Jacob Craft has found that the way to a woman’s heart begins with complimenting her shoes.

So when he saw then-Central Wyoming College basketball player Emily Smith at a church function in 2012, he knew to target her stiletto heels.

“I knew that a girl that’s already tall that was wearing high heels was doing it to make a statement,” Craft said. “So I used that as a way to get to know her and everything just took off from there.”

Jacob and Emily are now married and share a last name. More surprisingly, they share the life of student-athletes at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Jacob, 23, is a freshman forward on the men’s hoops squad, while Emily, 21, has become an important inside presence for the women’s team. Through the entire process of their courtship, dual recruitment and now stint as Division II scholarship athletes, basketball has remained a uniting force in their lives.

“There’s tons of stress in college, and then throw athletics on top of that,” Jacob Craft said. “It’s great to always have someone to talk to whether it’s her at home or just being able to call each other when we’re on the road.”

Jacob knew she was the one from the moment he first saw her in the parking lot at CWC, but Emily thought he seemed too good to be true. So after a couple weeks of dating, she broke up with him.

Not ready to give up, Jacob hatched a plan to win her back. After a little time passed, he snuck flowers and a stuffed cheetah into her room for her birthday in October.

That was all the proof she needed. Shortly after, they were engaged. Then married.

“I thought, ‘Let’s get this over with,’ but definitely not in a bad way,” Emily said of the big day. “I was super excited, and it was a very special day.”

The cake? Basketball-themed, of course. However, their situation on the court wasn’t as sweet.

After being cut from his high school team as a senior, Jacob spent two years in Norway on a Mormon mission assignment. Once he returned to the United States, he worked incessantly to return to playing shape. Central Wyoming was the first to bring him aboard, but a torn labrum ended his comeback before the 2012-13 season even started.

Meanwhile, Emily was in the midst of her final season with the Lady Rustlers. She had played well at CWC, but not well enough to attract interest from coaches.

Luckily for the newly married couple, Alaska Anchorage men’s coach Rusty Osborne and his staff decided to take a chance on Jacob. They also found out about Emily and alerted UAA women’s coach Ryan McCarthy.

He figured she was just another guard that his squad didn’t need.

“At that point, we didn’t know who she was, or what position she played or anything like that,” McCarthy said. “I didn’t expect to hear that she was a 6-2 athlete, and it ended up being a best-case scenario.

“When we found out that she was coming, we were ecstatic.”

Now that basketball is a part of their lives once again, Jacob said this sudden turn of events erased a lot of uncertainty about what was ahead for the two of them.

“She was going to just play volleyball, and then we were just going to see what happened after that,” he said. “To get the opportunity to play basketball immediately, both of us, was great and we got our school taken care of.”

Now living in an Anchorage apartment, the two are a functional couple. Jacob often handles the cooking, and both do their best to keep up with cleaning and laundry.

Emily said that classes and practice schedules greatly limit their time together. On Sunday, they might only spend half the day together. During the week, they often only see each other between class times.

But they both understand that it’s part of the territory. When one of them has a rough game or a tiring day of classes and prep work, the other knows the exact feeling.

“I have mental breakdowns after practice and with making the time to go to the gym and work on footwork,” Emily said. “It gives me confidence to know he has so much faith in me.”

That confidence has paid off for Emily, who is averaging 7.4 points and five rebounds per game amid her “up-and-down” first season for the Seawolves.

Jacob has been used sparingly off the bench, appearing in only seven games.

In any case, he’s just thankful to be playing the game he loves with the girl he loves. After the mission, the training, the injury and the break-up, both he and Emily are making a statement on the hardwood.

No high heels needed for that.

“I was able to find my wife, find another school and I still have four years of eligibility,” Jacob Craft said. “So there really wasn’t any downside to it all.”

Published on February 14, 2014 at 1:31 am

Contact Tyler: tfpiccot@syr.edu