As the Trojans’ freshman star shines, adulation grows among girls around Southern California, along with a responsibility to serve as an inspiration
Fans of USC star freshman JuJu Watkins include, clockwise from top left, sixth-grader Anastisia Villarreal and her mother Francesca, Crystalle Edwards and her 9-year-old daughter Brooklyn, 10-year-old Izzy Lao and her mother Marielle, and sisters Addis and Isabel Brummond. LOS ANGELES — For nearly two hours, 10-year-old Izzy Lao stands in anticipation, patient beyond her years.
“However I’m feeling,” Watkins said, “I make sure I do something extra for somebody who’s probably coming to see us for the first time.” There is a unique quality to watching Watkins work, the kind that inspires this rush from the mini-hers that come in droves. She can make basketball look incredibly simple in honed fluidity of movements, a euro-step here and a two-dribble pull-up there. She can also make it look incredibly hard, smacking the hardwood in all-out squabbles for loose balls.
“I think she’s quite aware that she never, ever wants a young lady to leave thinking, ‘Well, that’s really JuJu? Is that who she is?’ And then act out in some way that’s not appropriate,” USC program legend Cheryl Miller said in a February conversation with the Southern California News Group. “And that’s a huge responsibility on someone so young. But I think JuJu understands that.
An hour after USC’s win over Kansas on Monday night – their last game at Galen, no matter how the season plays out from here – Watkins emerged through the south glass doors one final time, still running off dwindling adrenaline. Fans at the guardrail were packed nearly to the overflow, and they screamed as their rock star emerged, jostling like the front row of a concert.
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