The long road back: Khloe Ford’s redemption season ends with prestigious awards

by

Hoover

Khloe Ford was not prepared to give a speech.

When her name was called as the Class 7A Girls Player of the Year at the Alabama Sports Writers Association postseason banquet in Montgomery in April, she walked to the stage, grabbed the trophy and said whatever came to mind.

A few minutes later, her name was called again — this time as Miss Basketball, the state’s most prestigious individual honor in high school hoops. She made her way back up to the stage and did it all over again.

“I didn’t know I would have to give a speech,” Ford said, laughing. “The first time, I went up there and I was stuttering. The second time, I still stuttered. I was actually shaking really bad. People said they could see me shaking on the stage.”

It was an uncharacteristically unsteady moment for a player who has spent four years being one of the most composed and dominant forces in Alabama high school basketball. But then again, Ford herself admitted she wasn’t sure the award was coming.

“I came in there thinking, if I don’t win, I’m still pretty blessed to be able to be in this room with all these people,” she said. “But I’m just very happy that I won. It’s kind of crazy still.”

THE MAKINGS OF A FORCE

Ford arrived at Hoover High as a freshman with size, skill and enough raw talent to turn heads during early morning scrimmages. During one of those preseason sessions (6:30-7:30 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the whole program in the gym together), Ford landed on the radar of then-senior Reniya Kelly, who would go on to win Miss Basketball herself in 2023.

Kelly, who was not even playing that day, watched Ford hit a turnaround jumper on an older defender and walked straight to head coach Krystle Johnson.

“She came over and she was like, ‘Coach, I want her on varsity. She can catch the ball. She’s tall,’” Johnson recalled.

Ford didn’t play much that freshman year, as the roster was loaded with experienced post players, but Johnson believed the experience of going up against older, stronger competition every day was exactly what Ford needed.

“That experience made her 10 times better,” Johnson said. “She went from being somebody who barely played to being our leading scorer and MVP at the [Class] 7A state finals [as a sophomore]. I credited a lot of that to her freshman year and the struggle she had to go through.”

Ford herself points to her sophomore campaign as the moment it clicked, the season where she started to believe she could do this at a high level.

“We did lose about six post players,” Ford said of the roster turnover heading into her second year. “And I feel like that season, it kind of showed me, hey, I can really do this.”

She averaged strong numbers, helped lead the Lady Bucs to another state title and established herself as one of the premier post players in the state. It looked like the foundation for something special.

Then came her junior year.

THE LONG WAIT

The injury did not announce itself all at once. Ford had felt something in her foot during an AAU event at the Finley Center the summer after her sophomore season. An opponent jumped on her foot, she felt a pop and she knew something was wrong. But she played through it. That became a habit.

When the high school season began her junior year, she missed the first two games and then returned. She kept playing, complaining occasionally about her toe, and her mother initially chalked it up to the mental grind of coming back.

Then came a routine follow-up appointment that changed everything. New X-rays revealed the damage was far worse than anyone had known. The whole bone had rotated. Surgery was the only option.

“My foot didn’t look like a foot,” Ford said.

She had played in 15 games before doctors shut her down for good. It was right before one of the biggest games on the schedule, and the timing stung.

“Of course we were upset,” Johnson said. “But there was nothing we could do about it. It was about the longevity of her career.”

Ford watched from the sideline as Hoover won another state championship without her. It was a different kind of hardship.

“Junior year was just a very hard time for me,” Ford said. “After my sophomore year, which was my breakout year, I’m thinking junior year is gonna be great and amazing. I’m going to come back even stronger. And then, boom — I’m in a cast. It was kind of hard to just navigate through it.”

She tried to rush back, ended up in another cast and eventually learned to let the process run its course. But watching her teammates chase a title she couldn’t help them win gave her something, too.

Johnson believes the time away ultimately served a purpose.

“When you experience the success she experienced in such a short amount of time, sometimes taking the game away from you will make you love it more,” she said.

And watching from the bench while her teammates won another title without her?

“I think just having to sit there and watch probably got her motivation back where we needed it to be,” Johnson said.

Ford found other ways to contribute, communicating from the bench, calling out plays and defensive assignments and keeping her teammates accountable.

“I could be a leader in different ways,” she said. “Instead of just being a leader on the court, scoring, I could help my team.”

THE RETURN

She knew she was back during AAU season, somewhere around her second or third tournament. The pain was gone. It just felt right.

“That’s when there was no type of pain or anything,” Ford said.

She came into her senior year with a simple mindset: be careful. But once the games started, careful gave way to dominant.

Ford was not even Hoover’s leading scorer to start the season. That was guard Aaliyah Blanchard. But as the calendar turned toward January and defenses began to make their choices, Ford made them pay. Over the final dozen games, she averaged more than 20 points per game.

“Khloe just kind of took over,” Johnson said. “The way that people were playing us, if you give it to us, then we’re going to take it.”

She finished the season averaging 17.6 points and 8.7 rebounds as Hoover went 35-1 and captured a sixth consecutive state championship. Ford’s personal resume now includes three state titles, the 7A Player of the Year award, a Super All-State selection and Miss Basketball, making her the fourth Hoover player to win the honor, joining Kelly, Marqu’es Webb (2013) and Sidney Spencer (2003).

“She’s the most dominant player in Alabama,” Johnson said. “Nobody can guard her. There’s no defensive scheme. There’s no one person.”

Ford will take her game to the University of Missouri in the fall, where head coach Kellie Harper called her “a proven winner” whose “toughness and instincts on the boards” and ability to “stretch the floor” make her a perfect fit for the program.

She wore No. 5 at Hoover, a number Johnson said she reserves for players in which she sees something special. Ford is taking that number to Columbia with her.

She was given No. 5 at Hoover before she fully understood what it meant. It was previously worn by Aniya Hubbard, who also had a storied career at Hoover.

“She told me how she picks certain people to wear No. 5 — how she sees a lot of potential in them,” Ford said. “I took it, and it was very personal to me.”

Four years later, the potential she showed has turned into a resume.