Only in eighth grade, Westtown’s Jordyn Palmer has varsity game

If basketball was an exam, Westtown School eighth grader Jordyn Palmer would already have all the answers.

At 6-foot-1 with elite athleticism, a deft touch, exquisite footwork, and basketball acumen beyond her years, the 14-year-old’s abilities are undeniable.

So if basketball truly was a test and Palmer had the answers, the only real question is: Does she have the discipline, desire, and direction to master the subject matter anyway? Or will she just show up on game days and simply supply the answers with the gifts she was given?

For a girl who lists watching game film as one of her favorite pastimes, the answer seems obvious.

Guidance from the adults in her life leaves even less room for doubt. Her coach at Westtown, Fran Burbidge, has coached basketball greats Elena Delle Donne and Breanna Stewart, among others, during his 40-plus years of coaching.

“That’s the advantage Jordyn has moving forward,” Burbidge said during a recent practice. “She already possesses so many of the positive intangibles that make the really good ones. She doesn’t have to do anything other than be herself.

“The biggest thing is that basketball is going to be the easy part. It’s managing the journey [that will be a challenge].”

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On some level, Jermaine Palmer, 37, always knew his daughter was a fighter. In fact, she had to rumble for her first few breaths.

At some point while his wife, Kim, now 42, was in labor, doctors learned Jordyn was in a breech position. The umbilical cord, Jermaine Palmer said, had also wrapped around her neck twice.

Had she been moved, doctors told him she likely would not have survived.

An emergency Caesarean section was performed, all went well, mother and father were relieved, and, about 14 years later, opposing defenses still can’t contain her.

Last month, Palmer finished with 31 points, 13 rebounds, and 4 blocked shots against Paul VI and Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame-bound), ESPN’s No. 5 senior in the nation.

“It was just fun to be in that type of game,” Palmer said during practice last week.

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The Moose lost in overtime, 72-69, thanks in part to Hidalgo’s 48 points, 11 rebounds, 8 steals, and 5 assists.

Palmer, who scored 21 points in the fourth quarter, wowed the raucous home crowd — a middle schooler trading critical baskets with one of the best seniors in the country.

Asked how she felt she handled the environment, Palmer paused, smiled, then said, “I mean, I put on a show.”

Confidence, not cockiness, seemed to deliver the response. In fact, it was among the only answers that didn’t deflect praise toward teammates.

“I just like being in a tie ballgame,” she continued. “The crowd was hyped, the bench was up, and shots were going back and forth. I don’t know, I just like that atmosphere.”

If it seems odd for an eighth grader to flourish under such conditions, you’re not alone.

But Palmer, her father said, has always had a knack for remaining calm amid chaos.

Earlier this month, she led the Moose (18-4, 10-0) with 19 points, seven rebounds, five steals, and two blocks in Westtown’s 75-35 liquidation of Friends’ Central in the Friends Schools League championship.

“All the trash talking and doing the most, I don’t really like that,” Palmer said. “I like to stay focused on the game and locked in throughout.”

Next up for Westtown, a state semifinal matchup with Germantown Academy on Friday. Top-seeded Westtown advanced with a 79-24 dismantling of Shipley School in the PAISAA second round.

Some might marvel at Palmer’s stoicism on the court. When the season began, however, Burbidge noticed something else. Four decades afford a few insights.

An elegant swan gliding across a pond came to mind when he saw Palmer’s calm exterior on the bench.

“But underneath the water, their feet are paddling like a son of a gun,” he said with raspy laughter. “I said, ‘I know inside you’re churning.’ She gave me a little smile to confirm.”

That’s all part of the process, Burbidge said.

He coached Delle Donne in high school at Delaware’s Ursuline Academy. Later, he coached Stewart during AAU play with the Philadelphia Belles.

He believes those experiences will help him guide Palmer.

“I’ve learned some things, and hopefully I’ve gotten a little better,” he said. “I don’t get ‘wowed out’ with how good they are. Are you really good? Yeah, so what? How hard do you want to work? How good do you want to be?”

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Burbidge first saw Palmer as a seventh grader. He knew immediately that she could start at Westtown, where he began coaching in 2019.

The family already had expressed interest in the school, so he saw a few more AAU games but didn’t say much. Eventually, he explained that Westtown would love to have her, but that he still would be a resource if they chose elsewhere.

When she arrived on campus earlier this season, it took time before Palmer became a starter — about four minutes into her first game.

“I looked at her and I said, ‘You ready?’ And she looked at me, put a smile on her face, put her hand up for a fist bump, and she went in,” Burbidge said. “That was the last time she started a game on the bench. I believe that will be the last time, period, that she’ll start a game on the bench for us.”

Palmer wasn’t nervous about playing varsity minutes as an eighth grader. She’s been playing against older competition since at least third grade.

That’s when she joined the Chester County Storm AAU program. Even as a third grader, her coach, Will Evans, could tell Palmer was different.

“You could tell she was more advanced,” said Evans, who started coaching in 2002. “You saw she wouldn’t be able to play with her age [group].”

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Perhaps Evans, 50, knew because Palmer reminded him of his daughter, Shante, who starred at West Chester Henderson before becoming Hofstra’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder.

In fact, Shante, now 31, suggested her father move Palmer up to his 17-and-under team when she still was in seventh grade.

“She’s ready,” Shante said while she was home during her overseas offseason.

Jermaine Palmer, who also coaches with the Storm, gave the green light. He and Evans assumed Palmer would be taught valuable lessons by older players.

Instead, she did the schooling.

“It was a surprise at first,” Jermaine Palmer said. “I’m thinking, ‘Seventh grader, OK, you need to get a little beat up. Let these girls show you what you’ve got to work for,’ but no. She went in there and was like, ‘Nah, I want this and I’m going to go at these girls when they go at me.’”

Facing older competition never really made Palmer nervous. Wondering if she would fit in with new teammates, at a new school, however, did.

Her early days at Westtown were difficult. Time management was an issue.

She woke up at 5:30 a.m. so her grandfather could drive her from the family’s home in Oxford to a bus stop in Avondale, where a Westtown van shuttled her to school. She often wouldn’t get home until 6 p.m.

High school students live at the private boarding school; middle schoolers do not.

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Burbidge also explained that the middle and upper schools are in separate buildings, so she had few chances to bond with older teammates.

Fortunately for Palmer, she wasn’t the only eighth grader on varsity. Her classmate, Jessie Moses, is a talented point guard who also plays critical minutes for Westtown.

Maura Wiggers is another eighth grader on the varsity team, while Atlee Vanesko is a talented freshman guard who also joined Westtown this season.

Once the older players saw their skills on the court, Burbidge said, the bonding followed quickly.

“Before long,” he said, “I’m watching and saying, ‘Oh, hell, these puppies fit right in.’”

Now the older players look after the younger ones, “like little sisters,” Burbidge said.

Having leaders such as senior wing Grace Sundback, who will play at Delaware next season, has been helpful, Palmer said. Joniyah Bland-Fitzpatrick, another senior wing, will play at Seton Hall next year.

So Palmer will have no shortage of Division I brains to pick about the recruiting process.

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A few coaches have already contacted her via phone. Palmer says she is nervous during the calls, but understands it is a feeling-out process.

Increased attention from the media and on social media has already begun. Palmer said she is appreciative but wary. She certainly enjoys the positive replies to her highlights.

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” she said, “I just don’t want anything to get too carried away.”

Later, she added: “I’m just a humble player, a team player. I don’t look for myself. I look for others. But when I need to, I can get some points.”

Burbidge, he said, is there to help when asked.

His experience includes numerous contacts who can help the family filter opportunities. Former Sixers coach Larry Brown, Burbidge said, once came to a practice when he coached Delle Donne.

“It’s new to all of us,” Kim Palmer said via phone. “All the attention she’s getting. I worry about social media. I worry about people’s intentions.

“I feel like we rely on Coach Fran because he’s kind of been there and done that,” she added. “I do feel that he 100% has Jordyn’s back.”

Perhaps Burbidge’s most sage advice is what he hopes simplifies his players’ lives as expectations grow.

“I think that’s the biggest thing for them all,” he said. “Just go ball. Go play. Go be you, and everything else will come along for the ride.”