Character Quote: “I leave it all out on the court.”
Name: Katrina Jordan Clark
Aliases: Kat, KC7 - her initials and her jersey number
Age: 18
Birthday: June 14, 1998
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: A mess so jumbled, Kat considers it a disservice to people of actual ethnicities to say anything but American.
Birthplace: Arroyo Grande, California, just south of Pismo Tech
Current Residence: Dorms
Gender: Female
Education: Undeclared; being a student athlete, Kat is taking general education classes until she can make her way into the WNBA.
Job: N/A
Height: 6’5
Weight: 170 lbs
Build: Lean, but strong muscle
Eyes: Green
Hair: Long, dirty blonde hair, often tied up in a bun or ponytail
Skin Tone: Fair
Tattoos/Scars/Piercings: Ear piercings and a belly button piercing
Personal Style: Being the up-and-coming basketball star that she is, Kat is sure to make herself presentable at all times. Her style of dress can be typically be summarized as a mix between a 90’s punk rock chick and a rich girl.
Her look involves a heavy amount of flannel shirts and ripped jeans, though the average cost of Kat’s outfits is somewhere around a few hundred dollars. Her clothes are all designer or brand-name, even though she so often looks like a rebel fighting the system. A good idea of what to expect out of a KC7 casual outfit is a plaid flannel button-up, long sleeved, over a shirt or top that cost somewhere well into the hundreds. Skinny jeans, ripped to perfection and if not black, a bright, eye-catching color such as red or yellow, capped off with unreasonably priced boots.
Relentlessly Positive * Unfocused * Confident * Arrogant
Sexuality: Lesbian
Relationship Status: Single
Personality: The trauma Kat suffered in recent months has shaken her, though she’s done well to mask her pain. She’s often covering her pain with a veil of happy-go-lucky optimism, allowing problems to flow by her and not really tackling any of them head-on. She deflects stress and conflict with humor, rarely seeking out serious, long-term resolutions to her problems. Despite this, Kat carries a natural charisma with her, often making her an appealing person to get to know.
Before her mother’s passing, Kat’s primary focus was basketball. To an extent, it still is, but the losing her mother has veered her focus off course slightly. Rather than playing basketball to hone her skills and improve as an athlete, she plays as a distraction to keep her mind away from her grief. She’s been quickly losing interest in the game, as she questions more and more the reasons of playing without having her mother around to support her. Without that singular focus on basketball, Kat has found herself feeling more and more lost and without a real purpose. She knows that one day she can go back to being the hyper-motivated basketball prodigy she once was, but first, she needs to take time to recover and find herself during her year away from the game.
In short, she’s a lost soul hiding behind relentless optimism and positivity that can be a little arrogant about her basketball talent, but isn’t really sure how committed she is to basketball any more.
Habits: Kat can sometimes get hyperfocused on whatever she’s doing, causing her to tune out the world around her. She’s also known to assign those around her nicknames based on basketball positions, those being point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center, with numerical designations of 1 through 5 for each position, respectively. She assigns positions based on her people’s personality traits - if she thinks their personality fits a point guard, she calls them point guard, PG, or 1. There’s a lot of overlap between nicknames, since she knows more than five people, which can be problematic when two positions are with Kat at the same time. (For the record, Kat plays the small forward position, and likes it when her friends call her as such.)
Hobbies: If she’s not playing basketball or socializing, Kat loves playing video games or playing guitar. She skateboards in her free time, too.
Fears:- Losing her basketball ability
- Losing her father
- Being forgotten
Likes:- Basketball (Duh.)
- Punk rock music (Current favorite band: Modern Baseball.)
- Hamburgers (Will kill for a good burger.)
- Video games (Plays a mean game of NBA 2K, but she’s also quite the RPG addict.)
- Girls’ butts (May or may not get caught staring a little too often.)
- Skateboarding (If she wasn’t a basketball prodigy, she’d probably be trying to be a pro skateboarder.)
Dislikes:- Football (Repects their athleticism and sportsmanship, but what the hell kind of game is football?)
- EDM (It just annoys her.)
- Hot dogs (What are those things even made of?)
- Strong sweet scents (They give her headaches, but she likes the alliteration.)
- Cats (She’s allergic. Cute, though, but keep them away from her.)
- Social Media (She appreciates the positives, but despises the negatives.)
A Memory: She picked up the inbounds pass, glancing up for a split second to check the scoreboard - 55-54, with Arroyo Grande HS down one, and only fourteen seconds to go in the game. Kat shook her head in disappointment; if she had just made that last three, they’d be up two instead of down one. But she couldn’t focus on the misses. The only thing important in these moments were the shots that found their way in.
As she crossed the half court line, her team backed up to the baseline, isolating Kat and her defender at the top of the three point arc. Kat grinned, slouching low and meeting her defender’s eyes. A quick glance at the clock - nine seconds left. Kat dribbled away four more seconds, switching hands and crossing between her legs to shake her defender’s confidence.
“I'm making this shot, and you're losing,” Kat taunted. She jabbed her right leg forwards before crossing the ball back to her left; her defender stumbled off to the side, leaving KC7 for the final open shot. She took several steps closer to the basket then rose up for the shot, releasing the ball quickly and smoothly. As she came down, two members of the opposing team blitzed passed her, desperate to stop the ball from leaving her hands and making it to the basket. They bumped Kat, causing her to lose her balance and miss seeing the result of the shot.
The buzzer blared through the auditorium, and the next thing Kat knew, she was being hugged from every direction. She fought her way out of the crowd, catching a glimpse of the scoreboard: 56-55, Arroyo Grande HS taking the win. For the third time, KC7 would be raising that state trophy above her head in victory.
History: Born the same day that Michael Jordan took the Bulls to the 1998 NBA title, Kat Clark always seemed destined for a life of basketball greatness. By the age of five, she was outdribbling her father in their backyard court, shooting over his head and dancing around him as often as she could. By middle school, Kat was gaining the attention of national basketball media as a rising basketball force, her highlight passes and dribble moves attracting all who would come to watch.
Her first three years of high school were marked by her success on the court, carrying her team to the California state title each year, as well as being named an All-American athlete. Her reputation as a rising star only increased, as fans around the nation were itching to see KC7 make it to the pros. However, her senior year derailed those plans; her first game of the year, Kat landed awkwardly following a simple layup, breaking her ankle on the way down. She was ruled out for the season, dealing a blow to her basketball stock. Despite the injury, Kat still found herself being heavily recruited by colleges with the best basketball programs available, as recruiters and scouts maintained the belief that Kat Clark could become a superstar in the WNBA.
But senior year had other plans for Kat. As the year neared its end, Kat’s mother fell deathly ill, completely bedridden and unable to fend for herself. Kat, fearing for her mother’s health, declined all the scholarship offers on the table, effectively sabotaging her own basketball career at the same time. Instead, she stayed local, registering for the more local Pismo Tech. The school had a decent basketball program, and the nature of California college sports meant that she could still stay on the national radar and make it as a pro further down the line. Delaying her career was a risk she was willing to take if it meant caring for her mother.
Midway through the summer, though, Kat’s mother passed away in her sleep, leaving behind a grieving Kat and her father. Citing emotional trauma, as well as the need to get back into physical shape, Kat contacted Pismo Tech’s women’s basketball coach, asking for a year off from the team. Coach obliged, giving Kat the proper time she needed to recover physically and emotionally in order to kickstart her basketball career yet again. She plans to get most of her gen ed courses out of the way during her first year at Pismo Tech, while she retrains her basketball skills and tries to move on from the trauma of losing her mother in order to rejoin the team sophomore year and pave her way back to national recognition as basketball’s top talent.
Theme Song:
everybody gonna die, gonna go one day, maybe it'll happen on a monday
driving to work and get hit by a hyundai, fuck it, let it all go one day
I know, I'mma get it like this, living that life while they all reminisce...
fade away, fade away
they gon' know my name until it fade away...
Anything Else: N/A
