Jacki has been a winning 6’0” basketball player at all levels, including St. Mary’s High School and representing the United States as an amateur. She competed professionally in the Women’s National Basketball Associa-tion and in Europe.
Jacki was born in Stockton and attended Mabel Barron Elementary School K-8 and St. Mary’s High School, graduating in 2006.
Jacki received just about every award available in Girls’ Basketball at St. Mary’s High School while playing for the very successful and demanding coach, Tom Gonzalves, who had coached her since she was a fourth grader. She was the top recruit in the country coming out of high school She set a school and section record by scoring 3,162 career points. Her senior year at St. Mary’s, she averaged 39.2 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 2.7 steals per game. She was named a McDonald’s All-American and Miss Basketball for the State of California. Max Preps named her the national player of the year. Jacki was named Player of the Year for the area all four years of high school by the Stockton Record. USA Today named her to its All-American 1st Team in 2006. Parade Magazine named her to its national First Team in 2005. ESPN named her to their second-team All-Decade Girls’ Basketball team.
Jacki’s high school career ended with a knee injury in her last game as a senior. She enrolled at University of Southern California (USC). She suffered a series of additional knee injuries which caused her to miss two full seasons before she played the entire season in 2010-11. She would endure eight knee surgeries in six years. In the 2010-11 season, she averaged 12.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. At USC she earned a B.A. degree in Sociology and a Master’s degree in Gerontology.
Following her USC career, she played on Team USA at the World Games held in Shezen, China. The team earned a gold medal.
In 2012, she was drafted into the WNBA, playing professionally with the Minnesota Lynx, Chicago Sky, and the Connecticut Sun.
From 2013-20, Jacki played with various professional teams in the EuroLeague in Greece, Spain, Turkey, and Italy. She was named to the Greece National Team in 2018. In 2020-21, she was again on the rosters of three WNBA teams with limited playing time.
She is currently (2021) an assistant coach for the New York Liberty in the WNBA, scouting other teams’ offenses and figuring out how to defend them.
Jacki is the daughter of Steve and Linda Gemelos and has two sisters.
