Basketball, Soccer
Favorite athlete: Russell Westbrook
Favorite team: Columbia WBB
Favorite memory competing in sports: making it to playoffs sophomore year
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When Coach Taylor hit the Griddy
Music on playlist: Taylor Swift
Future plans: Study chemical engineering and play basketball at MIT
Words to live by: “Do now what you’ll be glad you did later.”
One goal before turning 30: Eat so much food
One thing people don’t know about me: I love Harry Potter
By Mary Jane Souder
Alice Hall’s name occupies a permanent spot in the record books at Hatboro-Horsham.
The senior captain ensured that when she became just the seventh player in program history to surpass the elusive 1,000-point milestone, the first since Jessica Romano accomplished that feat in 2005. (Hall was born in 2004.)
While there’s no denying the magnitude of that accomplishment, basketball has been just a piece – albeit an important piece – of Hall’s packed life during her four years at Hatboro-Horsham.
The vice president of her senior class, Hall was second in her class before class rankings were dropped (although it’s safe to say she’s still at the top of her class). She is the copy editor-in-chief of the school’s award-winning yearbook. She is also a member of the National Honor Society and LINK Crew. Hall is a leader of the school’s Black Student Union, and she is one of four generals for the school’s upcoming Spirit Week, a school-wide week of competition that includes 50 events – everything from an academic bowl to badminton to Mario Kart.
“It’s crazy – everyone is very serious about it,” Hall said. “If you have a friend on the other team, you don’t talk to them.”
This past November, she began a paid internship with Dow Chemical.
“It’s pretty cool,” Hall said. “I want to go into chemical engineering, so it’s important I see chemistry actually as a job. It’s all virtual, so I get the work done whenever I can. I really like it.”
Hall is involved in a myriad of volunteer activities, including intramural basketball coaching, peer tutoring through NHS and green days at the local nature center.
Hall also is a four-year varsity player on the soccer team, this year earning the starting spot at center defensive back.
“Alice was injured all of her sophomore year but still attended every practice and game to support and cheer on her teammates,” HH coach Kelsey Daley said. “Her senior year is where she really stepped up for the soccer program. Every day she showed up and gave 100 percent.
“She unfortunately got injured halfway through the season and missed the rest of the regular season but was able to come back for our historic playoff run. She led the team in leadership, dedication and heart. She was always the first one to cheer you up and be there for you and was our team’s hype woman. Alice is truly an amazing student-athlete, and I am honored to have coached her in soccer and know her as a person. She has a very bright future ahead of her and I can’t wait to see what she does.”
It might have been understandable if Hall had walked away from soccer – her secondary sport - or decided that competing in any sport just simply required too much time.
That was never a consideration.
“I have so many friends on the teams,” Hall said. “Sports also taught me a lot of mental toughness and time management. I find it harder to get schoolwork done when I have free time, so I really appreciate that.
“I think it’s almost made me a stronger person. I think it makes everyone who plays just stronger people because you learn to handle whatever’s thrown at you.”
Underscoring Hall’s enjoyment of sports is the fact that she will continue her basketball career next year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“I honestly wasn’t sure I wanted to play basketball, but once I started looking at D-3’s that were high in academics like MIT, Johns Hopkins and Chicago, I started thinking it might be the right balance because I do want to keep basketball in my life,” Hall said. “I love it, and I thought MIT would be the perfect balance. I could focus on academics, but I still get basketball in my everyday life.”
*****
Hall grew up playing “basically everything.” In addition to basketball and soccer, she did stints in t-ball/softball (which she disliked immensely), lacrosse, field hockey and track.
Basketball was always at the top of her list, and she began competing on the AAU circuit in fourth grade, most recently playing for New Hope-Solebury coach Steve Polinsky’s Rebels Basketball Academy.
“I had a lot of fun coaching Alice,” Polinsky said. “She is a special kid. She worked so hard on her game. and it’s nice to see her hard work paid off.”
Since ninth grade, Hall has worked with a trainer, Council Rock North boys’ coach Jesse Krasna, and she has worked as a camp counselor/coach at his basketball camps and clinics.
“Alice is such a great kid,” Krasna said. “I remember our first training session like it was yesterday. We were inside at the old Charger Nation in Feasterville, and I left that workout impressed.
“She was raw offensively but picked up on new concepts/movements so quickly. She is focused and driven. Incredibly coachable and eager to learn. She would probably tell you early on in high school she was not a confident shooter and would never score 1,000 points in her high school career, but the potential has always been there, and she made it happen.”
Hall acknowledged that scoring a thousand points sounded like a pipe dream.
“My freshman year, one of the assistant coaches said something to me about it, and I literally thought he was crazy – I did not know what he was talking about,” Hall said. “I didn’t really know how big a deal it was.
“Going into this year, a lot of people were talking about it, but especially going through COVID (a shortened season), it just didn’t seem like it would be possible with the limited games.”
A teammate, Maggie Smith, became Hall’s own personal cheerleader.
“She was like ‘You’re going to get a thousand,’ and every game she would tell me how many points were left,” Hall said. “She had it all in her notes, so it was really on the brain this year but before then it wasn’t.”
Hall entered her team’s home game against Plymouth Whitemarsh needing just eight points.
“I was really concerned about getting the points,” Hall said. “I was like, ‘Guys, seriously, don’t go too crazy with getting balloons and stuff because the last time I played PW I only scored three points,’ so I was really worried about it,” Hall said. “At the game, a ton of students were there. They were actually coming from preparing for our Spirit Week, and I’m a general for that.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, they have to go back upstairs and work because we have a lot to get done, so as soon as I saw them, I was like, ‘Now, I have to hurry and get them faster,’ so that made me so much more nervous. Instead of thinking I had the whole game to score eight – now I have to score them in the next two minutes.”
Hall had six points when she was fouled and sank the first of two foul shots but missed the second.
“That was crazy,” said Hall, who buried the historic basket from the top of the key at the buzzer ending the first half. “I was honestly just shocked because it was done now.
“After having Maggie tell me every game how many points I had left, I was like, ‘Wow, there’s no more left.’ It was a weird feeling. There was a picture of me right after it, and my jaw dropped. Maggie said, ‘Nothing matters now.’”
Both Hall and coach Eric Glemser would counter that argument.
“Now I just want to focus on getting to the (district) playoffs,” Hall said. “We were in the playoffs sophomore year, and it was actually brutal – we were winning by like 13 points with three minutes left and we lost. I’d like to win a playoff game this year. We’ll see.”
“This was a great achievement – 2005 was the last one, and that’s a long time,” Glemser said. “The goal this year is to get to the playoffs and win a playoff game. She hasn’t won a playoff game – 06-07 was the last playoff win.
“I’ve coached Alice and Emily (Thomas) in seventh and eighth grade, so I really rely on them. We try and get Alice the ball. We have numerous plays for her. I talk to her about what we want to do and run it through her. Everything has to go through her. There are times we get a little crazy and try to force it to her.
“She’s very unself, too unselfish at times. She’s a smart kid. She sees a lot on the court, and she’s a good leader. Her teammates like her – they all like each other. She’s a great kid.”
This season, Hall is averaging close to 15 points a game.
“Alice transformed herself into an offensive weapon through her hard work and dedication,” Krasna said. “She was open-minded to modifying her shooting form and worked tirelessly on her own to form good habits.
“At the start of the pandemic, we continued working together on Zoom since we couldn't be in person, and I could see she was making more shots and feeling comfortable with her new shot. Few high school kids were setting their laptop up in the sun for a workout, but she has this burning desire to become great and took full advantage of that extra time at home. The game results and confidence in her shot followed.”
The fact that Hall is able to continue her basketball career at MIT is almost a bonus of sorts.
“MIT recently hired a new coach, so I was not able to start talking to her until sometime in 2021,” Hall said. “I reached out to her, and she explained that MIT’s recruitment process is different from most schools because they are unable to guarantee athletes admission or an early read of their application.
“Instead, if I decided MIT was where I wanted to go, I would have to apply with the rest of the applicants and wait to hear back with everyone else. I knew the balance of academics and basketball was exactly what I wanted. However, it was not until after my official visit, where I fell in love with the school overall, that I decided I would tell the other schools I was talking to that I planned to wait to see if I got in. I only applied to MIT and as soon as I got in, I committed.”
According to Krasna, MIT is inheriting a special player.
“The best part about Alice is she is a selfless teammate, leader and she is nowhere near the player she can be after four years of college,” he said. “Her best basketball is still ahead.”
