Carmel basketball star Jordan Wood has a personal hero.
That’s neither a famous person nor someone she has never met.
In fact, you don’t have to be around her for long before you meet this person.
Jordan Wood’s mother, Tereca, has raised two daughters by herself.
“A lot of people are very fortunate to have two parents, but I don’t really look at it as a downside, like I don’t have two parents,” she said. “I have my mom, and that’s all I need. We’re really close.”
Jordan Wood, a 6-foot-5 guard/forward and top 100 recruit nationally who has committed to play at Michigan State, gets her height from her father, who is 6-6, and her mother, a 6-3 former softball player who is a graduate of Senn High School in Chicago.
But Tereca Wood has provided everything else for Jordan and her younger sister, Autumn, an eighth grader who plays volleyball and will go to Carmel next year.
“My mom does it all,” Jordan Wood said. “She took on the parent role of mom and dad, so she’s always been that. That’s more than enough.”
Being a single parent, of course, is not easy, but Tereca Wood said she embraced it from the start. She is a fierce advocate for herself and her daughters and has no regrets.
“I don’t really take it as, ‘Oh, you’re a single parent,'” she said. “I’m just a parent. It’s something that I took on that I wanted, and I was finally able to have someone to love and who loves me back. Both of my girls are my strength. They keep me pushing.
“I will go over and beyond for them. I think that helps them, knowing that they want to work hard. That’s their way to say thank you.”
Jordan Wood said she and countless other young people have a lot to be thankful for because of Tereca Wood, a paraprofessional who works as a teaching assistant.
“She’s definitely one of those people who puts everybody else’s needs before her own,” Jordan Wood said. “She has to make sure her family is good and all of her students and co-workers are good.
“She is definitely one of those caregiving people. She’s even been to my games when she was sick. She’d sit away from everybody and wear a mask. She’s really dedicated to watching me and supporting me.”
Others have taken notice.
Benet star guard Lenee Beaumont, an Indiana recruit, met Jordan Wood on the AAU circuit when they were in seventh grade. They have since become besties.
“We would go to Blue Star camps and these elite showcases, and I’d always see this mom there, and at the time I had no idea who it was,” Beaumont said. “She was always there.
“Eventually everyone knew who Mrs. Wood was because she’s the best person ever. Jordan is constantly looking at her mom for advice, and her mom is always there for her.”
‘Do you play basketball?’
Tereca Wood said she was 6-3 when she was 14 years ago but never played basketball competitively. Nonetheless, she introduced Jordan to the sport — and others — early.
“Her second birthday was a basketball-themed birthday,” Tereca Wood said. “We had it at the Y. Then she started playing in kindergarten.
“I wanted her to have an opportunity to pick a sport, whether it was swimming, basketball, baseball or softball, whatever. She played around with a lot of it, but she really started liking basketball.”
Jordan Wood doesn’t recall that birthday party at the YMCA, but she has many fond memories of bonding with her mom and her sister, often on the couch with a Chicago sporting event on the TV.
“My mom, my sister and I would always dress up and watch the Bears game together,” Jordan Wood said. “We’d all wear Bears jerseys or Bulls jerseys.
“Sports are a really big deal in my family, so growing up those are some of my earliest memories, watching sports with them.”
In a kindergarten assignment, Jordan Wood wrote her career goal was to play in the WNBA. The writings of a 5-year-old, of course, can be taken with a grain of salt, and she said she wasn’t fixated on a basketball future at the time.
“We got a hoop, and my mom just started me off playing it,” Jordan Wood said. “I didn’t really take it seriously until seventh grade, though, because I would just play for fun because of my height.
“People would ask me, ‘Do you play basketball?’ ‘Oh, yes, I do.’ Seventh grade, I started taking it seriously, and that’s when I knew I wanted to play in college and possibly the WNBA.”
She got an up-close look at life in the WNBA when she was in grade school. Tereca Wood had season tickets to Chicago Sky games, and the team offered Jordan Wood a job as a junior reporter.
“She worked for the Chicago Sky in third and fourth grades, and that was a really good opportunity for her to see empowering women in sports,” Tereca Wood said. “She’d walk around the arena interviewing fans and players.
“They were so genuine with her and always willing to answer questions. To this day, she trains with Jewell Loyd sometimes, and Sylvia Fowles has been a very good communicator with her as well.”
Jordan Wood is outgoing and comfortable talking with adults, a trait that grew out of her time with the Sky.
“It helps a lot with communication skills,” she said. “Being able to interview those players, I felt it helped me for when I get interviewed.
“It helped a lot with the confidence. I wasn’t really nervous. It helped me see the possibilities by learning how those people were able to make it like that.”
She became more outgoing, her mother noticed.
“When she started working for the Sky as a junior reporter, I think that’s what helped her step out of the box and helped her being able to talk to reporters, like at state when they had to have a little press conference,” Tereca Wood said. “Even the coaches say that has helped a lot.”
Picking a college
Jordan Wood utilized her personal skills while interacting with college coaches. Tereca Wood was with her for every step of the recruiting process but let her lead the way.
“I actually took a back seat,” Tereca Wood said. “I let her make all the decisions herself, although I had to drive her (to campus visits). She’d say, ‘Oh, mom, we’re going to so-and-so tomorrow.’ Oh, OK.”
Jordan Wood had offers and interest from dozens of Division I programs, including most of the Big Ten teams.
“She asked me for my input, and I gave it to her, but all in all, it’s her decision,” Tereca Wood said. “This is where she’s going to spend the next four years of her life, and I wanted her to make a decision that she was really confident in.”
That’s exactly what happened. Mother and daughter agreed on the top choices before Jordan Wood picked Michigan State.
“We had a little list of ‘if you go here, you’ll be on the team with so-and-so, but if you go here, you’ll play against this person,'” Tereca Wood said. “After talking to different coaches, our top five was probably the same. But every visit, it was, ‘Mom, they’re not Michigan State. I love Michigan State.'”
For many parents, the hardest part of guiding their kids through the recruiting process is deciding which coaches to trust. Tereca Wood overcame those fears by giving her daughter the skills to be able to figure out who is trustworthy.
“I’m a very independent person, so I try to instill that in the girls — be independent, go for what you want,” Tereca Wood said. “If it’s something you want, you have to work hard for it because nothing is going to be handed to you.
“I think for parents, trust in yourself that you’ve put the values into your child to make good decisions, but then trust that if they have questions, they can come ask you and feel comfortable talking to you about anything. Because I never want her to feel that she can’t come to me.”
Jordan Wood also knows she can go to Carmel coach Ben Berg for advice.
“She’s done a wonderful job of entrusting myself and the other coaches who are trying to help her reach the best of her ability, whatever that may be,” Berg said. “That’s a really good thing, and I think it sets her up to hopefully do some special things at Michigan State and beyond.”
Berg also is a kindred spirit of sorts with Tereca Wood. They both are raising their kids by themselves.
“I know what that’s like,” Berg said. “My wife passed in 2009 from breast cancer when she was 37. My kids were 2, 6 and 7.
“Every situation is a little bit different, but it’s hard. It takes on a new meaning when they’re the only one there.”
Two of Berg’s three children are playing college sports, and his daughter is a sophomore at Carmel, which he said has become a second home of sorts for his family, just as it has for the Woods.
That’s why the Class 3A state championship the Corsairs won in March was so special for them. Jordan Wood had 12 points, three assists and two blocks in Carmel’s 43-39 victory against Nazareth in the state final.
“That was definitely surreal because coach Berg and I have always talked about winning a state championship,” she said. “That was an amazing feeling because that’s what I’ve always wanted to do … win a state championship for my high school team. And beating Nazareth, a team that beat us twice, it was just awesome.”
More to come
As great as those memories are, Jordan Wood and her teammates are not much for nostalgia. She continues to work on her skills, and the Corsairs are chasing their second title.
“I’m just finding what I’m not really good at and focusing on that,” Jordan Wood said. “Like last year, I struggled with making the 3-point shot, so I made sure that my length would expand.”
Individual improvement will lead to more team success.
“We talk about (another title),” she said. “But we’re focusing on each day. We’re not focused on what’s ahead. We’re just focusing on each day.”
Everyone knows that no matter what happens, Tereca Wood will never be far away. Just ask Beaumont, whom Tereca Wood refers to as “my third daughter.”
“I was new to Midwest Elite this past year, so she kind of like took me in,” said Beaumont, who played on the same team with Jordan Wood for the first time last summer. “I didn’t have any problems adjusting, but she’s very motherly. Any one of Jordan’s teammates, she’s going to be like that for.”
Tereca Wood, who will graduate from the College of Lake County next spring with a degree in early childhood education, isn’t the only mother figure Jordan can rely on. Some WNBA players, particularly the recently retired Fowles, keep tabs on her.
“A lot of them follow me on social media, and they check in on me,” Jordan Wood said. “They communicate with my mom, making sure I’m OK. They make sure I’m doing what I need to be doing.”
She turns 18 on Dec. 9 and has already done a lot during her basketball career. More is sure to come.
“I’m very proud of how far she’s come,” Tereca Wood said. “She’s never let anything stop her, so she’s kind of my hero in that sense.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.