Meet the newest addition to the UPB Team: Jordan Hamilton

October 20, 2022

By Madisen Carter

Jordan Hamilton has been playing the game of basketball since she was just three years old. Her parents always tell her the story about how they saw her shoot the ball with the perfect form when she was a toddler, and they knew from back then she would be successful in the sport. Hamilton played all throughout grade school into college, and is now using her talents at Unlimited Potential Basketball as a Player Development Coach. 

Growing up, Hamilton’s game was molded by her mother, Shawn, as she was Hamilton’s basketball coach from kindergarten all the way to eighth grade. Her mother was a big Los Angeles Lakers fan, and helped instill Kobe Bryant’s work ethic and mentality through various videos she would show her daughter. Hamilton said from there, she grew a love for the game and it never died out. 

Hamilton graduated from Frisco Liberty High School in 2017 before she started her college basketball career at Northwestern University. During her time at Northwestern, she totaled 833 points in four years and helped lead the team to their first Big Ten title in 30 years. She graduated with a communications degree in 2021. 

After graduating from Northwestern, Hamilton decided to work towards a masters degree in Liberal Arts and complete her final collegiate basketball season in the Bay Area at Stanford University. There, she was able to add on a Pac-12 Championship and Pac-12 Tournament Championship to her resume. She also met her current roommate, National Champion, Haley Jones. 

Jones was the connection to UPB and Coach Packie Turner for Hamilton. As UPB was looking to hire more female player development coaches, Jones mentioned to Packie that Hamilton would be a good fit to the team. Hamilton went into the facility with Jones, and she said being there around the athletes playing basketball really drew her in to want to work at UPB. 

Hamilton has been a part of the UPB team since the end of September and she has enjoyed how welcoming the team is. She said that she was nervous when she first started training since she is only one year out from playing, but she has become more comfortable in her new position due to the positive energy the athletes bring into the gym. 

“If you give good energy, I realized that they'll obviously reciprocate it. They are there for a reason, they want to get better. I just want to make sure that I'm utilizing their time to the best of my ability to make sure that they are getting something when they walk away from it every single day,” Hamilton said. “I'm enjoying it. I have high hopes for the future, and I just want to keep it going.”

At UPB, Hamilton trains athletes in both the group and private training sessions. When training the athletes at the facility, she envisions herself in their shoes. Since she was once in their position, there is one thing she always makes sure she implements during their sessions: be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

“Once you get past being okay with the familiar and you kind of step into that territory where it's like, ‘Oh, this is uncomfortable, this is hard, but I'm gonna do it anyways,’ that aspect of discipline, it makes you better,” Hamilton said. “That's where you start to see separation and growth in your game. I just want them to walk away knowing that pushing yourself is going to be what propels you to be ahead of other people.”

We are very excited to have Hamilton on the UPB Team and we cannot wait to see the difference she makes in the athlete’s game. Hamilton said she sees the game of basketball in all aspects of life, and that is what has kept Hamilton close to the game from being on the playing side of the ball to now teaching it to the next generation. 

“In the workplace, it's competition. Making friends and being a part of groups, it's camaraderie. It's knowing how to communicate with people. It's knowing people's tendencies and what they like and how to read people. Health and nutrition, it's maintaining your body [and] making sure that you're fueling it the right way [and] knowing that it's a vessel,” Hamilton said. “I just see basketball throughout life, and I feel like that's what keeps me connected to it.”