Another Brooks In Blacksburg
Spotswood Senior Chloe Brooks Will Join Father, Sister At Virginia Tech
By PHIL D’ABBRACCIO | Daily News-Record Apr 6, 2018

HARRISONBURG — A little more than two years ago, Kenny Brooks was mulling the toughest decision of his life.

His wife, Chrissy, was on board with the potential move to Virginia Tech from James Madison, as were their daughters, Kendyl and Gabby.

But breaking the news to Chloe, his middle daughter, was a conversation that still shakes Kenny up to this day.

“She wasn’t happy, but she wanted me to take it because she didn’t want me to lose out on this opportunity because I deserved it, and when she said that, man, I just totally lost it. Totally lost it,” Kenny said. “That’s how powerful it was, but it just showed me as much as she loved her life and loved Harrisonburg and JMU and everything about it, she loved me even more and respected me and wanted me to have the opportunity to go and take on this task.”

Before long, Chloe will be alongside Kenny and Kendyl in Blacksburg as the Hokies look to continue their upward trajectory in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Chloe, a 5-foot-10 guard and four-year varsity player for Spotswood, will sign a letter of intent with her father’s Virginia Tech women’s basketball program this upcoming signing period, Kenny said this week.

“I’m really excited to not only play for my dad and I love all his assistant coaches and everything, but to play with my sister again is gonna be so fun,” Chloe said. “And I think that’s probably the thing I’ve missed most in my last two years of high school was being able to play with her because for the most part we knew exactly where each other were going to be.”

Chloe and Kendyl, a 5-10 sophomore guard at Tech, last played together on the Trailblazers’ 2016 state championship team, hugging each other first before adding to their teammates’ post-buzzer dog-pile.

“I’m excited for her to come. I’m excited to watch her grow up,” Kendyl said. “Not many people get to go to college with their sisters.

“I’m excited to see her every day and play on the same team as her again. I think she’ll bring a lot of energy and good leadership and she’ll be just sort of like the glue to our team.”

That was among Chloe’s roles at Spotswood, where she was a second-team All-Valley District choice as a junior.

As a sophomore, she was the starting point guard for SHS’s title-winning team before transitioning to more of a shooting guard and even coming off the bench as a senior after a foot injury kept her sidelined for the first 11 games.

“She’s very good at adapting to her role and doing what’s asked of her, contributing, executing what needs to be done,” Kendyl said.

Chloe underwent surgery to have two bone spurs removed from her left foot before this past season began. She then appeared in 16 games, tallying 7.5 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game.

She’d posted averages of five points, 3.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists in her junior season.

“She didn’t really have a senior year,” Kenny said, adding that his intention is to redshirt Chloe as a freshman. “She kind of rushed back into it just to try to be able to compete as they went down the stretch. Really having a year to train properly and get here without any expectations I think is going to do wonders for her not only mentally, but physically.”

Chloe saved her best basketball, however, for the postseason, even though she still wasn’t 100 percent healthy, she said.

The guard hit 13 3-pointers combined in Spotswood’s six playoff games — including two huge 3s to edge Brookville for the Class 3 Region C title and five triples in the state quarterfinal loss to Lord Botetourt.

Blazers coach Chris Dodson said her emergence as a perimeter threat and high basketball IQ should give her a chance to earn minutes as a Hokie.

“Chloe is so much, I think, like Kenny in the way that she thinks,” Dodson said. “She can step off the floor and tell you exactly what’s happening on the floor. She can have a coach-type conversation with you during the timeout or when she steps off the floor about an adjustment we can make to do something better, something she may see that you don’t see in the mix of things.”

Chloe will become the eighth SHS girls player since Dodson took over the Blazers in 2002 to sign a Division I scholarship and the first since Kendyl.

Chloe enjoys listening to the Tech staff’s scouting reports and watching film with her father, who said her “tremendous” basketball IQ makes up for whatever she lacks in athleticism.

He’s confident, though, that strength and conditioning coach Greg Werner — who held the same role for most of Kenny’s 14 seasons at James Madison — can enhance Chloe’s physique as he did Kendyl’s.

Kendyl said she can see Chloe helping Tech at both guard positions, and Kenny agreed while commending Chloe’s competitiveness as her greatest attribute.

“As you start to build a program, culture is extremely important and who knows better than what I want than she does, so she’s looking forward to it,” Kenny said. “She’s a smart player, probably one of the smartest players that I’ve been around.”

Although college coaches are forbidden from publicly commenting on their unsigned recruits, Kenny — like he was when Kendyl initially committed to his JMU program — is allowed to discuss his daughters.

“That was Kenny Brooks, the dad, talking to you right there,” the Waynesboro native and ex-JMU point guard quipped.

While Kenny and Kendyl’s relationship has tightened the last two years due to their new location, Kenny and Chloe’s bond has strengthened through distance, as the family splits its time between the Harrisonburg and Blacksburg areas.

Chloe has been able to tag along for some trips to Hokies games — including their run to the WNIT championship game — and accompanied her father as a spectator to last year’s Final Four in Dallas.

“Not that we took anything for granted,” Chloe said, “but once you’re away from someone in your family that you’re with all the time, you cherish those moments that you’re together a lot more.”

Kenny said he’s proud of Chloe for the motherly role that his middle daughter has had to assume, often driving Gabby to or from school and sometimes cooking for her younger sister when Chrissy is unavailable.

“Sometimes I wonder who’s older, her or Kendyl, just because she’s more of the caretaker and makes sure that everything in the family is going well,” Kenny said.

Chloe said her father’s life-altering choice two years ago has been a challenge for the family, but made the entire group closer.

The Brooks clan will be even tighter in a few months.

“I knew I always wanted to play for him,” Chloe said, “… and watching Kendyl get so much better in such a short amount of time, it’s just a rewarding feeling, so I definitely just knew I wanted to go there once he got there.”