Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Jordan Hunter has done it all in her time on the Hewitt-Trussville High School basketball team.
Over the last six years, she has played every role conceivable for a guard. She’s come off the bench, she’s started and she’s led. She has been a defensive stalwart and an offensive weapon. At times, she’s a facilitator, getting her teammates involved. At others, she can get her own basket.
She is leaning on all of those experiences this season as the senior is leading the way for a Lady Huskies team with lofty goals over the final stretch.
“Her whole career she’s played different roles, and now she can play any role we need,” said Hewitt-Trussville head coach Tonya Hunter, also Jordan’s mother. “She’s doing it all.”
Hewitt-Trussville was off to a strong start heading into the most important part of the schedule: Class 7A, Area 6 play. The Lady Huskies won the Saint James Classic in November and earned wins over strong teams like Ramsay, Oxford and Mortimer Jordan in December. They were 15-4 entering the 2024 calendar year.
Staff photo.
Hewitt-Trussville’s Jordan Hunter (2) drives the ball past Hoover’s Melanie Hall (4) during an AHSAA class 7A championship basketball game between Hewitt-Trussville and Hoover in March 2019, at the BJCC’s Legacy Arena in Birmingham. Hunter is in her sixth year on the Lady Huskies varsity team.
Jordan Hunter has been a varsity player since her seventh grade year and has played in two 7A state championship games. In 2019, she became the first seventh grade girl to compete in a 7A title game. The Lady Huskies got back to the title game in her ninth grade season, both times falling to Hoover in the championship.
She has gained more and more confidence with each passing year. As a middle schooler, she remembers trying to find her fit amongst a group of older girls. Jordan Hunter said she settled into a groove during her sophomore year and has flourished ever since.
The last two years, Hewitt-Trussville has been stopped in the regional tournament, but this team has aims to get back to Birmingham for the state final four.
“I want this team to be playing really well at the end of the year, and I think they’re going to do it,” Tonya Hunter said. “We’re going to be all playing roles, so it’s going to be hard to stop just Jordan.”
To that point, while Jordan Hunter is the leading scorer for the Lady Huskies most nights, plenty of other players have shown an ability to make an impact. In a win over Oak Mountain on Jan. 9, five Lady Huskies reached double figures. Along with Jordan Hunter, Olivia Burton, Sara Phillips, Ashlyn Howard and Lauryn Holley all scored 11 or 12 points.
Others, such as Mia Ada, Amber Newman, Ryleigh Martin and Kennedy Gill, have been contributing on a regular basis as well. It has proven to be a positive mix of players and personalities.
“With this team, every day is so fun,” Jordan Hunter said. “I want to make sure I enjoy it, because it’s not always like that. I want to get as far as possible, not only for me, but for them, because I see how hard they work and how passionate they are.”
As of press time, she was bearing down on 2,000 career points and was recently named a nominee for the McDonald’s All-American Game. She has also been involved in several other aspects of the Trussville community, including several extracurricular activities through high school.
She grew up watching her mom coach highly successful teams at Shades Valley and was in elementary school when Tonya Hunter led the Mounties to the 2014 state championship.
Jordan Hunter was initially more interested in running around the gym and having fun as a young kid, but she remembers how each of those Shades Valley teams embraced her and treated her like a younger sister. Her love for the game grew, and she has now blossomed into a player heading to Auburn University next year.
At Auburn, she is excited to play for Johnnie Harris, who is in her third year and has done a solid job of building the program. The recruiting process was not Jordan Hunter’s favorite, but she really enjoyed getting to know the coaching staff and being around the program.
“They’re just phenomenal people and they care about you outside of basketball,” she said.
After having been around her mom’s teams her whole life, not much surprises Jordan Hunter anymore. She will nudge a younger teammate in practice occasionally, predicting that they are about to catch the head coach’s ire and be forced to run a few laps up and down the court.
It’s been a family affair for the Hunters over the years. Tonya’s husband, Cedric, is on staff as an assistant. Their older son, Jaxon, played at Hewitt-Trussville and in college, and he is now a graduate assistant with the UAB women’s program.
Coaching her daughter has not always been the easiest thing, but Tonya Hunter would not trade the experience for anything.
“I’ve enjoyed every moment of it, and I’m still enjoying every moment of it,” she said.
