Former Spartan Jaz Gray Excels in Transition From Court to Pitch

If you asked Jazamine “Jaz” Gray in 2012 what she’d be doing in 10 years, she could have provided an assortment of possibilities. A health fitness instruction major at Norfolk State and a member of the school’s women’s basketball team, she envisioned a future working with special needs patients or potentially even playing basketball professionally.

There’s one career path that certainly would not have crossed her mind: a professional rugby player. In fact, Gray knew nothing about the sport of rugby in 2012. She had no idea that she’d fall in love with the game and dedicate herself to it for years to come. 

Rugby may have swiped Gray’s heart, but basketball was her first love. The sport came naturally in the Gray family, with Jazamine’s mother, father and two brothers all achieving varying levels of success on the hardwood. Basketball became a significant element of her childhood ever since she started dribbling around the age of six.

Gray received interest in high school from some small college basketball programs, but she had one paramount goal in mind: play at the Division I level. Rather than go to a Division II school where she’d get immediate playing time, Gray decided to attend Norfolk State in a preferred walk-on spot with the plan of earning a scholarship when one became available after her first year.

The opportunity allowed Gray to conquer her lifelong dream of playing Division I basketball, but it also provided her with a great fit. She transitioned comfortably to life at an HBCU and made prompt friendships with her new teammates. Most importantly, though, Gray’s parents could make the trip up from Wardell, North Carolina, to support their daughter, with her mother making sure she attended every single home game.

Not only did Gray become a key contributor to the Spartans, she wasted no time in doing so. Gray competed in all 22 games of the 2011-12 season, averaging 5.8 minutes per contest and earning the team’s Rookie of the Year award. The 5-4 point guard attributed the quick results to her relentless drive to improve.

“That’s what gave me the edge over everybody else,” Gray said. “When other people wanted to rest or go out and party, I would just think what I could do to be better or get more playing time. [My coaches] would tell me you need to improve this, so I’d think okay, after my science class I’m gonna come to the gym so I can work on it.”

With the resources and coaching Norfolk State provided, Gray took her game to another level. She noticed a major difference in the specificity of instructions she received at the high school and collegiate levels, and once she got accustomed to this change, her development showed. 

“In high school it wasn’t as detailed, but [at NSU] they would tell you that you have to catch it like this and as soon as you catch it, move your elbow here,” Gray recalled. “It was so much more detailed and that was frustrating. But at the same time, the things that frustrate you motivate you to be better.”

Although she’d been told she’d receive a scholarship after her freshman season, Gray started to question if the reward would actually come. She complained to her dad on the phone in April of 2012 that she hadn’t heard any mention of the scholarship, and wondered if the coaching staff had forgotten about it.

Little did Gray know, she was only moments away from the exciting news. After the team completed a long 6 a.m. run in the Norfolk heat, Debra Clark, NSU’s head coach at the time, motioned for Gray to come forward in front of the rest of her teammates.

“For all your hard work, you’re going to be rewarded with a full scholarship,” Clark told Gray to an excited applause. “We appreciate all that you’ve done, and look forward to you continuing what you’ve been doing. It’s well deserved.”

To put it lightly, the news came as a relief to Gray.

“I was so surprised honestly because just the day before I was complaining to my dad, like ‘I can’t believe they lied to me, and then that happened,” she said. “That was a great moment for my career because I really worked so hard for that.”

Gray saw her playing time increase in her sophomore season, before becoming the team’s starting point guard as a junior. She averaged a career-best 4.2 assists per game in her senior campaign, and currently sits 17th in school history with 230 career dimes. 

While attending Norfolk State, Gray’s career focus shifted from working with special needs patients to owning her own fitness and training facility. She had always been a gym rat, but the interest grew when one of Gray’s NSU teammates asked her for help in developing a workout plan to lose weight in the offseason. 

Gray’s older brother started a gym called “Results Fitness” in Raleigh, North Carolina, so Jaz helped him out when she’d go home during the summer. After she received her degree from NSU, Gray took a larger role within the business and eventually became a part-owner. 

With her new career goals in full swing, it seemed Gray’s athletic career was over, from a competition standpoint at least. Although her job kept her in top physical shape, she hadn’t played serious basketball in years. 

Her aspirations dramatically changed in 2019 when a client at the gym suggested she attend a local tryout for a club rugby team. Never one to turn down a challenge, Gray remained open to the idea but admitted she had little to no knowledge of the game whatsoever. When the person encouraged her again a week later, she took him up on the offer.

“I couldn’t even tell you what was going on during that practice, I just remember deciding to come back again,” Gray said. “I just kept coming back and enjoying it.”

The competitive fire that earned her a scholarship at Norfolk State arose once again, and she soon began to dedicate her time to drills and training techniques that would make her a stronger player on the pitch. While most of her teammates had played since college or even high school, she had a lot of catching up to do.

Gray soon realized that many of the skills she acquired as a basketball player – deft hand-eye coordination, impeccable footwork, and elusive quickness – translated well to the pitch. She said that a few of her teammates also played basketball in college, although their exhausting schedules have kept them from playing much pickup in their free time together.

“A lot of things do translate over, I just have to use those skills in a different way,” Gray said. “It’s like instead of catching a ball to shoot, I’m catching it to evade somebody else. I guess it is pretty similar.”

Gray’s club eventually made the national championships, presenting a highly visible stage for her to showcase how far she’d come in the sport. Gray started receiving invites for different high-level USA training camps. 

Each camp gave Gray the chance to build her reputation on the national team, with the hopes of someday playing on an Olympic or World Cup team. When she attended her first “sevens” camp, the 7v7 style played in the Olympics, Gray found her skills on the court provided an unexpected boost after continuous rain moved the practices indoors.

“The fields were flooded so we had to go to this church across the street and we were in a basketball gym,” she said. “For warmups, they just had us throw a basketball around, playing 3v3 to see how we moved. I was in my element because, well, I play basketball.”

After that successful camp, the coaching staff asked Gray to move to Chula Vista, California to train and play rugby full-time, an offer she couldn’t refuse. 

Gray came excruciatingly close to achieving her dream for last year’s COVID-delayed Tokyo Olympics. 15 players make the trip – 13 on the roster plus two alternates – and a 16th person to stay in the United States who trains with the squad until the it leaves for Tokyo. That additional player was Gray.

She felt pride over making the list of 16 players, but also as expected, a sense of frustration in coming one spot away from the Olympic experience. She kept training rigorously, with her eyes set on contributing to future American rugby teams at global stages.

The World Cup sits next on the calendar, scheduled to begin in October 2022 after COVID postponed it a year. Gray won’t find out her status on that lineup until just a few weeks before, but she has taken strides to make herself a more valuable member of the team. She was selected to one of the 12-player tour rosters for the first time in December of 2021, helping the Americans win gold at a tournament in Spain. 

While her hard work and perseverance have mostly taken place behind closed doors, Gray finally received some recognition for her milestones in the form of a Sports Illustrated feature last month. The magazine featured Gray as part of its “Elle-evate: 100 Influential Black Women in Sports” series.

Although she’s come all this way, Gray wishes she had been introduced to the sport earlier in her life. She hopes that club rugby finds a home at Norfolk State someday, and felt she would have benefitted from a class that allowed beginners to explore the sport.

“Just getting it out there more is my goal,” she said. “They have a lacrosse class; they have a water aerobics class. I hope they have a rugby class at Norfolk State just to teach more people about it. It’s so body inclusive it’s just great for women. You don’t have to be a certain size or look a certain way to play rugby, it’s really for everybody and that’s what I love about it.”

While people sometimes associate rugby with a violent, dangerous style of play, Gray points out that it is actually much safer when properly regulated than other full-contact sports like football. Caution and technique are taught at the earliest stages of the sport, allowing boys and girls the chance to play the game with little to no potential of severe injury.

“I think it’s much safer and a safe contact sport for girls, because I’m sure there are some girls out there that want to get out some aggression too,” Gray said. “Girls can be rough, just like men can. It doesn’t have to be ‘oh, girls don’t do this and girls don’t do that,’ Yeah, we do. And we can do it better as well.”