Meet the Ransoms

Jessica Ransom looks like a typical college freshman, complete with braided blond hair and a perpetual smile. She goes to school, plays a little basketball then goes home.

That’s the way Norman Rockwell might draw it anyway.

Rockwell would probably omit the fulltime job, the rental property she manages and of course, the husband. Or that she often drops Jason Ransom off at work –the newlyweds are getting by with one car – and picks him up after she is finished with work or practice. That’s a lot for a 22-year old who has not been in school or played competitive basketball in four years.

“It’s weird being a college kid and having the responsibilities of a house and a car,” Ransom said after her six points help MCC to a win over Bristol CC in mid-January. “It’s a different world.”

Ransom graduated from Windham Tech in 2004 as Jessica Lange and went straight to work for PDQ, an aerospace firm in Rocky Hill. Going to college was always in Jessica’s plans, it was just a matter of when. This past fall, she enrolled at MCC as a paralegal major, not long after marrying Jason Ransom, whom she met after high school. On May 3rd, the Vernon residents will celebrate their first wedding anniversary – perhaps with a game of one-on-one.

“We play against each other all the time,” Jason said. “I give her a lot of credit and am proud of her. We talked about it (resuming her basketball career) before the season and I said, ‘are you sure you want to do this?’ But it’s what she wants to do and she is good at it.” Jason goes to as many home and away games as his job as the Sales Manager at Staples in Vernon allows. And if he can’t make it, there are usually at least a half-dozen friends and family members in the stands cheering for Jessica and her Cougar teammates.

“It took a while to get back into the school thing,” Jessica said. “It was hard at first – I had been out of it for four years. School-wise, it’s easier now that I’ve been in, but it’s still tough time-wise.”
Though Jessica kept in shape during the layoff from competition, her first few weeks as a college basketball player did not come easy. “It was a shocker,” she said of Head Coach Robert Turner’s early season practices. “It was very tough. I wasn’t in that kind of shape though I never stopped working out. It’s much easier now.”

The car-pooling Ransoms juggle their careers and schedules and still manage to take care of a rental property they own together. “The rental property takes time and she handles it all,” Jason said with pride. “And I don’t want to call her a homemaker, but she takes care of everything around the house, manages our personal lives, pays the bills…And always with a smile.”

Jessica’s efforts on and off the court have not gone unnoticed among her teammates and coaches.

“Jess is like the mother of the team,” sophomore Shanika Hines said. “She keeps everyone together – she’s the most mature person on the team and helps everybody and comes to practice every time. She’s a good player for us.”

“The girls look up to her,” MCC Assistant Coach Katie Chilberg said. “She’s a little older, married and has a lot of responsibilities. She knows how to have fun, so she brings that fun yet mature aspect to the team.”

Jessica made it through her first semester as a married, working, full-time intercollegiate student-athlete, and wants to take her game to a higher level next year.

“She is starting to turn around and improving a lot,” Chilberg said, noting how difficult it must be to jump back into competition after being away so long. “She has a lot of work to do if she wants to play another year, but she has the drive and motivation to be there.”
“ It’s stressful, but after going through this, I can do anything,” Jessica said. With a smile, of course.