Oregon State centre Ruth Hamblin has the drive to succeed

She knows the name of every bridge and tunnel along their much-traveled 12-hour route from rural Houston, B.C. to Vancouver. She even wrote a little song with her dad to remember the ones through the Fraser Canyon.

It was a long way to go but each journey was just part of a larger path that’s seen Ruth Hamblin go from a true basketball rookie in grade nine to the NCAA’s best pure centre.

Now the 6-foot-6 senior is the back-to-back Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year and leads her Oregon State Beavers against DePaul at 6:30 p.m. ET on Saturday for a shot at the Elite Eight.

“We had a lot of fun on those drives,” her father Lance Hamblin recalls, though he won’t even try to start counting the number of times, often every other weekend from March until July for the provincial team. “We would take turns when she was learning to drive and I’d sleep a little bit and she’d sleep a little bit and we made it work.”

When the level of competition began to ramp up and Hamblin was training and playing all the time she would stay away from home. “I stayed in the Lower Mainland for a majority of the summer to play. My dad actually stayed with me the whole summer the first year I played because it was all so new and I didn’t know anybody.”

No doubt she could block her dad’s shot – if he ever attempted one. Lance laughs and says he never played sports in his life, despite standing 6-foot-1 and with a tall family including Ruth’s older sister and brother and his 6-foot-2 wife.

Ruth, though, was always a head taller than her classmates from kindergarten on. When another dad Wendall Ewald wanted to coach he first corralled Ruth then a few other girls to make a school team. They hadn’t really had one organized before; an understandable void when you consider the entire K-12 school had about 100 kids.

Though she had hardly played any sports before that grade nine season, Ewald proved to be a diligent teacher and Ruth’s physical advantages having laboured around the ranch eased her learning curve.

“Our family farm taught me to value of hard work,” said Ruth. “I was never handed anything in life so if we wanted something we had to go work for it. I knew that hard work would be the only was I would ever achieve my dreams.”

Basketball wasn’t everything to a young Ruth. She had many priorities including her regular farm chores and once almost gave up the hardwood for horseback. She was competitive in everything she did including showing cattle; training and prepping for up to five months before bringing their family’s prize purebred beef herd into the show ring.

Now she’s focused her efforts on the basketball court averaging 11.4 points and 9.0 rebounds this season, and under the instruction of Oregon State coach Scott Rueck has refined her blocking ability. She’s now the Pac-12 conference’s all-time leader in rejections and blocked the third-most shots in Division I this season, earning the moniker “The Canadian Hammer” from a teammate.

“I’ve always loved blocking shots but it wasn’t until college that Coach Rueck really groomed me into the defensive player I am today,” said Ruth. “We did a lot of drills on shot blocking and especially ‘tip blocking’ which would allow me to get a lot of blocks without fouling.”

And despite all the success and on-court elevation Ruth’s stayed remarkably grounded – for a rocket scientist. Her 3.84 GPA is indicative of her dedication to success in everything she does.

She credits her faith for keeping her course, and a supportive network behind her who hope the long roads don’t end any time soon with the women’s March Madness bracket rolling towards the Final Four and the potential to represent Canada this summer at the Olympics in Brazil.

“I’ve grown so much over the past three years from playing with the Senior National team,” said Ruth who helped Canada’s Development team to a best-ever silver finish at the 2015 FISU Games in Korea. “I’m definitely keeping my hopes up for Rio. I am still in the pool of athletes so I know I have a chance even if it’s a small one.”

The Hamblins will surely take it one step at a time, focusing on DePaul first as Ruth plays out her final collegiate campaign. Rio would be a treat as she transitions to whatever next level of basketball awaits, and her family will be there to support.

They probably won’t drive, though.