Blue Chip Intern Jordan Santa Maria Discovers Wide-Open Doors of Opportunity at Stan State
Jordan Santa Maria is a student, college basketball player, podcaster, soon-to-be-graduate, budding basketball coach and a great example of how one person can take advantage of the doors that Stan State can open.
Sometimes, all you need to do to open that door is to ask.
Coming out of high school in Alameda, the communications major (psychology minor) declined a partial basketball scholarship to Dominican University to attend Stanislaus State, thinking that his basketball career might be over.
But at the start of his second year at Stan State, he knew that playing competitive basketball was an itch that needed more scratching, so he approached men’s basketball coach Larry Reynolds about trying out for the team as a non-scholarship walk-on player.
That was Santa Maria’s Ask No. 1.
“I got a tryout and was scared, but after two weeks I got a nameplate on top of my locker, so I knew I’d made the team,” Santa Maria said. “From there, it was a matter of competing every day and getting better.”
By the time the 2017-18 season came around, Santa Maria had earned playing time, and saw action in about half the Warriors’ games this season. Earlier in his career he got the chance to speak with Stan State athletics radio voices Eric Davis and Bryan Nelson of Blue Chip Broadcasting and was intrigued. He inquired if they needed an intern.