Former Quinnipiac basketball player Jen Fay has created a platform for herself seldom seen at the university level.

One day on a team trip to Florida for the 2018 Gulf Coast Showcase Tournament, Fay, along with teammate Taylor Herd, noticed a few other teams documenting their travels through the airport and on their way to the Sunshine State. They said to each other, “why don’t we do that?”

So they did. As a senior that year, Fay said recording videos was just an exciting way to document her travels.

“It was my last year, and we were on a resort,” Fay said. “We wanted some memories from the trip, so we just pulled out the iPhone and introduced ourselves, going to these big-time tournaments.”

The hobby stuck as the team played in other tournaments, including that year’s MAAC postseason and NCAA March Madness. When the season concluded, she found that she was more invested with the camera than she anticipated.

“I grew to enjoy making the videos so much, when my career ended I was like, ‘where am I gonna take this now?’” Fay said. “I loved editing and putting my thoughts out there, that’s where I kinda changed directions with everything.”

Aside from her passion for making videos, Fay was also driven to keep the channel alive because she wants to coach basketball one day. She worked with the women’s basketball team during the 2019-20 season as a graduate assistant, so she’s already got experience.

“She’s such a good mentor, I knew she wouldn’t have any problems adjusting to that role,” said Paige Warfel, a former teammate. “She can really hone in on detail, that’s what makes her such a great coach. She won’t move on until you get it right.”

One of her more frequent video series is about basketball fundamentals and some more advanced moves. These instructional videos can include anything from basic layup finishes to floaters and runners designed for undersized guards.

“If I’m gonna go into coaching, I wanna be able to convey my thoughts,” Fay said. “It helps me get better. Going over reading screens helps me because there are incoming freshmen who don’t know this stuff, and I wanna be the person I needed when I was a younger player, I wanna show players new moves and give out all the best information.”

From there, the channel gained a bit of traction. As of publication, the channel is standing at 1,020 subscribers. But that’s not what it’s about for Fay.

“I could care less about numbers and subscribers, it’s about enjoying making the videos in general,” Fay said. “It just makes me happy getting DMs saying, ‘thank you so much, I’ve been doing Zoom workouts’ and someone DMs me and says they’ve been learning new moves from my videos.”

Instead, it’s about the community. As a former student-teacher at Hamden Middle School, Fay was able to form a connection with kids around town. Some of them are serious about basketball, and she raved about her opportunity to take them under her wing and be a role model.

“Getting to know those kids was one of the best experiences I ever had,” Fay said. “They all follow me on Instagram, they take the information I’m providing too, and I understand the mind of an eighth grader. I can understand what these kids want. Being able to actually give them practical advice is awesome. I wanna bring more people to our games, I don’t want our gym to be empty. I try to get exposure to everyone in our community.”

Her former teammates also recognize that even though she had no obligation to, she decided to stay in Hamden and contribute to the young community.

“She could have moved on with her life, but she stayed in the Quinnipiac community,” Warfel said. “I think it’s really cool that she continued making these videos, it really seems to be helping the younger kids. It just shows the passion she has for the game.”

In closing, Fay reminisced about the beginning of the channel and says she wouldn’t change a thing. In fact, she encouraged others to do what she did and chase their dreams.

“I was just always like, ‘What are people gonna think, I don’t wanna put myself on camera,’” Fay said. “You can find that one thing you’re passionate about. If you wanna do something, don’t sit around and think about it, go do it. It’s about taking action. Don’t regret not doing something.”