Monti, Jennifer

Jennifer Monti's career path – she is a cardiologist at the University of Pennsylvania – has technically taken her away from basketball.

Jennifer remembers, however, that as a former resident at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, to get through a particularly long night at the hospital, she would google “basketball sounds” and let the squeak of sneakers and the bounce of the ball comfort her, bringing her back to the game she loves.

A 1998 graduate of Ellington High School, Jennifer is one of 18 players in Connecticut girls' basketball history prior to the 2015-16 season to reach the 2,000-point club, finishing with an Ellington record 2,089. She was a member of Hall of Fame coach Bill Fortin's teams which finished second in Class M in 1996 and went on to win the Class M championship in 1997, a game in which Jennifer was named Most Valuable Player.

As Ellington's point guard, Jennifer averaged 23.4 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 3.0 steals per game. She was a four-time all-conference and three-time all-state selection. As a senior, she was named the Gatorade Connecticut Girls' Basketball Player of the Year, as well as being named player of the year by the New Haven Register and Hartford Courant.

Jennifer went on to play at Harvard University, where she set what is still the Ivy League record for career assists with 558, earning All-Ivy League honors twice and being named the winner of Harvard's Mary G. Paget Prize in 2002 for the senior contributing most to women's athletics.

Introduced to the game because her dad, Bob, is a “basketball junkie,” Jennifer said the sport taught her discipline, teamwork, poise and that “you get out what you put into any pursuit.” She recalls missing free throws in a junior high school game, then shooting foul shots that night in the dark in her driveway, her way of putting in the work.

She enjoys conversing about basketball with her patients and hopes to teach the game to her 2-year-old daughter.

Jennifer, who received her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, and her family reside in Philadelphia.