A Team Reunion

Once Taylor Finley could dribble the orange ball, she was playing hoops in Todd Park. And when AnnMarie Healy moved here from Wisconsin, the young girls went to the secluded Edina park to hopscotch, play in the rain and hide under the shade tree on hot summer days.Finley lived southeast of the park, Healy southwest. They met in the middle.“Definitely good times,” Finley recalls. In high school, Finley and Healy stayed together at Providence Academy in Plymouth. In 2012, Healy, a senior, and Finley, a junior, led the Lions to the Class AA state championship. Always linked, both girls were named to the all-tournament team. Next year, Finley and Healy will connect again—this time at Harvard. “I’m really excited to get to play with her again next year in college,” Finley says. Before Healy graduated in 2012, they played together every year on travel and Amateur Athletic Union teams since late in elementary school. They took skills established at Todd Park and honed at Healy’s home court to tournaments across the country and now to the prestigious Ivy League school. They each have siblings, but describe their relationships as sisterly. “We have a very honest relationship where we can call each other out to make each other better,” Finley says. “It’s like a sister. Maybe I didn’t have the best game, she would say, ‘C’mon, Taylor. You have to be better next time,’ where most people would just say, ‘Good job’ and shy away. She is striving to make you better because it makes the team better. That’s why we’ve really grown.”Healy plays forward and passes back to Finley, a guard, who facilitates a team atmosphere. “She would also be great at bringing the team together with chemistry,” Healy says. “She was always reaching out to people to make sure they felt a part of the team.”Since the duo has played together for about seven years, they can be kinetic on the court. “We know how each of us plays because we’ve played with each other for so long,” Finley says. “We just know where the other wanted the ball. We’re really on each other about playing defense and running the floor and cheering each other on and being positive."During Providence’s championship run last year, the team used the motto of “All in.” Before games, players would hand a poker chip to coach Ray Finley (Taylor’s father), expressing their commitment to go “all in” during the next 36 minutes.  “Anything that you do in life, you will only be successful if you give 100 percent, and if you go all in,” Healy says. “I think a lot of times people hold back a lot, [but] whether it’s studies or relationships with friends or pursuing your faith life, you have to be all in. You can’t hold anything back. You have to be willing to make sacrifices.” Healy is the fifth player from Minnesota to play for Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith in her three decades at the school. While Delaney-Smith said the previous four Minnesotans were very different players, continuity does exist. “The basketball at the high school level in Minnesota is among the best in the country,” Delaney-Smith said. “There is a toughness in the kids from Minnesota that I love. There is an IQ that I love. Those have been pretty common in the ones that I’ve looked at in Minnesota.” Delaney-Smith, who is barred by NCAA rules from commenting on incoming players such as Finley, says Healy has the potential to have “a tremendous career.” Healy “is very athletic, and I knew this when I was recruiting her,” Delaney-Smith says. “She is the Energizer bunny. She doesn’t get tired; she gets better.” Healy is 6-foot-1 and Finley is 5-foot-11, but all players at Harvard and across the Division I level have that height. “I remember [Healy’s] parents came for freshman weekend, and they walked in the gym, and couldn’t find AnnMarie because she is now not the tallest,” Delaney-Smith says. “Everyone on my team is the same size as AnnMarie. That is an adjustment that kids have to make.” Healy was in a transition phase as she played sparingly as a freshman, and Finley will likely go through that next season. But Finley believes the Edina pair will leave their mark. “I would love to be able to say these were girls that bought into the ‘all-in’ mentality,” Finley said, “and did the very best they could with everything they were blessed to have.”