Kalin's drive leads to near perfect career at UNI

CEDAR FALLS – Sneakers, practice jerseys and equipment clutter the purple and gold locker room. A locker on the left side of the room shows some semblance of organization among the disarray. It's housed Northern Iowa senior Jacqui Kalin for six years.

Inspiration forms the spine of the locker in the form of quotes from athletics superstars like Michael Jordan and heroines like Maya Angelou.

One stands out to Kalin, so much so it hangs at home as well.

“The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching.”

It hung in her locker, but followed her around every step she walked on the Cedar Falls campus. No one watched her in the McLeod Center. Her teammates left the court, but Kalin remained. She refused to leave until sinking 20 straight free throws after every practice.

“That's how I became a good free throw shooter,” Kalin said. “But at the same time my wrist really started to hurt, but I wouldn't stop.”

No one watched, or in this case heard, when Kalin called her parents, stressed about the two wrong answers on her exercise physiology exam. They carried more weight than the 98 she answered correctly.

“I thought that I could've gotten those two questions right,” Kalin said. “We had to have a little talk because it was extreme. I was putting a little too much on myself.”

She carried that weight for six years and through two medial redshirts, not once putting it down or passing it to others. On the court, as a freshman UNI head coach Tanya Warren asked Kalin to be the “coach on the court.” In the classroom, she enrolled at the University of Northern Iowa as the valedictorian of Sioux City High School.

She leaves the Panthers as the program's leader in scoring (2,081), 3-point field goals made (265), free throws made (484), free throw percentage (.920), assists (491), games started (136), games played (136) and minutes (4,352).

She leaves UNI with an undergrad degree in exercise science and a master's degree in Kineisology. She earned a 4.0 in both, continuing the legacy of never receiving a B. It's a family tradition, her siblings went to Harvard, Penn and another currently attends Southern California.

“They have had such a huge impact on my life,” Kalin said. “That's from a basketball standpoint and from a school standpoint. Just family in general, they have helped me become the person I am today.”

Adding to her off-the-court plate, Kalin is the co-President of SAAC since the spring of 2010 and is a member of the UNI Intercollegiate Athletics Advisory Council and the NCAA Recertification Steering Committee.

“She really is one of a kind,” Warren said. “I've been coaching at the Division I level for 22 years and I have never come across as well rounded of a young lady as Jacqui Kalin.”

Her versatility derives from an attribute she can't control. She is a perfectionist. As the buckets fell and her GPA stayed steady at 4.0, the greatest student-athlete in the history of the program had one flaw, her quest for perfection.

“It definitely hurt me at times, especially earlier in my career,” Kalin said. “It causes you to focus on something you can't control any longer.”

Each loss terrorized her, much like the two questions on the exercise physiology test. Hours after the Panthers walked off the court on the wrong side of the scoreboard, Kalin laid awake. No matter how many times she replayed the what-ifs in her mind, she still needed an explanation of what went wrong.

She knows it won't change the result, that she can't control the uncontrollable. But for Kalin, the fire that burns inside of her is also uncontrollable.

“It absolutely drives me crazy some days. I wish I could just be OK with a C and just sleep at night like it's nothing,” Kalin said. “Or lose a game and Coach Warren will tell you, pretty much after all the games I would text her that night and talk about the game and what I could've done better. Sometimes I wish I could just go to sleep.”

So she lies awake to the point of exhaustion while no one is watching. It's those moments that led to her unprecedented accomplishments. Kalin is the only player in Missouri Valley Conference to win both player of the year and scholar of the year – Twice. She earned second team honors in the Senior CLASS Award. Sunday, Kalin will accept The Marty Glickman Outstanding Jewish College Scholar Athlete of the Year award from the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in New York City.

Next week she will travel to China as part of an all-star USA college basketball team. In July, Kalin will compete in the Maccabi Games in Israel.

Both tournaments will be the first time Kalin steps foot to compete on an International stage. There when the vision of a perfectionist,  who is bent over with a surgically repaired ACL, drenched in sweat at the point of exhaustion after six years at UNI, everyone will be watching.

“I wouldn't hope that on anyone, that's how you need to be to be the best,” Kalin said. “There is that balance. But sometimes being a perfectionist just takes a little longer route to get there.”