UConn women’s basketball recruit KK Arnold wrapping up storybook high school career in Wisconsin

About 500 fans were in the building, Michael Jackson was coming through the loudspeakers and Arnold was activating her vocal chords and sense of rhythm as much as anything else, a finger snap here, a shimmy there. With a clenched fist raised to her mouth as if she were holding a microphone, Arnold rocked back and forth and belted out lyrics in the layup line.

“That is, literally, always how I am,” she said later, sitting in empty bleachers after dominating yet another game.

This was Senior Night, an emotional turnstile of sorts through which Arnold moved a little closer to the end of a chapter as one of the best players in Wisconsin history and toward the beginning of another as a UConn women’s basketball freshman.

At once under the bright fieldhouse lights on this rainy, windy, dark Wisconsin night, Arnold was both in something together with those around her and squarely at the center of our own fascinating world. In one sense she was just another kid distinguished by little more than the No. 1 on a white jersey trimmed in blue and yellow. In another, she was someone standing out for her approach to life as much as any success it has afforded her.

Arnold, 17, is the kind of kid whose disposition might make you feel foolish for taking anything too seriously or guilty for ever allowing yourself to have a bad day. She is all joy, it seems, so animated but even more like her favorite Disney character in ways of potential and optimism.

She is an amazing basketball player, a stout 5-foot-9 point guard who, like most of Geno Auriemma’s recruits, is simply stronger and faster and more creative, with a more diverse skill set, than those surrounding her at the high school level.

Arnold entered the game with 2,300 career points and left the gym with 2,327, having made 11 of 17 shots. Her first assist of the night was to gently wipe tears from the face of her mother, Kim, as the Arnold Family posed for photos during that second ceremony. Then she added nine more assists, and eight steals, in a 64-56 victory that was relatively close only because she played just 23 minutes and sat the final 10, allowing her five Class of 2023 teammates to stay on the court.

Arnold owns just about every major Germantown record. Most points in a game, season and career. Most assists in a game, season and career. Most steals in a game, season and career. Her name is on the walls and spreading into display cases of the school’s beautiful facility, part of a $50 million expansion that was finalized just before her freshman year.

She plays with pizzazz. Twisting and contorting her body, Arnold moves one way and slings the ball in the opposite direction. She draws crowds in the lane and responds with bounce passes through the tightest creases for a teammate's uncontested layup. She starts fastbreaks with lead passes that fall softly into the hands of streaking players. She uses a Euro step that spins those guarding her into a helpless place. She faces, almost exclusively, zone defenses that drift toward her like a blanket but she darts to the basket, anyway, laying the ball off the glass. It’s a fun show. She smiles throughout.

“There's no ego,” said Matt Stuve, in his 14^th season as coach at Germantown High, located just northwest of Milwaukee and about 110 miles south of Green Bay. “It's amazing how she handles it all. If she was awful at basketball, you'd want her on your team. Fortunately, she's not. But just from a character standpoint, who she is as a person, she's going to make your team better.”

And those plays?

“I've never seen a kid throw 70-, 80-foot passes with such accuracy,” Stuve said. “Being a Packers fan, it's kind of like watching Aaron Rodgers. You watch some of his passes and it's, ‘How did you think that was even an option? That was a window to throw in?’ Sometimes it's like, ‘How did KK even think that would happen? And it worked?’”

Three-time player of the year?

Arnold was named the 2020-21 Gatorade Wisconsin player of the year as a sophomore after leading the Warhawks to the Division I state championship, and again last season as a junior. If honored as a senior, she would become just the second player to win the Gatorade award three times. She is often compared to the other.

Arike Ogunbowale, a guard similar in build and style out of Divine Savior Holy Angels High in Milwaukee, won it every season in 2013-15 before her storied career at Notre Dame. Ogunbowale famously broke UConn’s heart with an overtime buzzer-beater at the 2018 Final Four and is now a WNBA All-Star with the Dallas Wings.

Arnold’s own early resume is quite similar. She has played four years of varsity at Germantown, a starter from day one, and was offered nearly 40 Division I scholarships. Ranked the No. 6 overall recruit in the Class of 2023 by ESPN, she is averaging 23.4 points, 7.5 assists, 7.5 rebounds and 3.3 steals, shooting 48.2 percent from the field, 68.4 percent on free throws and 36 percent on 3-pointers.

She spends summers competing in AAU with All Iowa Attack in Ames, Iowa. She was part of Team USA’s gold medal-winning U-16 team at the 2021 FIBA Americas Championship in Mexico. Last summer in Hungary, Arnold helped the U.S. to gold at the 2022 3x3 U-18 World Cup.

These experiences have filled her heart. And they have filled her home with mementos.

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Those two gold medals are displayed in a dining room armoire alongside basketballs marking her Germantown milestones — 1,000 points, for instance. Various awards, from Gatorade and Germantown and USA Basketball and beyond, are also behind glass. There are trophies, posters, UConn trinkets, even a certificate from the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame marking her place in its ring of honor, designated for the top high school and college players annually, for her 2020-21 accomplishments.

Down in the basement, among more stacks of keepsakes, is Arnold’s “vision board” from 2020, blank now because every entry came to fruition. Some note cards do remain pinned to it. I am confident. … I am special. … I have unlimited potential. Who knows how many medals with different colored ribbons are draped over those racks on the far wall. Maybe 50?

Arnold’s top-floor bedroom is like a museum. A Lakers flag is affixed to the wall over her bed because she is a fan of LeBron James, next to a framed Bel-Air Academy jersey of Will Smith’s “Fresh Prince.” Then there’s her Blue Star 30 jersey from an elite camp where she first befriended Azzi Fudd.

There are framed photo collages capturing the breadth of Arnold’s travel and accomplishments. Her state championship ring is on display. Handwritten notes from UConn assistant coach Morgan Valley are affixed to a wall. A Bible, protected by a basketball book sleeve, sits atop a table, near a dresser decorated with sneaker decals.

There is a “goal sheet” that Arnold adds to frequently, erasing entries and adding new ones weekly or monthly. Becoming a McDonald’s All-American was on that list. She was named to the team in late January, one of the achievements celebrated before her Senior Night game. There are dozens of shoes on display, including the pair she wore in the 2021 state championship game.

Arnold wondered aloud how she would ever get all this stuff to UConn. She spun around her room and pointed and mentioned each item as if taking inventory. Then she stopped and turned excited.

“I have to show you,” Arnold said, reaching for various items in a corner.

She was wearing UConn Huskies sweatpants and a black T-shirt featuring a picture of Ralphie, from the movie “A Christmas Story,” with a bar of soap in his mouth, and his famous quote, “Oh, fudge.” A gold necklace with a cross dangled around her neck as she poked around. She pulled out some prized possessions.

“See, OK, look,” Arnold said. “Tiana. Princess and the Frog.”

She was beaming.

'All about hard work'

Tiana is the main character, the princess, in the 2009 animated musical “The Princess and the Frog.” She is, in short, a waitress and gifted chef who yearns to open her own restaurant, the moral of her story essentially being that any dream can be achieved.

Arnold has seen the movie dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. She talks about Tiana often, both in random living-room conversations and in discussions more specific to her life, her dreams, basketball and otherwise.

Why is Tiana so awesome?

“I just love her character and the way she went about herself,” Arnold said. “I like her back story, how she went about things, how she worked for things she wanted. Her dad had told her that she needs to work for everything she wants, and her dad portrays so many characteristics of a good father — like my dad, like my family. We’re all about hard work.”

Tiana is Disney’s first Black princess.

“That hits hard for me,” Arnold said.

In the bedroom of her early-childhood home in Columbus, Ohio, Arnold awoke every day to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on TV or anything Disney. That and the bouncing of a basketball — because she has three siblings, all between 10-19 years older, all former athletes who helped raise her in shifts over the years — were the first soundtracks of her life.

She started attending the practices of her siblings, mostly sister MiMi, now 27, and brother Mike, now 32, while just weeks old. As soon as Arnold was walking, she was given drills by coaches and players to work on as the teams practiced. Did little KK go anywhere from that point without a ball? Hardly. She could dribble two, simultaneously, by the time she was 3.

Mike Arnold and Kim Arnold, married over 30 years, grew up and met in Columbus. When Kim, who works in health care compliance, was presented with a job offer she couldn’t refuse in the Milwaukee area, the family moved to West Allis, another suburb. After about a year, when Kamorea (pronounced: ka-mor-ah) was in fourth grade, the Arnolds moved to Germantown for youth basketball opportunities that did not exist elsewhere.

KK always played up — against fifth and sixth graders when she was in fourth grade, against seventh and eighth graders when she was in sixth grade. The juniors and seniors on the Germantown championship team during her sophomore year were basically lifelong friends. The Arnolds live in a seemingly never-ending subdivision of intertwining streets, with so many of KK’s friends just a shout, a few dribbles or a short bike ride away, Suburbia USA.

Life here is grand. KK’s Honda Accord, with part of the license plate reading “KMAMBA,” an ode to Kobe Bryant, is parked in the driveway, not far from the basketball hoop. She is heavily involved in the community, visiting local elementary schools as a mentor and often making time for families that visit from neighboring counties to see her play.

Arnold is also a member of the Black Student Union at GHS, where as an honors history student a couple years ago she chose a basketball theme for a project. Arnold studied the history of African Americans in basketball before the time of integration and presented, as part of a state-wide competition, in Madison, the state capital.

Through that experience, she got to know Claude Johnson, founder of The Black Fives Foundation, which preserves and honors the history of African Americans in basketball in the days before the NBA. Johnson lives in Greenwich. UConn, in collaboration with the Big East and in recognition of Black History Month, represented the Hartford Tigerettes, a women’s team from the 1940’s, as part of a Black Fives game Wednesday night against Creighton.

Arnold has a deep, and growing, appreciation for history in general and Black history in particular. She remains involved with the Black Five Foundation as a student ambassador, learning more about a formative era of a sport that has shown her the country, even shown her the world, introduced her to different cultures, new friends from all walks of life.

'The way I grew up'

Unique to her childhood in predominantly white Germantown, population about 20,000, is that Arnold was raised an area that lacks much diversity. She is the only Black player on her high school team, a roster otherwise entirely of white girls with whom she has clearly developed exceptionally tight bonds.

“In Ohio, compared to Germantown, we grew up in a big old melting pot,” Kim Arnold said. “Me, my husband, even KK being younger, we had friends of all races. When you get here, for some of the community it's different, but for us it doesn't matter. She just gets along with everybody … and why wouldn't she? That's who we are. But you can automatically see it. Some people had said when we moved here, ‘Why did you take her to Germantown?’”

There has been, to Kim Arnold’s recollection, only one incident of concern. KK was visiting a nursing home not long ago, greeting people as part of her volunteer work. 

“The guy was asking her name, an older white gentleman,” Kim said. “So she said, ‘KK.’ He said, ‘Oh, your name is KKK?’ I was appalled. … It did impact her. If it didn't, she wouldn't have mentioned it to me. She said it was just unnecessary. It was not just that comment. He just kept looking at her.”

Kim Arnold said her husband was notified by an assistant coach that KK was pulled out of a class to discuss what happened. Those around KK wanted to make sure she was OK. They also followed through in making sure those in authority at the nursing home were told that KK was made to feel uncomfortable and that it was not OK for her to be treated that way or put in that position.

KK let it all slide off her back. Be OK being you, is what her mother and father always told her, and that allows one to dismiss anything ugly that might shoot through the racial prism by which many still view the world. Those who know Arnold are those who love her and she has never once, in nine-plus years, been made to feel out of place by anyone with an opinion she actually values. She’s thankful for the community that surrounds and supports her. She is confident and kind, in tune with who she is, so in rhythm. 

“That’s KK,” Kim Arnold said. “She did say, ‘I'm not blind that people who are not me have struggled and have had challenges.’” 

Of being a visible, successful Black athlete surrounded by so many white faces, KK said, “This is just the way I grew up.”

'Go there and earn it'

She grew up dreaming, like Tiana. Not to be a chef. Arnold is learning to cook, perhaps reluctantly. She has mastered Raman Noodles. So she’s dorm-room ready, at least.

No, she grew up dreaming of attending UConn and playing basketball for Auriemma, who first saw her play in an Iowa AAU tournament in the summer of 2021 and has visited Germantown several times since. The entire Huskies’ staff attended a Warhawks game on a Saturday in February 2022, a day before the Huskies played Marquette in Milwaukee. Auriemma was also on hand months later for a team strength and conditioning session. A coach pretty much understands what type of player he is recruiting from film and an up-close look at a few segments of a game. Any additional exploration almost always has to do with personality.

“They ask, 'How is she off the floor? What kind of kid is she?'” Stuve said. “That's why you try to impress upon players that character matters. Really, it was eye-opening for me, too, because [Auriemma] says, 'You know, people say you're UConn and you get whoever you want.' And he said, 'First you have to be able to play at our level. Second, you have to love being in the gym.’ He goes, ‘You have to be the kind of kid that, if we say we're going to do passing and dribbling for an hour and a half, you have to be excited about that.’ He says, ‘The parents have to be the kind of people we want around our program.’ He goes, ‘You strip away all those layers, you're looking at like five people in each class.’”

UConn’s incoming recruits are Arnold, shooting guard Ashlynn Shade of Noblesville, Ind., forward Qadence Samuels of Forestville, Md., and center Jana El Alfy of Cairo, Egypt. Shade, also a McDonald's All-American, is ranked No. 15 in the Class of 2023 by ESPN, Samuels No. 41. El Alfy, who Arnold got to know at the 3x3 tournament in Hungary, is already with the Huskies, having enrolled early.

Arnold was considering six other scholarship offers heading into the summer before her junior year — from South Carolina, Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Kentucky and Marquette. One day in July of 2021, Auriemma called. The family huddled as KK spoke and she moved into her parents’ bedroom and closed the door so as not to be distracted. Auriemma offered Arnold a scholarship and she ran back into the living room, “I told you!”

The family had heard all about UConn from KK since the days of Moriah Jefferson and Breanna Stewart. They joked with her that “Coach Geno,” as they all seem to call him, would be retired by the time KK was ready for college. Years later, though, “play for UConn” could be crossed off any vision boards or goal sheets.

It was important to be sure, though, that the UConn reality would line up with the UConn dream. So that summer, before her junior year at Germantown, Arnold visited every school on her list, saving UConn for last. This was an important take-a-deep-breath undertaking, all on the family’s dime. Because Arnold can be quite impulsive.

“The first conversation we had with Coach Geno, my husband asked if he saw her being able to make an impact as part of this team,” Kim Arnold said. “Because she needed to know. Michael asked point blank, ‘How do you see her fitting in?’”

Mike Arnold works two custodial and maintenance jobs, sometimes back-to-back from 5 a.m. to midnight. He comes across as an unflappably chill guy. He sat on the couch on Super Bowl Sunday, often chuckling and occasionally chiming in as his wife and youngest daughter told story after story about a basketball life. KK was keeping an eye on the early-afternoon game between top-ranked South Carolina and No. 3 LSU, getting a glimpse through TV at a world she’s preparing to enter. Mike Arnold continued his wife’s recollections of that conversation with Auriemma.

“He said, ‘I see her playing, and I see her playing a lot,’” he said. “We tell Kamorea all the time, nothing is given to you. You still have to go there and earn it. When you go in, you want to let her know that if you work hard you'll be rewarded. But if you go there and work hard, you might still have to play behind somebody.”

That will almost certainly be the case in 2023-24. Point guards Paige Bueckers and Nika Mühl will be seniors. Assuming everyone is healthy, there won’t many minutes to go around. Still, Arnold is lined up to learn from the best, a valuable development period that could help her become the post-Bueckers engineer of the UConn offense. She said she valued that framework while making her decision. She will be patient.

“Basketball is a life lesson,” Kim Arnold said. “Once the going gets tough, you're not going to be able to just join the portal. As a family, we're not going to allow it. Because life is not just going to allow you to pick up. If the job is not going well, or if you've got a bad boss, you've got responsibilities and you can't just pick up and go. You've got to learn to stick and stay through tough times. That's outside of something going on that is really detrimental to you, physically or emotionally. But you have to learn to work through that.”

Disney World and the next chapter

Mike and Kim Arnold lost a granddaughter in recent years. Nine-year-old Aniya had cerebral palsy. KK writes #NiyaStrong on her shoes before games. She said she had a dream, with visions of Niya and the UConn logo, at the height of the recruiting process, before officially choosing UConn. She committed while on a visit — and while wearing a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt — in Nov. 2021. The Germantown community celebrated, and continues to.

Life events start clicking off now, one after another.

Senior Night has come and gone. Before the game, players gathered in a meeting room adjacent to the gym and read quotes of their choosing.

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else,” Arnold said, reading the words of Booker T. Washington. She came off the bench, ceding the spotlight to seniors who usually don’t play much.

“Can I coach?” she had jokingly asked Stuve. “Can I get a clipboard?”

Instead, Arnold entered three minutes into the game, without Germantown having scored a point. She quickly put up five on a drive and a 3-pointer. “I know she’s going to UConn, but …” one particularly vocal Hamilton assistant coach yelled a few times, urging players to do something, anything, limit Arnold.

The regular season wrapped up Friday at Brookfield Central. Germantown (19-5) has earned one of four No. 1 sectional seeds for the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Division I tournament, set to open play Feb. 24. The Warhawks would need six consecutive victories — two in sectionals, two in regionals, two more at the state level — for another title.

Germantown won eight Greater Metro Conference titles over nine years but finished second to Brookfield East this season. The McDonald’s game is March 28 in Houston. Arnold turns 18 on May 16 and will arrive at UConn May 30, reporting for summer session and those first workouts with the rest of her new teammates. She’ll return to Germantown for graduation on June 4, a Sunday.

“It’s all pretty exciting,” Mike Arnold said, walking the court after the game against Hamilton, attended by every one of KK’s siblings — MiMi, Mike and Kevin — and her three nieces and nephews. “She’s earned this. She’s worked for it. She's been at it for a long time. On to the next chapter.”

It’s unclear if Mike Arnold meant the playoffs or graduation or the McDonald’s game or UConn or anything specific. It seemed more to be recognition of the general transition at hand. Mike and Kim Arnold will soon be home alone for the first time in decades, wondering what to do with all the time previously spent zipping around town for practices or traveling the country for games.

Of course, they will visit Connecticut as often as possible.

They believe their daughter is in good hands. They get the sense that the UConn community will adopt KK like the Germantown community has. It’s cool, but essentially irrelevant, that KK will soon wear a jersey with the Husky logo that was all over her bedroom walls as an elementary school kid. It’s more important to understand that their daughter feels like she is joining another family, one that, despite the unmatched spotlight and platform that comes with the experience, does shelter and protect its players within the walls of Gampel Pavilion and the Werth Champions Center.

There, on those courts, this basketball life could become even more rewarding and certainly will become more challenging.

“The great thing about KK is, she’ll do whatever they need her to do,” Stuve said.

Arnold doesn’t have any UConn goals written down. She simply wants to show up with energy and learn.

“I'll say this,” Arnold said when asked what she is most curious about. “How is Geno, [while] actually practicing, as a coach?. I'll make mistakes. How does he approach the situation? I’ll respond as I always respond — respectfully. Harsh reality is good.”

Arnold wants to eventually work in sports media and plans to study broadcasting. No doubt she’ll sing a lot at UConn. Dance, too. TikTok already offers a glimpse of her vibrant personality. Soon, SNY might, as well. College life is just about upon KK Arnold. She has a Princess and the Frog backpack she can bring if she chooses. There’s a lot to look forward to.

Including a family vacation. The entire Arnold Family — KK and her parents and all her siblings and her nieces and nephews — will spend five days at Disney World in April.

KK can’t stop talking about having breakfast with the characters. Tiana, primarily.