Jessica Hanson and her father, who is also her coach, have a rule about basketball.
After each one of her games - the 15-year-old is a five-foot-eight guard for the U16 provincial team and at Little Flower Academy - they talk about anything but basketball unless she brings it up.
If she wants to talk about the practice they just had or the game that just ended, then she has the full analysis, insight and feedback of her dad, Kevin Hanson, the head coach of the men's basketball program at UBC and a two-time Canadian university coach of the year.
"Once the coach leaves the floor, I'm still her father," he said.
"I've learned that he actually is smart," she said, "that he knows a lot. I can really get an analyzation of how I play."
They are in Toronto where, from Dec. 19 to 22, she is attending a national identification camp hosted by Basketball Canada. Jessica was one of 25 girls from across the country (she's the only Vancouverite among eight B.C. players) invited to play as coaches select a roster for the FIBA Americas U16 championship in June. FIBA is the world governing body for basketball.
At the first morning session on Wednesday, all players were put through the paces: sprints, off-the ball movement, reading defenders. Their conditioning and fundamental skills were tested as the teenage girls sized each other up.
"It was tough, it's always pretty tough, really physical" said Jessica. "Everyone is looking at each other: 'Oh, she looks good. She's tall_'"
"[The coaches] are trying to give us as much knowledge as they can. We've been learning so much and the load is heavy and it's going to be so great in the long run. It's been fun."
Watching from the sidelines, her dad was a welcome presence, said Jessica. He has coached national men's development teams and has assisted with Team Canada. "He said I looked good and that I need to be more vocal and keep it up."
Instruction from the national team coaches is detail-oriented, sophisticated and already improving her game, she said.
"About the feedback, there is definitely the positive but there is the negative where they're like, 'Come on, work harder!' They'll give me an instruction of something I'm doing wrong and they will help me fix it."
As a ball-handler who runs the floor and calls her team's offence, Jessica is expected to develop excellent ball-handling skills as she matures. Feedback specific to beating a defender off the dribble had her adjusting the angle of her hips so she could cut ahead with tight efficiency.
"My crossover has definitely improved since we started," she said, explaining how her movement is now more fluid.
Before she arrived at the five-day camp, Jessica embraced the opportunity and prepared for the national attention by refining her lifestyle habits. She changed her after-school diet, dropping chocolate for healthy protein like cashews and peanut butter. She hit the weight room more frequently and got her hands on a basketball as often as she could.
"Everyday after school I'd try to get into the backyard and see how many shots I could get up," she said.
On Wednesday in Toronto, Kevin told the Courier he'd never seen his daughter as riled up as she was in the days leading up to the trip.
"For Jessica, the anxiety, the anxiousness of getting here, it was just incredible. I've never seen her so emotionally excited about something. It's kinda neat to see as a parent and as her basketball coach," he said. "It's great to see kids very excited about the game."
Balancing the roles of father and coach is one they navigate through "trial and error," he said. He coaches at Little Flower, as he has all of Jessica's basketball teams except for one year in Grade 8.
"You're always excited when an athlete of yours is coached gets to another level or gets to another team or has another opportunity like this. It's very rewarding," said the five-time Canada West coach of the year who led the Langara Falcons to five provincial championships before joining the T-birds.
"As a father, I'm certainly ecstatically proud of her for being identified this early and having this opportunity. We have a very, very open relationship and I think that's the only way it can work. I think it's been a very good approach for the both of us."
His attitude is one he learned from other parents. As a coach, he has seen what not to do.
"I've coached a lot of kids that have ended up getting burned out. Their parents have pushed them so hard that they got burnt out or they didn't like it and they felt that added pressure was a hindrance with their development and actually turned against the sport at times," he said.
"That was something I didn't want to do. I've been very patient with [Jessica's] development and wanted to make sure that she loves the sport and right now it seems as though she's really fallen in love with basketball. Being rewarded with this opportunity is great for her."
Twitter: @MHStewart
