Chloe Sterling, a transfer junior who played her first two collegiate seasons at James Madison University, has taken the Hofstra University women’s basketball team’s starting point guard role and excelled in every way. Sterling is averaging 17 points, 4.3 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game. Oftentimes, transfers take a few weeks to get going in their new surroundings, however, Sterling’s move from Harrisburg, Virginia, to Hempstead, New York, is far from the first time her life has been uprooted.
Even though Sterling originally is from Atlanta, Georgia, her formative years were spent outside of the United States. When she was about seven years old, she and her family packed up their bags and lived on U.S. Army Camp Zama, about an hour southwest of Tokyo, Japan, for nearly a decade.
While she was 14 hours ahead of home, she wasn’t the only one in a strange, new place, as many other military families were in the same boat. It showed Sterling not only that she was far from alone, but that she was part of an incredible melting pot of cultures. Sterling grew up with people from all over the world while in Japan, and it gave her the ability to assimilate herself with other people very easily.
“We all had parents that were in the military, but everybody was different, it was so diverse you had to learn how to talk to people, learn about people’s cultures and adapt to the people in the place that you’re at,” she said.
Sterling picked up the game from her dad and brother and continued it in Tokyo with the friends she made along the way. She still draws on the lessons that both her family and friends, as well as the game itself, taught her.
“It was a great experience for me, growing up with basketball, sometimes being the only girl on the army base who wanted to play the game, I would have to go and play with the boys,” Sterling said. “Makes me tough, and probably a little bit of the swag of the game because I had to find ways to score. They were getting a little more athlete and over time they got taller than me, so I had to learn different ways of scoring to stay competitive around them.”
Relocating to the Big Apple after being a member of the James Madison Dukes is far from the largest change she’s seen in her life. Walking through the recruitment process again in late spring/early summer this year, Sterling knew what she was on the lookout for.
“I was kind of looking to come to a program where I could progress with the way I play and just get better skill-wise and be surrounded by people who believe in me and my skill,” Sterling said. “Just somewhere I could come, play free, get better, make the people around me better and excel. And have fun, that was a huge part, have fun with the game.”
She looks back on her recruitment trip and the moment her teammates all greeted her with hugs during first introductions, realizing her teammates are meant to be her people, too.
“The genuine connection [stands out] with the people here,” she said. “When I came on a visit here there was no sugar coating with the team. It really came down to the people; the culture here is amazing. We’re not scared to take accountability and make sure you hold everybody else accountable. I feel like it’s amazing that there’s more than half of the team that’s talking. I think it’s amazing that a freshman, new to the program, is talking.”
The adjustment here was softened by the Pride’s five returners, who have been incredibly welcoming by giving insider tips on how much earlier to show up before practice to offering a car ride every now and then. Sterling has grown particularly close with center Zyheima Swint, highlighting how much she values their shared banter.
Sterling explained that she appreciated being able to mesh her competitive spirit with her ability to bring her smiles, laughs and self-proclaimed “goofy energy” to the floor. She explained it as fun-spirited but serious.
Hempstead might not have home cooked meals and Zaxby’s, but that hasn’t stopped her from making a home with her teammates at Hofstra.
“I’m a natural when it comes to wanting everybody to feel like they have a place,” she said. “I know what it feels like to be left out, because things happen during the season, so I would just say that making sure that everybody in my team is good, because I’m always gonna care about the person before anything else.”
In her short time here, she has realized that she has to be a leader as well as the team’s point guard.
“I would describe it as a leadership role where I have to set by example,” Sterling said. “I do come from a program where we’ve won a conference championship and I come from experience with winning and what that environment is about and how to do that as a point guard, so just bringing that leadership and that chip on my shoulder where I have to stay consistent and lead by example in whatever capacity that is. Competitiveness, motor, energy, whatever.”
Earlier in the season, guard Emma Von Essen pointedly described the junior point guard as “shifty,” and Sterling agreed. In reality, Sterling’s creativity and basketball intelligence is what makes her an asset to the Pride and any other team she plays on
“One of the big things that I learned growing up [was how] my dad was very serious about the ball handling,” she said. “Being in the gym with my brother, just doing new and crazy things to try to get past him, get past other people, that was fun. That’s creativity with the ball and that’s what makes the game fun. Have a creative mind and being open to displaying that.”
Sterling can be trusted to have tricks up her sleeve at any given time, brewing with ideas about how to swerve the next defender she matches up with: “when you see it, you’re gonna know.”
The Hofstra Pride are 2-5 and will host St. John’s University on Wednesday, Dec. 11. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics/Jordan Perez
