Journey To Jadwin - Jerome Desrosiers

3/2/2021

The three-pointers. The rebounding. The role he played in several big victories. Known for his enthusiasm and positivity, Jerome Desrosiers made an impact at Princeton and will be remembered fondly by all those who encountered him.

Growing up, Desrosiers was not interested in sports at all. An avid drawer, he loved taking art classes and when asked by friends to take up a sport, he chose bowling. Not wanting to play hockey, he briefly took up figure skating. By the time he was eight, Desrosiers was the tallest kid in his grade and eventually gave basketball a shot after people kept insisting he tried it out.

One of his earliest memories is of attending Tuesday night practices and learning the most basic of skills and like most new to any sport, this did not happen overnight.

“Tuesday nights we'd go into a gym and there were five of us,” proclaimed Desrosiers. “I remember dribbling down the court, but I would dribble and pick up the ball, I would double dribble every time and after practice I thought that it was really fun. My mom was like ‘do you know you double dribble every time?’ At the time, I didn’t know what that meant.”

As he continued with the sport of basketball, Desrosiers also had a pair of coaches who heavily influenced him. The first, Alex, ran his Sunday morning practices. The second was Pierre Gillespie, the coach of the Saint-Bruno Cougars.

“He's the one that kind of helped me find a prep school and then go through the steps to go and actually go to school in America,” said Desrosiers. “I saw him do it with another player that went to Harvard who also went to the same high school as me, Northfield Mount Hermon. His name was Laurent Rivard and was one of the best shooters there.”

Despite growing up in Canada, Desrosiers’ first basketball role model resided in the state of Florida; Dwight Howard.

He was a beast. I remember when he signed with Adidas and had a new pair of signature shoes. I wanted to be him, I had a poster of him in my room and thought he was so cool. I had a shooting shirt made that said ‘Orlando Magic’ with ‘Desrosiers’ underneath. I thought it was so cool and I was number No. 12 just like him.

Jerome Desrosiers

While basketball has rapidly grown in popularity in Quebec, it was still very much developing as a sport while Desrosiers was growing up. This required him and his family to make a significant travel commitment in order to play for the Saint-Bruno Cougars.

“The town where I'm from is 45 minutes away from where I used to practice,” said Desorisers. "When I was starting to get serious, we’d make the trip twice a week, three times, sometimes four times a week we had to drive 45 minutes away to go to practice and games. No one else in my friend group did that and they played either hockey or soccer.”

The dedication and hard work would pay off; when he was 13, Desrosiers was selected for Under-15 Quebec State Team and got to play at the Canadian Games.

Desrosiers first made Team Canada’s Under-16 team. Representing Team Canada, combined with trips with his club team, meant he got to see much of the world at a young age through basketball. He first went to Uruguay for the Tournament of the Americas, where the team finished third. The following year, when he was 16, he travelled to Dubai for the FIBA U17 World Championships. He teamed up with Jamal Murray of the Denver Nuggets and helped the Canadian squad earn a fifth-place finish.

Prior to the World Championships, Desrosiers and Team Canada participated in an exhibition tournament in France. They swept the tournament with wins over France, Puerto Rico, Australia and Argentina. Desrosiers was named tournament and MVP and what followed was a unique and eye-opening experience.

We then went to Dubai, which was a really cool experience. It’s like New York City, but in the middle of a desert.

Jerome Desrosiers

Along with Uruguay and the United Arab Emirates, basketball also took Desrosiers to Spain, Argentina, Belgium and the U.S.A.

Along with representing Canada growing up, Desrosiers also played AAU and eventually high school basketball in the U.S. Dominating in Canada at the age of 13, in search of more exposure he began playing for the Rhode Island Hawks. This required six-plus hour road trips on weekend to various locations in the northeastern U.S. for Desrosiers and his family. Due to travel involved, the tournaments he would play in had to be selected well in advance.

As he began to play more basketball abroad, the language barrier became an issue, especially in the U.S. where he commuted for AAU Tournaments. Though in took time, he eventually learned English with help from one of the world’s most iconic bands; The Beatles. In sixth-grade, a teacher would print out Beatles lyrics, hand them to Desrosiers’ class and have them translate the words.

The hours on the road and mastery of the English language paid off, as Desrosiers eventually got asked to attend Northfield Mount Hermon School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, in 2013. This move was crucial to his development.

“In Canada I thought I was so good, I thought I was the best,” proclaimed Desrosiers. “I showed up to my first pick-up at NMH and got my butt kicked so badly. I was the only freshman on the team, most of the kids that go to NMH go to DI schools and I didn't really know that at the time. I didn't know what it meant to go to a DI school, but I knew I wanted to play in the U.S. I didn’t know which schools were good or much about college basketball in general."

After playing a lot of pickup throughout the fall, Desrosiers got another wake-up call during one of the first practice sessions.

“He (the coach) sat me on a chair where our bench would be for the whole practice for two hours,” articulated Desrosiers. “I couldn't get up or move my chair. That was also a moment where I was like ‘okay, this is not going to be easy.’ I think I just learned to work hard all the time and you learn to you earn your spot on the team. It’s harder, but the hard work pays off.”

In Canada, Desrosiers was usually bigger, stronger and more athletic than his opponents. His move the U.S. required him to develop other aspects of his game and become a more well-rounded player. His senior year, he did individual workouts at 5 a.m. with then assistant coach Camryn Crocker, who is now a member of the coaching staff at Stanford University, and the hard work would eventually pay off as multiple DI schools became interested. During the spring of his junior year, one of those schools was Princeton.

“I was about to eat some Chinese food, I remember that specifically,” explained Desrosiers. “I got a call, picked up the phone and the person on the other end said ‘hey, this is Brett MacConnell from Princeton.’ I didn't think too much of it, then Skye came to one of the pickup games that we played and I loved Skye.”

Later in the spring, Desrosiers went on a trip to Yale, Princeton and Columbia and it was on this trip he met head coach Mitch Henderson for the first time. The following weekend he visited Brown, but it was his visit at Princeton that made the biggest impact on him.

Desrosiers remembers the call he made to Henderson well; he was in his parents’ room at his house in Saint-Hyacinthe and Henderson was in a meeting when he called the first time. The anxiety of waiting to call him back was real for Desrosiers.

“I remember calling him and saying ‘I want to tell you that I want to be a Tiger and dunk on everybody in the league,’" said Desrosiers. "After that I was shaking because it was real.”

Since getting to Princeton, Desrosiers has been part of some incredible wins that are some of his most treasured memories. On Saturday, December 29, 2018 the Tigers knocked off No. 17 Arizona State University, 67-66. Desrosiers stepped up on the big stage as he finished with a career-high 16 points, nine rebounds and three assists. As a freshman in the 2017-18 season, he was part of the Princeton team that defeated a University of Southern California squad that was ranked No. 10 in the USA Today National Preseason Poll, 103-93.

However, what Desrosiers enjoyed the most was beating the University of Pennsylvania, especially in front of a packed house at Jadwin. He ends his time as a Tiger on a 4-game winning streak against the rival Quakers.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Desrosiers missed out on postseason play his junior year and his entire senior year. Still, he was able to tally 445 points, 287 rebounds and 62 assists during his time at Princeton.

Desrosiers’ treasured experiences weren’t limited to the court, they very much included the individuals he came into contact with and especially those who became his biggest influences. He lists the entire coaching staff for helping mold him into the player he is on the court and the man he is off of it. He also lists Will Gladson ’20.

“My biggest wow moment about Will was my freshman year at Yale,” explained Desrosiers. “His knee was gone but he scored 16 points. I've never seen someone work so hard and be in so much pain. I remember him running back on defense almost crying and then he would sit on the bench and his knee was all messed up. He would go back in and I was like ‘darn, this guy really wants to win.’ I was really impressed by that and unfortunately I didn't get to see him play much because of his injuries but the way he was committed, loved the team and wanted to win so bad, I think helped make me a better leader. I wanted to eventually be a captain. Off the court, though he also helped me find some new country music that I really like, so I’ve got to thank him for that.”

His influences and mentors at Princeton aren’t limited to just basketball at Princeton, as he truly took advantage of everything Princeton has to offer. One of those influences is Gene Grossman, who convinced Desrosiers to go to Mauritius for his global seminar after his freshman year. While he originally wanted to go to Greece or Italy, Grossman convinced him otherwise.

I didn't know where Mauritius was. I never would have gone there, it’s so far away.

Jerome Desrosiers

“I flew seven hours to Paris then 11 hours to Mauritius,” said Desrosiers. "Never in my lifetime I would I have thought to go there, but he showed me how to be open about stuff and to be willing to try new things.”

Getting to experience a new country and culture for six weeks was an eye-opening experience, but there was one constant while he was over there.

“Taylor Bauer from the women's team was also there so after class every day would we'd run through a field to go to an outdoor basketball court to just get as many shots as we could,” said Desrosiers. “It was winter there so it would get dark just after 4 p.m. and we'd get out of class at 3 p.m., so we would run to the court and then we had to run back as soon as were done because we were told not to wander around after dark.”

Post-Princeton, Desrosiers will play a grad-year at the University of Hawaii. After that, his sights are set on playing at the professional level. Outside of basketball, he is still unsure of what he’d like to do but knows he doesn’t want to be stuck in an office all day.

“I did an internship last summer for Qad Precision, that was really fun,” proclaimed Desrosiers. “I liked the people that I worked with. They have an office in Chicago and an office in Ireland, I was actually supposed to go to Ireland for half the internship and Chicago for the other half. Obviously it didn't happen, but I’d love to still do it if the opportunity is available.”

Desrosiers’ time at Princeton has been transformative in so many ways and it is something he is eternally thankful for.

The people that I met, the connections I've made and the things I've learned, not only about basketball but also who I am as a person.

Jerome Desrosiers

“I’ve met all these nice, amazing people," said Desrosiers. "I’ve met long-time friends. I’m thankful for the small moments too of just being in our dorms together and hanging out after practice. I’m even thankful also for the amount of work that we did, even though sometimes it’s hard to write that many essays on a Sunday. You kind of fall in love with it, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship really. I was never bored and had nothing to do.”