Chloe Chapman stands as a not-so-subtle reminder that football is not the only UGA sport planning to play ball this fall. She has been on campus since June 22 preparing not for just the soccer season, but the basketball season as well.
Chapman, a sophomore from Mitchellville, Md., is one of an almost extinct breed of Power 5 Conference athlete. That is, she plays two sports.
That she happens to be very good in both makes her even more exceptional. This is something that the Atlanta Sports Council recognized recently. It named Chapman outstanding college athlete of the year in Georgia.
Good choice, it seems. As a freshman last year, Chapman not only led the Bulldogs’ women’s soccer team in scoring, she later closed the basketball season as Georgia’s starting point guard.
To say it was a whirlwind would be an understatement.
“When I first got here, I definitely didn’t know what to expect,” said Chapman, who plays forward on the soccer team. “Once the soccer season started and I was fully in it, I felt like it was going to be fine. But then it got a little hectic. Once we reached the end of September into November that’s when (soccer and basketball) overlapped.”
That and the fact that Chapman did this as a freshman make her accomplishments particularly impressive: One, her sports overlap; two, she took all this on as a freshman.
But that was the plan all along. For that, Joni Taylor deserves recognition.
Taylor, Georgia’s women’s basketball coach, primarily is responsible for getting Chapman on UGA’s campus. That was no small thing considering Chapman was a 5-star recruit in basketball.
As such, pretty much every basketball program on the Eastern seaboard, and many beyond, wanted to secure Chapman’s services.
For Taylor to be willing to share Chapman’s talents with Georgia soccer coach Billy Lesesne was generous, if not necessary.
Taylor sums it beautifully.
“It would’ve been heartbreaking to make her choose,” she said.
The Bulldogs got in on Chapman early. They were one of the first teams to identify the 5-foot-7 speedster as an elite basketball prospect. They offered her a scholarship at the first possible opportunity.
It was in the 10th grade when Chapman let her suitors know she’d like to continue her soccer career in college, as well. That, Taylor and the Lady Dogs would have to look into.
“We’d seen her play basketball and knew she is a phenomenal basketball athlete,” Taylor said. “The only thing we had to figure out was if Chloe was really good enough to play SEC soccer. So we went to watch her play a soccer game in 10th grade.”
The reached an immediate conclusion.
“Oh, yeah, she can definitely play,” Taylor surmised, and she immediately enlisted Georgia soccer coach Billy Lesesne into Chapman’s recruitment.
The fact that Chapman wanted to play two sports chased away some of the competition, too. For their part, the Bulldogs never wavered.
“It would have been a disservice not to let her do both,” Taylor said.
Said Chapman: “Joni had no problem with it. She likes having players that are super versatile and athletic. She was excited about it.”
So was Lesesne after he saw video of Chapman on the soccer pitch.
“The first clip that we saw, the athleticism just jumped off the screen,” said Lesesne, Georgia’s coach since 2015. “In high school, two-thirds of her time was devoted to basketball with AAU and her high school team. But a third of it was soccer, and in the D.C. area, the level of high school soccer is pretty good. You could see she how she stood out with her athleticism and skills while playing at a pretty high level.”
There were complications right off the bat at Georgia. The basketball team had scheduled a summer trip to Italy. That was great and yet another selling point for Chapman to come. But it also meant that Chapman would miss valuable training time with the soccer team.
Like football, soccer has offseason training and conditioning over the summer and starts preseason camp in August. Chapman missed much of that. The flip side is that Chapman also missed most of preseason practice for basketball.
Once she was back on campus, the logistics were complicated. Between academic commitments, team meetings, practices and games, there was very little down time. Early on, a decision was made to be dedicated to one sport at a time.
“We had her all summer,” Taylor said. “We turned her over fully to Billy once they started mandatory practices in early August. Then we let her go.”
Lesesne was thrilled with that arrangement.
“It’s worth it from our perspective,” Lesesne said. “Chloe’s kind of always in season, so we have to careful not to over-train her. That means she’s going to miss out on some of the basketball development because she’s playing soccer and vice versa. But, again, her athleticism is just high-level.”
Arriving late created some stress and anxiety. But gradually, Chapman found a rhythm between her daily-schedule regimen and the intricacies of the respective sports. She said there is some carryover between the two sports.
In soccer, Chapman never started but played in all 19 games. She found a niche as a late-game substitution, entering games primarily in the second half as an offensive infusion. Chapman led the Bulldogs with six goals and 12 points overall.
She should see her role increase this season. Reagan Glisson, who started all 19 games at striker as a junior, transferred to Oklahoma.
Transitioning back to basketball proved more difficult. By the time Chapman was able to give it her undivided attention, the Bulldogs were days away from opening the season.
“The difficult thing was learning all the plays in basketball, since I was coming in late and missed the entire preseason,” Chapman said.
Given a few days to rest, she joined the team full time in early November. In the end, Chapman missed only three games, starting the final five of the season.
Chapman got the call at point guard after junior Que Morrison was lost for the season to a shoulder injury. She averaged 3.6 points and 3.2 assists per game over that stretch. She set season highs in playing 37 minutes and scoring eight points with six assists in a win over Alabama.
Expectations are considerably higher for Chapman in both sports this year. That’s assuming that her sports get played. Indications are that soccer also will adopt an SEC-only schedule in the coming days, with the season starting in late September like football.
Basketball usually starts in October, but most likely will see a delayed start. That decision will come later.
Chapman is still processing the prospect of playing in the midst of a global pandemic.
“I just like competing and being with my teammates, but I’m also someone who really cares about my health,” said Chapman, who said he has been tested once since returning to campus this summer. “I just try to always be where my feet are. I’m here now, we’re practicing (soccer), and I’m really just trying to be in the present. I’m really not thinking about what’s to come.”
Whatever it is, we’re all left to wonder if Chapman could be even better if she dedicated herself to one sport or the other.
“Having her through the summer and her having a feel for the plays and what we’re doing, she should be ready to go from a mental standpoint,” Taylor said. “There’s no doubt if she made the commitment to one sport on the other, she’d be further along. But, again, once we made the decision to let her do both, we were going to be all in.”
It is certainly working out so far.
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