KAY DONAHUE AND LAFAYETTE UNIVERSITY… The Perfect Fit👏👏🏀

There are kids that make you JUMP OUT YOUR SEAT, the first time you see them. They have that swag you cannot teach. In many cases they have an ability to dominate a gym. That is exactly what happen the first time I saw Kay Donahue play. It was a year ago at a Top 100 run by the Hoop Group. On that day there were D1 players everywhere in the gym. But none were more dominant than Kay Donahue that day. She was special and yesterday KAY DONAHUE decided she would spend her next 4 years of college at a special school… LAFAYETTE UNIVERSITY OF THE PATRIOT LEAGUE.👏🏀

Kia Damon and I go back 25 years. She has always been someone with a real talent to communicate with people. It just may be her biggest strength as a coach. When she got the head coaching  job at Lafayette University, she told me she wanted to recruit different than Lafayette had in the past. She told me “I want players better than out level of play” well in three short years she has backed up her words. She recruited the best player in the Patriot league in WNBA draft pick Natalie Kucowski. Last year she signed All Freshman 1st Team Makayla Andrews. Her incoming freshman class this year includes what many believe was the best point guard in the state of New Jersey last year in Abby Antognoli.  It’s clear Kia Damon is keeping her word about signing players a level above the academic minded first Patriot League. She built on that reputation as a shrewd recruiter yesterday by closing one of the best offensive weapons in the state in Kay Donahue. A player that from day one will be a walking bucket and nightmare matchup for any team in the Patriot League . Kay Donahue is as skilled a scorer there is in the 2022 class in all of New Jersey.💯

When Kay Donahue was a freshman she started for Top 5 in the state Rutgers Prep. As a sophomore she came off the bench. Mary Klinger is one of the best coaches in the state. She always puts team before individuals. It was humbling for Kay Donahue. But it didn’t stop her from working hard and expanding her game. She knows at RUTGERS PREP there are no promises and each year is a fresh start. It’s why this year she was back in the starting lineup for Prep. She also was one of the biggest reasons Prep was undefeated and Nationally Ranked. Her team many believed had a case as the best team in New Jersey. You see Rutgers Prep blew everyone out they played this year. The problem was, they never got a chance at SJV. Even when there All State Center Christina Dalce went down RUTGERS PREP continued to dominate. That’s because Kay Donahue put on her superwoman cape and went to work on some of the best teams in New Jersey. when Dalce got hurt. It was during this period that everyone in the state found out what I already knew… KAY DONAHUE IS UNGUARDABLE!🏀

This spring D1 college coaches finally started to realize something... Kay Donahue was special! They watched weekend after weekend as she dismantled opponents. When she and her high school teammates played in the postseason March Madness event. She showed everyone that she was cut from a different cloth. She broke out her a offensive arsenal of mass destruction, as if to say to anyone watching…THIS IS A SUPER POWER DUCK! She scored off screens, catch and shoot. Have you ever seen a player hit by her jabs, stabs and shoulder fakes? It like watching a defenseless child. She beat opponents off the dribble, simply because her first step, strength and body are already next level stuff. She set up teammates with sweet dimes. She ran in transition and finally got on the glass.

Basically Kay Donahue put all the knowledge that Mary Klinger, her Grit family along with Joe Fagan Belles teachings to work. She made life easy for college coaches, a blind man could see Kay Donahue’s greatness. The skill sets are undeniable as is the lessons she has learned from the elite coaching she has received. Kay Donahue is very lucky because without these three, her dreams we be nothing more than a pipe dream. But team Donahue kicked down the recruiting door for Kay and opened up a whole new world for her. A world that now has her off to one of the best schools in the country. I guess you can say only the best for the best.. clearly today is a day for TEAM DONAHUE to take a bow👏👏👏

Too often parents often want to make it easy for their kids. When it comes to sports, too often excuses are used to explain things away. Too often parents and kids want stats and fake compliments, not truth. Steve and Logan Donahue wanted truth for their daughter. That’s why Kay Donahue left the town of Montgomery to attend Rutgers Prep. During her sophomore year it would have been easy to pick up and leave after not starting. You know blame everyone and make excuses. Instead they let their daughter grow, to learn how to trust her coaches, mentors and more importantly be a real model for her siblings. You know all the hard stuff when things are not going your way. It was these type decisions that have made Kay who she is today. AN ALPHA FEMALE OF THE HIGHEST LEVEL…..

She decided to play AAU for the NJ BELLES once again this year. But when Mary Donnelly left to go play for the Philly Rise and Kiley Capstraw who committed to Yale got hurt, Kay Donahue could have headed for the hills and switched teams like so many others would have surely done. But Steve and Logan Donahue would have none of that. They encouraged Kay not to-switch AAU teams, it was never a thought, to be like everyone else in the AAU world, selfish and self centered. It’s easy to forget that each players future is tied to the group, when injures and things happen. But the Donahue’s don’t run and turn their back on others . They trusted Coach Joe Fagan and the Belles family would deliver for them. They were smart to put their trust in them because the offers came pouring despite all the roadblocks and bumps this spring . The Donahue family have a little thing called character and that Character is being rewarded.⭐️

So a kid who is a gym rat has once again has beat the odds. You see Covid has stopped a lot of kids in the 2022 class, dead in there tracks, not Kay Donahue. That’s because Kay has this ability to make those around her comfortable. She has a gift in that the first time you meet her…she brings a smile to your face! She plays with such a edge you would think opponents would dislike her. Well it’s just the opposite.. everyone that meets Kay loves Kay. When she went for her visit to Lafayette, Coach Damon told me this “I love her game, if the personality fits and the other stuff is right, I plan to offer her” ..