Spring Break
Women's Basketball Spotlight: Kluempers improves shot, becomes leader
Senior worked on shot selection after sophomore season
Collin Whitchurch / Assistant Sports Editor
Issue date: 2/18/09 Section: Sports
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At the end of her sophomore season, Lindsey Kluempers had hit a crossroads.
Kluempers, now a senior, had been told by Eastern women's basketball head coach Brady Sallee that if she did not become one of the best shooters on the team, it was unlikely she would see one more minute on the court.
"I think being in a position like that kind of woke me up," said the 6-foot-1 forward. "I was kind of sleepwalking through my first two years and it was eye-opening. Me and (senior guard Ellen Canale) spent that whole summer living on campus and spent probably 85 percent of our time in the gym just shooting."
The next season, Kluempers not only played, but she played more minutes than she did in her freshman and sophomore years combined. She started all 32 games for the Panthers and set a single-season 3-point field goal percentage record by shooting 47.7 percent that season.
"A lot of kids at that point would have turned around and made me the villain and she didn't do that," Sallee said. "She looked in the mirror and said, 'He's right, and I'm going to show him that I can do this.' From that point on she's been our starting 4-player. I'm as proud of her as I've ever been of a player for accepting the challenge and stepping up to the plate."
Kluempers will play her final regular season home game for the Panthers Saturday at 3 p.m.
She has started every game she's been healthy for in the past two years except one - on Jan. 3 against Jacksonville State - when she was still recovering from a broken pinkie finger.
But while Sallee credits Kluempers for working on her success, she is modest when it is brought up. Instead she deflects the praise to her teammates and coaches.
"I came here hoping to be able to help build the program into a winner," she said. "It's been a long, long road and we're definitely not finished yet, but I couldn't have asked for better teammates or coaches."
Sallee said Kluempers is a unique person because while teams go through different qualms throughout a season, there were never any between her and a teammate.
"She's one of those kids that no matter what year it was, everybody on the team liked her," Sallee said. "That sounds simple, but on a team it doesn't happen a whole lot and she's just got that type of personality where she can rip your head off and then you want to hang out with her."
Kluempers said while she's proud of the fact that the team has begun to win, it is about more than winning games with her.
"It's not so much about being proud of winning, I'm proud that we are leaving behind a tradition, giving the program different expectations."
Kluempers will graduate in the spring with a degree in business marketing. She said she has no idea what she's going to do after she graduates.
"I was thinking coming into college about going into something in sales or advertising, something along those lines. But I have absolutely no idea. I'm going to graduate here and go into the real world with an open mind. Wherever it takes me, I just want to be happy. We'll see."
Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7944 or at cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.
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