Ruth “The Canadian Hammer” Hamblin

Every now and again I get to help Justin and Darryl on their video projects. Most of the time it is usually because they know I would have a personal interest in the subject matter. This time it was for an upcoming video to be aired on the Pac12 network. It features Ruth Hamblin, the starting center for the OSU women’s basketball team. The final story hasn’t come together just yet, but the general idea focuses on her being able to balance being (AN AWESOME) division I athlete and an engineering student, which is considered by many one of the more difficult and time intensive undergraduate degrees at OSU.

Side Rant

I want to go back to her being an awesome athlete. I watch a lot of college basketball, mostly mens, but over the last couple years I have started to watch more NCAA women’s basketball. The women’s team is leaps and bounds more fun to watch. From a pure basketball standpoint they win hands down. Their fundamentals are strong, they can shoot from anywhere on the court and they actually run an offense instead of the weird quasi-offense that our mens team runs. In the middle of all the excitement though is Ruth. She is absolutely one of the most devastating defensive presences I have seen at any level of basketball. The way she impacts the game is really fun to watch. She recently put together a 10 block game, which also included around 20 shots altered (insane!). She is just a sophomore, which basically means who knows how crazy good she will be after two more years of training.

I shouldn’t let my singular praise overshadow the rest of the team. From top to bottom the women’s team is filled with ballers. With only one senior, and I think also only one junior, the team is set up to make a deep NCAA run in the next couple years. Point guard Sydney Wiese is a freshman with excellent ball handling skills and court vision, not to mention a crowd stirring super quick southpaw 3pt shot. She has unlimited potential and will be fun to watch. Honestly, I could go player by player and talk about all their amazing abilities, but there isn’t enough space and you really just need to get out and watch them in person. You won’t regret taking in one of their next home games.

End Rant

Ultimately the point of this is to share the fun opportunities we get working at Interactive Communications. For me it was a big personal bonus to get to meet Ruth and thanks to Justin’s quick thinking I got the absolute great honor of getting my turn-around shot rejected by “The Hammer.” Below is photo proof of the sequence. I can now check getting stuffed, by OSU’s best shot blocker in history, off my bucket list.

Step 1: Think you can make a shot