Ex-UMA standout Plummer to be inducted to USCAA Hall of Fame

University of Maine at Augusta’s Jamie Plummer, right, dribbles around Central Maine Community College defender Corrina Kinder during a Nov. 12, 2014 game in Augusta. Plummer is being inducted into the United States College Athletic Association Hall of Fame. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA — Her path didn’t start here, but it did end here — and when that ending came, Jamie Plummer was a University of Maine at Augusta basketball legend.

Plummer, a 2013 graduate of Richmond High School, began the fall of that year attending classes at Bates College. Knowing early on that the school wasn’t right for her, though, she began looking at other options.

“I was like, ‘Oh, I need to take classes, and UMA is close, so I’ll just go to UMA and do it there,’” Plummer said. “My plan was to stay there for one semester and then go from there, but I ended up staying all four years.”

After one of the most prolific careers in school history, everybody at the capital city’s lone college is glad she did. So is the United States Collegiate Athletic Association, which will be inducting her into its Hall of Fame two months from now.

Plummer was a standout player all four years at UMA after her brief stint at Bates. She made waves regionally as a four-time all-Yankee Small College Conference first-teamer and nationally as a three-time USCAA first-team All American and the country’s top scorer in 2014-15.

Plummer finished with 1,977 career points, by the far the most in program history. She was also instrumental in furthering the program, which made the national tournament for the first time her freshman season in 2013-14 and did so again in 2015-16.

“Jamie meant so much to our program,” said Jennifer Laney, head coach at UMA from 2010-18. “I think for her to get this honor really speaks to everything she did for the college and for the national conference as well. It’s something she definitely deserves.”

Originally, Plummer told Laney that she wasn’t certain she wanted to play basketball as she believed her stay at UMA would be a brief one with education as the focus. Between the proximity to her hometown, the smaller class sizes and offerings for student athletes, she knew she’d be playing — and staying.

Meeting her future husband, Keith Chesley, at the school might also have been a factor.

“It really felt like the best place for me,” Plummer said, “I felt included, and I said, ‘Wow, this place is amazing, I’m not leaving.’ … Meeting Keith, that obviously helped, too.”

The inductees were chosen by a selection committee consisting of the USCAA Board of Directors as well as other membership. Plummer will be one of five inducted as part of the USCAA Hall of Fame’s 2023 class.

It’s a class in which Plummer is honored to be included. The four other inductees won USCAA Division II national championships as either players or coaches, including NHTI men’s head coach Paul Hogan, someone for whom Plummer has great admiration.

UMA’s Jamie Plummer takes a shot during a game on Nov. 12, 2015 in the Augusta Civic Center.

“To be inducted with somebody who was a great coach for so long and spent 30-plus years of service somewhere, it’s a huge honor,” Plummer said. “It’s something that really feels surreal, and I have to thank Jennifer for nominating me and always thinking of her athletes.”

It’s the second straight year Plummer has been nominated to a hall of fame for her solid career at UMA. Last year, she was nominated to the UMA Athletics Hall of Fame along with Chesley, whom she met at the school in November of her freshman year.

Chesley’s father, Greg, is the head girls basketball coach at Lawrence, which is fresh off a Class A state championship win. Three graduating seniors from that team, Liz Crommett, Ali Higgins and Bri Poulin, have committed to play basketball at UMA next season.

“I think Jamie was one of those players for us who was really influential in laying the foundation of groundwork for the program and getting more players like that to come here,” Laney said. “The legacies that players like Jamie put in place have really continued to this day. Girls want to follow people like them.”

Plummer’s pending induction was first announced April 4. She and the rest of the USCAA Hall of Fame’s 2023 Hall of Fame class will be formally inducted at 5:30 p.m. June 11 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Until early this month, Plummer barely knew the USCAA had a Hall of Fame in the first place. Then again, she’s quick to point out that she didn’t know she’d be playing basketball for four more years when she first set foot on UMA’s campus, either.

“I think it just reiterates that everything happens for a reason,” Plummer said. “I was meant to be at UMA, and one thing led to another, and that’s what happened.”