Friday Features: Jarett and Regan Croff Bonding as Brother and Sister at AUM
By Chris Megginson
Through the remainder of the 2017-18 basketball season, Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) men’s and women’s basketball will combine to play 44 games home and away. Nineteen of those dates will be played as a women’s and men’s doubleheader – something that makes Regi and Sandra Croff of Franklin, Tennessee very happy.
For the first time since February 2013, their son, Jarett, and daughter, Regan, will compete for the same school. Jarett, a 2016 transfer to AUM, is in his senior season for the Warhawks’ men’s basketball program, while Regan, a sophomore, transferred to AUM this season from Tusculum College.
“We’ve logged, over the last three to four years, thousands and thousands of miles to go and support our kids in whatever sport,” Regi said. “To have them in one place makes it a lot easier on all of us.”
“I’m excited. We couldn’t have planned it this way. It just kind of happened,” Sandra said.
The brother and sister played on the same court on Nov. 21 for the first time this season during AUM’s home opener against Tuskegee. Their parents were there to watch and cheer both on as Regan started and played 39 minutes in the women’s game, followed by Jarett scoring 11 points in 19 minutes off the bench in a 68-66 win, his second game back from injury.
It was also the first time Jarett and Regan watched each other play college basketball.
“It brings back a little bit of high school. I always enjoyed watching my sister play, and I know she enjoys watching me play. She’s one of my biggest fans, so it’s going to be very pleasing having my sister on the sideline cheering me on (this season),” Jarett said.
“He’s a whole new player,” said Regan, who had not seen her brother play organized basketball in more than four years. “I’m very excited for him … I think it’s great I get to be courtside watching him and cheering him on, knowing he’s doing something that he loves and knowing the backstory of what he went through to get here.”
The backstory is that prior to 2016, Jarett had played only one season of organized basketball since middle school – his 2012-2013 senior year at Independence.
When he was a 5-foot-11 high school freshman, Jarett gave up basketball to focus his attention on golf, a sport he’d been playing since he was 1 ½ years old. He had dreams of playing in the PGA. He grew to 6-foot-8 by his senior year of high school and decided to give basketball another try. By this time though, he’d already committed to play NCAA Division I golf at Texas Southern University in Houston, where he was named to the HBCU National Championships All-Tournament Team as a junior in 2016.
During spring break of 2016, Jarett, now standing at 6’10”, 210 pounds, went to visit his friend and former high school basketball teammate Trent Perry at Eastern Michigan University. While playing a game of pickup ball against Division I athletes, he realized he still loved playing basketball and could compete at the college level. He made up his mind to give up golf and pursue finding a place to finish college as a basketball player.
“My reaction was, ‘Are you kidding me?,’ his mother, Sandra, admits about hearing Jarett wanted to give up his full scholarship at Texas Southern.
That Fourth of July, Jarett, Regan and their parents were visiting relatives in Atlanta. While walking around the mall, a man stopped Jarett to ask how tall he was and if he played basketball. Jarett told the man his story, and they exchanged contact info.
Later that summer, Jarett received a call from an Alabama phone number. It was AUM head coach Michael Cheaney, who heard about Jarett through the man at the mall.
“I honestly didn’t think it was real. It was toward the end of the summer. There wasn’t a lot of time left. I thought I wasn’t going to get a chance,” Jarett said. “(Coach Cheaney) gave me the opportunity of a lifetime … It’s something that completely changed my life.”
Jarett enrolled at AUM in the fall of 2016 and led the Warhawks in rebounds (190) and blocks (31), while starting 19 times in 26 games. During the same time, Regan was competing as a freshman forward at Tusculum, averaging 18.7 minutes through 18 games.
Regan, who’d only visited AUM during Jarett’s Move-In Day in 2016, was unhappy at Tusculum and looking for a change. As her parents watched Jarett play, they began taking notice of the AUM women’s program and Coach Dan Davis. Jarett began telling Cheaney and Davis about his sister, and upon her release from Tusculum this past spring, she started talking with Davis and loved her official visit. In June she was announced as one of five transfers for the Warhawks in 2017-18.
The decision for Regan to join Jarett at AUM came with some hesitation though for the siblings who “butted heads” as teenagers, according to Regan.
“When we first talked about them being at the same school, we looked at each other and said, ‘how are they going to co-exist together? This is Jarett and Regan,” their father admitted. “Surprisingly, I think they’re enjoying being at the same school and having each other there to support each other.”
Jarett and Regan agree.
“The first week, we always heard, ‘you guys look just alike.’ That kind of got annoying, but I love being here with him. We didn’t think that we would like it, because we are brother and sister, but we have a lot in common,” Regan said. “We both love it, and we’ve made it work. I want people to know it’s not as hard as people think it is.”
With Jarett majoring in business and starting graduate school in the spring, and Regan majoring in kinesiology to become a physical therapist, the two rarely see each other on campus unless it’s before or after practice or at a game. However, they have made it a point to get together weekly for dinner, either going out or occasionally at Regan’s on nights she and her roommates cook.
“Her coming to AUM has really strengthened our bond, and it’s a blessing it’s been able to happen,” Jarett said.
Regan says she is happy they’ve been able to have this year together and hopes it will help the two continue to get closer and stay close.
Follow Megginson on Twitter @jcmeggs. Email comments to megginsonjc@gmail.com.
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