Sue Bird could not believe Jan Jensen held out on recruiting Kate Martin till way later into her high school career

Kate Martin was a star for the Iowa Hawkeyes during her NCAA career. She played for the team for five seasons, starting in 2019-20 and running through the 2023-24 season.

On Friday, Martin made an appearance on the “Bird’s Eye View” podcast. On the show, former WNBA star Sue Bird made a funny comment about Coach Jan Jensen waiting so long to recruit Martin to the Hawkeyes:

“There’s a very adorable story where you wrote a story to yourself that said, “Hi Kate, when you’re reading this, I hope you’re committing to play at the University of Iowa.” So, this is all in sixth grade. But then, come to find out, they didn’t even recruit you until way later. What the f**k Coach Jan. Why did Jan hold out on you?”

Kate Martin then responded, opening up about her recruiting experience:

“I think there were multiple reasons. Yes, I grew up a Hawkeye fan. Jan was coaching there. I was going to the Iowa camps since I was like five years old. I would go and spend a week by myself with my aunt Julie and my aunt Jan. They said I was like their first kid. I had my own room, they would have it all perfect for me.”

“I think Jan stayed out of the recruiting process because she’s family and she’s biased. They wanted the assistants to come recruit me and see if I was good enough. At that time, I didn’t know if I did because I was a late bloomer. I didn’t have a lot of Big Ten offers.”

Martin then opened up about later receiving an offer from Iowa. She decided shortly after to play for the Hawkeyes because “it felt like home.”

Kate Martin is in her second WNBA season

In her fifth and final college season, Kate Martin broke out, averaging 13.1 ppg, 6.8 rpg and 2.3 apg. As a result, she was selected in the second round of the 2024 WNBA draft by the Las Vegas Aces. However, Martin would only stick with the team for one season. She was selected by the Golden State Valkyries in the 2024 WNBA expansion draft.

Martin is now in her second season with the Valkyries and appears to be stepping into a bigger role. Through six games, she has averaged 6.5 ppg and 2.5 rpg. This is a step up from her rookie season, where she only averaged 2.6 ppg and 1.6 rpg.

About the author

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Alexander O’Reilly is a journalist at Sportskeeda from Kingston, Ontario with over seven years in the field at companies including SenShot, RVBlogger, Monarch Media, WordAgents, GSeC LLC, and IGC.

His favorite college team is Duke, and his favorite sporting memory was Duke winning March Madness in 2010. JJ Redick was Alex’s favorite college player when he was young but more recently, Caleb Williams gets the nod. As the Chicago Bears are Alex’s favorite NFL team, this was a perfect match.

Alex’s proudest moment came when he was interviewed by a radio station in Ottawa on his opinion on recent moves by the Ottawa Senators, which gave him a confidence boost and the knowledge that he could succeed as a writer.

Aside from sports, Alex likes to spend his time playing games. He is also very passionate about running and strives to improve at the half and full marathon distances.

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