Just around this time last April, Hartford High standout student-athlete Charlotte Jasmin was doing what she does best — playing hoops. Little did she know her plans for the future would soon be thrown into flux.
Last April 19, Jasmin was competing in a tournament in Foxboro, Mass., for the Mass Huskies, a Boston-based club team. Spring basketball is an opportunity to get more looks from college scouts, and coming out of her junior season, the 5-foot-10 guard was at a pivotal point in the recruiting process.
In a game where she and her teammates were on their way to a blowout victory, Jasmin cut to the hoop and received a pass for a wide-open layup. But when she attempted to finish at the rim, she felt what she described as a “shot” in the side of her leg.
That “shot” turned out to be a torn ACL.
“It was kind of a shock — I knew I did it immediately,” she said. “Obviously, when you see that you’re like nine-12 months out, you’re done, so I was like, oh my God, I just lost my senior season, this was obviously the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Days later, Jasmin, who was still waiting on an official diagnosis of a torn knee ligament, was in the gym back home in Hartford shooting baskets.
“We were in here anyway… We were still in here shooting, her in a chair and standing up, because we knew something was wrong,” Hartford High girls basketball Head Coach Steve Landon said. “We didn’t skip a workout.”
Competitive drive in the face of adversity is something the Hartford hoops star’s mother, Robin, said has been evident since her daughter was little.
“No matter what she did, how she did it, if anything became a competition, she would just be the one who wanted to beat everybody and everything,” Robin Jasmin said. “She was the little girl on the playground with all the boys playing football — she was just always out-hustling them, out-doing everything.”
After her official diagnosis, Jasmin had her knee operated on in early May. Then she turned that competitive drive, typically directed at her opponents on the court, toward her rehab.
Jasmin’s surgeon said there was the possibility that she would be able to return from the injury in six to seven months, but it was a tall task, even by the standards of professional athletes.
But it was all she needed to hear. Jasmin spent last summer doing daylong gym sessions, lifting weights and, as always, getting shots up, all in hopes of returning to play for her senior season.
“She’s a very determined person,” said her father, Sean Jasmin. “She put everything into it that summer … she put every ounce of her time into recovery.”
Ironically, the injury that threw all of Jasmin’s plans into a frenzy ultimately turned out to be what she described as one of the best things to happen to her. Not only did it allow her to fall in love with other physical aspects of being a successful athlete, such as strength training, but it also allowed her to delve into the mental side of sports.
“Last year, if you asked me about mental, I would have been, no, I don’t do any of that, I don’t care about any of that,” she said.
“But I think after having an injury, things happen, and you’ve got to push through it, and it’s not just all physical anymore.”
Jasmin was cleared in November and made her return to the floor on Dec. 12 during the Canes’ season opener at Fair Haven. Landon, who planned for the senior to play on a minutes restriction, allowed her to play 30 of 32 minutes in the win.
“You know, all the D1 offers went away when she got hurt, which that’s got to be tough for a kid,” Landon said. “It was an emotional thing for all of us to get her cleared.”
‘I’m going to try’
Going into her freshman season, in which she ended up averaging over 17 points per game, Hartford High guard Jasmin had the possibility of playing college hoops in the back of her mind. Now it’s on the brink of becoming reality.
Landon returned to coach the Hurricanes girls squad in 2023, Jasmin’s sophomore year. His previous multi-year stint included the program’s first state championship in 2012.
He sat his star-in-the-making down before her second high school season and asked about her aspirations in the sport.
“I never really talked about it until the first day (we) sat down together,” Jasmin said.
Jasmin said she hoped to play Division III basketball at the collegiate level. Landon, who also previously coached the Hurricanes’ boys hoops program and the boys and girls basketball teams at Woodstock High, told her she should aim even higher.
The conversation was an eye-opener: “OK, there are people who really believe in me and think that I can do this, and that’s insane,” Jasmin recalled thinking. “From then, I was like ‘OK, Steve, I think you’re crazy, but I’m going to try.’ ”
In her senior season, Jasmin eclipsed 2,000 career points — something only four other girls hoops athletes have done in Vermont’s history. She’s also earned multiple individual accolades, including the Gatorade Player of the Year for the second year in a row, and helped lead her squad to its first state title since 2012.
She also averaged 25.5 points, 10 rebounds, 6.1 steals, and 4.7 assists during her senior season.
Jasmin is now in the process of figuring out where she’ll play college basketball. The decision lies between two Division I schools based in New England and could come as soon as next week. She said she was basing her decision on factors such as the program’s culture, coaching style, style of play and the schools’ locations.
Natural ability
In hindsight, Jasmin’s rise to the top of the Upper Valley hoops scene was almost destined.
As a young kid, she could lace it from the three-point line on 8-foot rims and was practicing with the Canes’ high school team as a fourth grader.
Jasmin, who has been playing sports since the first grade and had stints in field hockey in high school and lacrosse in eighth grade, said that basketball just came naturally to her.
Her ability was evident to those around her.
“There were just certain tricks and things she would do, and she would surprisingly do them really well,” said Hartford High senior Hailey Vanasse, a teammate who has known Jasmin since they were small.
“A coach would teach her a new move, and she’d just learn it and do it. It was like everything she was learning in practice she was retaining and putting into games,” she added.
While Jasmin’s skills speak for themselves at this point, the progress she made as a leader was just as important to the Canes’ title win this past season. Landon said that while Jasmin led with her play, heading into this season, she became more vocal, especially considering that the squad started two freshmen.
“She’s always trying to bring the energy when we’re getting lazy… she definitely leads by example,” Hartford High junior Sylvia Johnson, another of Jasmin’s teammates, said.
Vanasse echoed that sentiment: “She’s the first one to show up to practice every day, and she’s the last one to leave, and she’s also the first one to say things during halftime or to help collect ourselves.”
That leadership also extended off the court, which fostered team chemistry.
“She’s very open to people — she’s very sweet, like I always feel like I can text her and she answers,” Vanasse said.
“I think before games in the locker room we’d just all be joking around, and it was not awkward like it has been in past years,” Johnson added.
A diligent student
Jasmin also excels in the classroom, which her parents stressed to her was just as important as the hardwood.
“Charlotte is a super, super smart kid, and when she was younger, she would prefer to play basketball or field hockey, or whatever it was she was doing at the time. And her teachers would always say, ‘She’s so smart, but she doesn’t always do a ton of this other stuff,’ ” Robin Jasmin said.
Nowadays, Jasmin has a GPA over 3.8 and is a member of the National Honor Society.
“She has taken extra courses at school at a college level, and that’s how you get noticed as well, in my opinion, with your academics,” Sean Jasmin said.
Marc Bucklin, who teaches at Hartford High and is involved with athletics, had Jasmin as a student during her junior and senior years in an elective course titled ‘Student Created Independent Projects.’
Bucklin described the Hartford hooper as independent, hard-working, and driven.
“I’ve been around a lot of athletes in my time here at Hartford High School, and she is easily the most driven athlete that I’ve ever seen in her sport, but that also translates to the classroom,” he said.
Sky’s the limit
While her playing days in Hartford have come to a close, Landon said Jasmin will continue to have an impact on the school’s basketball program for years to come.
“She’s the best ever to play here — male or female,” Landon said. “She is for sure going to influence everything we do in the future; there is no doubt about it.”
He noted that even recently, Jasmin had been working out, helping her freshmen teammates.
Landon said he thinks the sky is the limit.
“Her work ethic will be above and beyond what they’ve ever seen, and if you ask that kid to do something, she’s going to do it,” he said. “She can play at any level she wants to play at, and I’m including professional in that. … She will play as long as she wants to play.”
It certainly was not an easy path to reach this point, but it all feels worth it now for Jasmin.
“It was a road, and I think not just being able to say I went out with a bang, but being able to be like, I recovered and then went out with a bang, is so much more powerful.”
