“We had so many colleges here,” Clarke said. “There was so much buzz about her. She is an unbelievably talented player.”

The administration attempted to shield Fagbenle from as much of the process as possible and she showed her newfound maturity during the stressful time. Despite serious offers from top programs, Fagbenle had her mind set on one school: Harvard.

“She wanted to be a great basketball player but she also understood basketball was a vehicle that was going to open a lot of doors,” Clarke said. “She is interested in being a successful person in a wide variety of areas. The reason she chose Blair was that she felt we had a chance to help her basketball wise, academic wise and otherwise to get her to Harvard to open more doors.”

“It was definitely hard to turn down other top schools like Duke because they seemed to offer the best of both worlds,” Fagbenle said. “But once I received my letter of admission from Harvard, I knew where I had to be.”

Fagbenle’s impact on the program continues to this day as she is given some credit for Blair’s 2012 state championship.

“The girls who came and saw her play and that got to talk to her afterwards came here,” Blair headmaster Chan Hardwick said. “The reason [this year’s team] was very good was because Temi set a standard for excellence that got people to come to the school. She’s the best recruiting tool – a happy and successful player.”

A SUSPENDED HOPE

Before the beginning of the 2011-2012 season, Harvard women’s basketball coach Kathy Delaney-Smith discussed how important Fagbenle was going to be for the Crimson program.

“Temi is an impact player flat out,” Delaney-Smith said. “Temi can step on the floor and impact the game immediately. She’s probably in the top five of any college player I’ve ever coached right now. We have a whole system we’re using because she’s at the core of it.”

But, due to NCAA rules attempting to control European players coming to America for college, Fagbenle was suspended for her freshman season. The stud recruit would be unable to change the program’s culture for at least one year.

“It was the most frustrating thing ever not being allowed to play last year,” Fagbenle said. “Knowing that I was fully capable of playing with my teammates, but not being allowed to for some debatable reason was, and still is, quite difficult to accept….It definitely wasn't easy to stay motivated each day.”

Without Fagbenle to anchor the Harvard offense, the Crimson posted a fourth straight-second place Ivy finish. Even though Fagbenle was never able to get on the court, the effects of her addition to the Harvard team are already becoming apparent.

Last spring, just a year after Fagbenle’s commitment, Shilpa Tummula, a top-100 recruit, committed to Harvard. Getting a player of that caliber was nearly unheard of for the Crimson in the years before Fagbenle’s arrival, but it may become a common occurrence now.

In addition to sitting out a year of basketball, Fagbenle had to give up the other activities such as theater that she had enjoyed in high school in order to dedicate herself to a sport she couldn’t even compete in.

Because she could not help Harvard, Fagbenle set her sights on joining another team, the Great Britain Olympic women’s basketball team, and helping it succeed for the first time.