Jess Holsey had seen a lot of things written next to her name in the stat column, but DNP was certainly not one of them.

And the bench? She only saw it during timeouts.

A speedy, defense-savvy guard with a nice shooting touch, Holsey spent her high school career shredding defenses and terrorizing opposing point guards. In her final year at the Sidwell Friends School, she added some hardware to her already stacked resume. The 5’8 point guard was named a McDonald’s All-American, a Street & Smith All-American, and was ranked the No. 18 point guard in the nation by the All-Star Girl’s Report in 2002.

When Holsey signed with Harvard, women’s basketball coach Kathy Delaney-Smith knew she had made a steal.

“She is one of the most athletic guards you will ever see in women’s basketball,” Delaney-Smith says.

High school teams certainly knew that about her. After compiling 2,180 points and 380 steals at Sidwell Friends, the explosive Holsey looked to bring the same energy to a Harvard team coming off an Ivy League Championship in 2001. And after beginning her freshman season averaging 15 minutes per game, she started to settle in nicely at Lavietes Pavilion.

But then it happened, as it would happen three more times in the next two years.

In the season’s second to last game, Holsey went to swat a ball away from a Yale guard, but instead of coming up with the steal, she came away with a stinging shoulder. Her right shoulder popped out of its socket, putting the rest of her freshman season on hold.

The shoulder immediately settled back into place, but Holsey—a right-handed shooter—would be too sore to play in Harvard’s last game against Brown. Her teammates went on to an undefeated Ivy League campaign, earning an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. A recovering Holsey returned to practice, but she reinjured her shoulder just days before the Crimson’s trip to the NCAAs.

“On Selection Sunday, we go to a restaurant after practice and watch ESPN,” Holsey says. “Everybody was really excited, and I was sitting there in my sling. I was so depressed because I wanted to play so badly.”

Hurt or not, the young Maryland native wasn’t about to miss her first March Madness experience. Holsey played minimally in the Crimson’s 79-69 loss to Kansas State, her shoulder protected by an enormous padded brace.

Holsey closeted the brace for her sophomore season, optimistic that her off-season rehabilitation program had strengthened her right shoulder.

Her production reflected that confidence, as she started Harvard’s first seven games and scored a career-high 15 points against Florida State.

The high school superstar was again primed to become an impact player—this time at the collegiate level.

But then the brace came back. Holsey re-aggravated her shoulder while fighting for a loose ball in practice, and she missed the next four games. Upon returning to the lineup, Holsey injured her shoulder twice more, and doctors recommended surgery. A devastated Holsey, her play severely limited by the brace, wouldn’t regain complete confidence for the rest of the season.