ranks second on the girls program's all-time list. Now married with three children, Wendy Brink Jilson will be inducted into the Butler Area Sports Hall of Fame during the organization's 43rd annual banquet April 26 at the Butler Days Inn.

"It's a great honor, but it's funny because it's coming at a time in my life when other things have taken priority," Jilson said. "I'm working and raising a family."
But she's still involved in basketball. Now living in Virginia, Jilson works for a consulting firm and is in her fourth year of coaching a girls AAU basketball team, the Spotsylvania Sting. The team of 13- and 14-year-olds placed seventh out of 50 teams at the AAUnational tournament in Bloomington, Minn., last year.

Jilson took a basketball team from Fredericksburg to an exchange tournament in France for 16 days in 2003 and anticipates coaching a high school team in the near future.

"Basketball is still a part of my life,"she said. "But we've never pushed the game or any sport on our kids. A lot of parents live their dreams through their kids and I really guarded against that. My oldest (son) is not into playing basketball and that's fine. He's playing football and he'll find his niche in life in time."

When she was in eighth grade, Jilson couldn't fathom basketball becoming her niche in high school and college.

"I was 5-foot-11 in eighth grade, couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. ... (Basketball) was awkward for me," she recalled. "I remember coach Fay Steving asking me if I wanted to go in the game and my answer was a defiant no. I was scared to death."

It took the help of eventual Butler teammate and Butler Area Sports Hall of Famer Leatha Dudek Baker for Jilson to move forward in the sport. The high-scoring duo — Dudek scored 1,630 points in high school — remain best friends today.

"We played one-on-one every day during the summer before my freshman year,"Jilson said. "Leatha made me realize that I could play."

Brink was a four-year starter and played forward in high school. Dudek was a four-year starter at guard. They are two of only eight girls to reach the 1,000-point plateau at Butler. Jilson still owns the Butler girls basketball record of 42 points in one game and became a national recruit.

"I had a lot of college options," she admitted. "My five visits were to USC, Syracuse, James Madison, St. Joseph's and Connecticut. "St. Joe's was a good fit for me. All of us on that team are still close today."

Jilson said she's developed her own coaching style from Steving and Jim Foster, her head coaches in high school and college, respectively. She went on to score about 900points in college, with three of the four St. Joseph's teams she played on reaching the NCAA Tournament. As a senior, Brink made first team all-Atlantic 10 in 1991. She was named her team's most improved player as a sophomore and lettered all four years.

"The key to succeeding in college basketball for me was realizing that everybody on the floor was an all-state caliber player in high school,"Jilson said. "Nobody's a superstar anymore. Everybody had to find her role. That's the way I coach now. It's not about individual accolades, it's about playing a team sport and working together."