Daily News | Westtown looks for a state title with Rutgers recruit Kaylene Smikle. First, the versatile wing found her footing
Kaylene Smikle had excelled on the floor for Long Island Lutheran and built a reputation as a top player for Exodus NYC on the Nike Girls EYBL circuit. Her parents wanted her to find a place free from distraction.
“I didn’t even imagine myself leaving for high school,” Smikle said. “I’m the youngest, so it’s hard for me to leave home since I’ve been home so long … I’ve always been [at] a school like 30 minutes away from home, so going to school three hours away from home was hard for me. Burbidge came to Westtown in 2019 with decades of experience in coaching girls’ basketball. He had coached nine McDonald’s All-Americans and 11 Gatorade State Players of the Year prior to joining the Moose, and his most recent career stop involved coaching on the Nike EYBL circuit with the Philadelphia Belles. Over the course of his career, Burbidge built up a style of coaching that sometimes takes new players time to adjust to. Smikle’s case was no exception.
“If you’re going to be that player, and if you’re going to be successful at that next level — which your talent dictates you can be — there’s other things you got to work on,” Burbidge said. “My thing that I say to Kaylene, and I’ve said it to all the kids that I’ve had over the years, is that ‘we want you to be better prepared for the intangibles that come along at that next level.’”
Smikle’s success at Westtown didn’t just help her rocket up recruiting rankings, but it also gave her a bigger audience during her games. When she took the floor, schools were watching. While it might have made some recruits nervous, it excited Smikle. After being classified as a big for much of her early career, Smikle welcomed the chance to prove to people that she could have an impact not as a big, but as a 6-foot wing.
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