Meet UConn Basketball Star Blanca Quiñonez’s Family
Blanca Quiñonez was simply 13 years previous when she left her household in Ecuador to play membership basketball in Italy. Two years later, she was making her skilled debut for Magnolia Campobasso in Italy’s Serie A1 skilled basketball league. Now at simply age 19, she is a star forward for the UConn Huskies.
Born August 3, 2006, in Milagro, Ecuador, Blanca began taking part in basketball at age 5 after attending a neighborhood summer time camp together with her twin brother and older brother. While she performed in Europe for years, Blanca opened as much as faculty recruitment in April 2024 after watching that yr’s Final Four and being attentive to the expansion of ladies’s faculty basketball within the United States. Interest from high Division I packages adopted instantly. In October 2024, she verbally committed to UConn having with out visited the campus, changing into the first player from South America in the program’s history.
The 6-foot-2 ahead, nicknamed “Blanquita” by her household, Blanca stays near her household even when she will be able to’t be close to them geographically. “I’m very attached to my family—they are a fundamental pillar for me—but I think that when you take a leap like this, you focus on the person you can become in the future,” she informed CT Insider. “And I think that’s something that helped me stay firm with this decision and I don’t want to turn back.”
Here, get to know Blanca Quiñonez’s household:
Blanca’s father Guillermo
Her father is alleged to have labored lengthy hours to assist Blanca and her two brothers, though particulars about his career haven’t been publicly reported. “We sacrificed so much to be able to take care of my family,” Guillermo informed USA Today. “To see my kids successful and achieve what they want, that is all I could ask for.”
Blanca’s mom Fabiola
Her mom, too a former basketball playerwas the one who launched Blanca to the game at age 5 when she took her to summer time camp, the place her athletic pursuits first developed. Fabiola has stated in interviews that Blanca was very shy as a baby, which made her preliminary transfer away from residence a lot troublesome. “She was a girl who didn’t speak. She only ever said two to three words,” Fabiola informed USA Today. “To see her now, speaking three languages, to see how she has developed—she took advantage of every second of distance from her parents.”
Blanca’s older brother Joel
Blanca has two siblings: a twin brother named Jaime and an older brother named Joel. “With the three of us—my twin, my older brother, and me—whenever we were together, we were total chaos,” Blanca informed CT Insider about taking part in sports activities collectively rising up.
Blanca’s twin brother Jaime
Blanca’s twin brother Jaime can also be knowledgeable athlete. Jaime is a professional soccer participant who has competed for home golf equipment together with Alianza Milagro, Emelec, Técnico Universitario, 9 de Octubre, and Orense, and had a trial with CF Pachuca of Liga MX in Mexico. She described him to the Ecuadorian newspaper The Commerce as “a fighter with talent and discipline.” Blanca even performed soccer earlier than committing totally to basketball. She credit the game with sharpening her agility, court docket imaginative and prescient, and stamina, though she has said in interviews she solely caught with soccer for thus lengthy to spend extra time together with her twin.
“We were inseparable. We played all day, we challenged each other, we helped each other,” she informed the newspaper. “Leaving him was the hardest thing. But I understood that this leap was necessary if I wanted to grow as an athlete.”
Rachel King (she/her) is a information author at Town & Country. Before becoming a member of T&Cshe spent practically a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work masking journey and life-style has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Criticand Cool Huntingamongst others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York together with her spouse, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at .
