She grew up right in front of everyone’s Minnesota eyes, a budding player on the still-news girls basketball scene. At age 14, she was already well-skilled beyond her age with a near-flawless perimeter game to go with a stoic, on-court demeanor of Bjorn Borg, an international sensation on another kind of court. Two years earlier, her brother said she could be the best girls basketball player ever in Minnesota. He modeled himself after “Pistol” Pete Maravich and knew these kinds of things, he proclaimed. She merely shrugged off the accolades and proclamations. She just wanted to be herself. She just wanted to be known as Janet. A one-name reference typically calls for legendary status, and for Janet Karvonen, that fits.
