STARKVILLE — It’s a cool day in mid-January as Kortland Jordan makes his way down the bleachers on the south side of Humphrey Coliseum.
With a wiry pair of white earbuds poking out from beneath his blue hoodie and his orange Nike basketball shoes clenched in his right hand, Jordan steps onto the maroon and white emblazoned hardwood and heads toward the home bench.
Fresh off a packed morning that included biology II, epidemiology and exercise weight control classes, the lectures still run through his head.
“I just made my schedule to where it’s all morning classes so I can be here every day,” Jordan told The Dispatch.
At 2:42 p.m., 20 minutes after Jordan arrived, the Mississippi State women’s basketball team spills onto the playing surface. Coach Vic Schaefer follows 17 minutes later.
As the players stretch and Schaefer barks out orders, Jordan and fellow practice players Logan Pierce and Alex Hyatt step to the side until called upon.
Part of a 19-person contingent of student volunteers who work out with the MSU women’s team, Jordan, Pierce and Hyatt show up daily for a job that pays in sweaty T-shirts and sore muscles but rewards in selfless pride.
“I get to watch (the team) grow and I’d love to see a national championship — that’s what we’re shooting for,” Pierce said. “And if I could have any part in that, even if it’s from the background and not being seen by anybody, that’s okay with me. The reward is good enough to see them hoist a trophy at the end.”
The process
While MSU’s official recruiting period concludes with February’s National Signing Day, the Bulldogs’ search for practice players begins when students arrive in early August.
Posting flyers in dorms and buildings around campus and advertising through the team’s official social media accounts, Schaefer’s staffers get the word out throughout Starkville as best they can.
“I walked past (the flyer) about 3,000 times and was like, ‘Yeah, man, whatever,'” Hyatt said. “Then I thought about it, and so I said, ‘Why not?'”
If interested, candidates email MSU video coordinator and former Bulldog standout Dominique Dillingham, who works to schedule a physical for each volunteer — one of the few things the team can actually pay for when it comes to its practice players.
After being given the medical OK, volunteers are added to a group chat run by Dillingham in which she passes along daily practice times and coordinates who will be in attendance for each session.
“I mean, they’re selfless,” Dillingham added. “They’re basically here for free, and they really become a part of the family. You see a main three or four (guys) every day, and they’re basically an extension of us.”
‘This is my practice player all-American’
Striding down the court at Humphrey Coliseum the night before MSU’s Feb. 9 game against No. 15 Texas A&M, Schaefer ran into longtime women’s college basketball announcer and former Purdue head coach Carolyn Peck.
Watching practice in preparation for her broadcast that night, Peck and Schaefer trade a few words. As the conversation turned, Schaefer looks to his side and introduces Jordan.
“This is my practice player all-American,” Schaefer quipped, only half kidding.
A dynamic player off the bounce with an ability to step out and knock down a 3-pointer, Jordan has found a niche in mimicking the SEC’s best players.
Seated in a padded chair on the visitors bench last month, he lists the various standouts he’s simulated in recent weeks: two-time All-American Chennedy Carter of Texas A&M, 2020 SEC player of the year Rhyne Howard of Kentucky, first team All-SEC selection Rennia Davis of Tennessee. The list goes on.
A former high school star at Jim Hill High School in Jackson, Jordan had his sights set on playing at the collegiate level as he suited up on the same AAU team — the Jackson Tigers — as current Bulldog men’s players Robert Woodard II, D.J. Stewart and KeyShawn Feazell.
But after breaking both of his feet and suffering a knee injury in separate on-court incidents, Jordan chose to attend MSU on academic merit over a handful of junior college basketball opportunities — a decision that carries its own weight.
“I was actually the only one in my graduating class on the basketball team that made it to college — and it wasn’t through basketball,” he said proudly.
Hoping to walk on to the men’s team in the fall of 2017, Jordan went through tryouts before coach Ben Howland and his staff informed him that they wouldn’t take on any extra personnel that year.
Cuts aside, MSU assistant coach George Brooks emailed Jordan about being a women’s practice player. Reluctant at first, Jordan prayed over it. Conversations with his father, Ricky Jordan, followed. He’d do it.
Now two years on from his indoctrination into the women’s basketball program — a period that saw him work with former all-Americans Victoria Vivians and Jazzmun Holmes — Jordan serves as a ringleader of sorts for the practice players.
“We have a lot of people come and then leave, because they thought that it was gonna be like a fun thing and they can just come here and play ball,” Jordan said. “But no. You’ve got to be in shape; you’ve gotta run … got to be in some shape, got to be tough and listen. Coach Schaefer is asking us to get the job done or giving us a task, and we’ve got to do it.”
A change of heart
Nearing the middle of practice, Schaefer sends his squad into a half-court scrimmage.
With the MSU starters on one side, the practice players are joined by freshman guard Jayla Hemingway and Michigan State import Sidney Cooks — who’s sitting out from competition this season due to NCAA transfer rules.
Following an errant 3-pointer from Hyatt, Pierce corrals the rebound over sophomore center and second team All-SEC selection Jessika Carter and sticks it for a putback.
As is customary for surrendering an offensive rebound in a Schaefer-led practice, Carter takes off sprinting up the stairs on the north side of Humphrey Coliseum.
“We’ve got to move; Logan is kicking our butt!” Schaefer yells over the rap music emanating from the speaker along the sideline.
For Pierce and Carter, the exchange has become commonplace over the past six months as the pair have developed a rivalry of sorts.
“It’s extremely hard, first of all, playing against Logan because guys are naturally strong anyway, but Logan is super duper strong,” Carter said through a laugh. “I have a problem boxing out — everybody probably knows that … I’m running up the stairs all the time because Logan is so strong and it’s so hard boxing him out.”
A former standout at Forrest County Agricultural High School in Brooklyn, Pierce was a force in the post despite his 6-foot-3-inch frame ballooning to as heavy as 350 pounds.
“I was really unhealthy in high school,” he conceded. “I caught a freshman 50, not a freshman 15.”
Battling high blood pressure among other issues, Pierce began running in an attempt to curb his weight. Pickup basketball at the YMCA in Hattiesburg followed.
“I would just lose two to three pounds per day,” he said, snapping his fingers. “It would just come.”
As Pierce slowly shed the excess weight, he also came to a career impasse. Following a two-year stint studying to be an occupational therapist, he decided to enroll at MSU and pursue a sports administration degree.
“if it came down to what you could do for the rest of your life without worrying about how much money you’re gonna make, I was like, ‘I would love to coach for a little bit and then become an athletic director,'” Pierce said. “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do; it’s what I’ve always felt like I should be able to do. It’s the greatest way to be able to reach people and to change people’s lives.”
Continuing to play basketball at the Sanderson Center — where he also began working as a personal trainer — Pierce emailed Dillingham in hopes of joining the program as a practice player while also pursuing coaching under the tutelage of Schaefer. He was on the court soon thereafter.
Closing in on the end of his first full season with the Bulldogs as the team prepares for this week’s SEC tournament in Greenville, South Carolina, Pierce bears the scars of the daily skirmishes he’s endured on the blocks with Carter and the rest of MSU’s post players over the past few months.
“I’ve got bruises all over my body — they cut me every single day,” he said, chuckling at the thought. “I come home, and my girlfriend is like, ‘You’ve been at practice, haven’t you?’ And I’m like, ‘Yep, that’s what all these cuts are from.’ But you know what? I love it. So I’ll go back tomorrow and get a couple more.”
‘True Bulldogs’
At 5:03 p.m. — two hours and four minutes after he emerged from the tunnel — Schaefer blows his whistle and orders a huddle at center court.
Offering a few tidbits of advice — as he does after every practice — the eighth-year head coach stops his sermon and reminds his squad to thank the student volunteers.
“Thank you Kortland, Logan and Alex,” the chorus of voices echoes in appreciation.
“I think (the team) sees exactly the benefit that those guys make them better,” Schaefer said. “They push them, and they appreciate that. It’s good to see our kids acknowledge them for that, and we wouldn’t be where we are today without them.”
For Jordan, Pierce and the other 17 practice players, there’s little glory in the roughly 10-15 hours per week they spend in Humphrey Coliseum. At most, their efforts are rewarded with a pair of shoes — the lone piece of equipment MSU can provide them under NCAA rules.
But extra gear or added benefits are irrelevant to this bunch. They’re not in it for the accolades or admiration. Rather, there’s a quiet pride in their duty.
“They’re givers,” Schaefer told The Dispatch. “They’re out there doing it — they get nothing in return. They’re doing it to make us better, and they’re true Bulldogs.”
Seconds before leaving Humphrey Coliseum ahead of another day of morning classes and long practices, Jordan recalled MSU’s 2017 win over South Carolina in Starkville played before a record-breaking 10,794 fans. Then in his first season as a practice player, his purpose became clear as he looked on from the stands.
“It just made me feel better knowing that I had a hand in this,” he said. “But I don’t take it for granted at all. It’s just good knowing that I helped some girls chase their dreams and get to where they want to be.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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