Ally Disterhoft has always dreamt big. She has the poster to prove it.

Disterhoft, now a sophomore on the Iowa women’s basketball team, made her first appearance in Carver-Hawkeye Arena as a 9-year-old. The team’s poster for the 2004-05 season had a motto of “Dream Big” and the coaches were looking for a young girl to fill the role of dreamer. Enter young Ally.

Disterhoft’s mother, Missy, played basketball at Drake University and was teammates with current Iowa coaches Jan Jensen and Jenni Fitzgerald. The Disterhofts are Iowa City natives, and Missy stayed in touch with her former-teammates-turned-Hawkeye-coaches.

“To say that we’ve known Ally for a long time is an understatement,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder says. “We’ve known her since she was a little girl. We were looking for a girl that looked athletic to be on our poster and thought Ally would fit the role.”

In the fall of 2004, Disterhoft grabbed a ball and stood in the tunnel that leads to the Carver-Hawkeye Arena court, staring out on the parquet floor with the thought of one day donning the black and gold as an actual Hawkeye.

That poster from 2004 is dripping with irony 11 years later.

"It’s so special,” Disterhoft says of the poster. “At that time, I was one of the shortest girls on my team. I was really scrawny and I didn’t know if I could compete at the Division I level. Even at the high school level, people questioned if I could make it because of my build. Looking back, it really shows you can do anything if you set your mind to it. That’s why that picture and that poster are so special to me.”

Basketball isn’t the only thing that Disterhoft has her mind set on. Only 15 players in all of Division I women’s basketball are chosen as Capital One Academic All-Americans. Among those 15 players this season, only one sophomore was chosen. Who was it?

The big dreamer.

“My parents always stressed that it’s awesome if you are a good basketball player but we want you to be remembered as a good person and a good student,” Disterhoft says. “I’ve always been here to be a student first.”

 She isn’t just a good student. You could say Disterhoft is the poster child for being a successful student athlete at Iowa.

Disterhoft, a business major, has been on the Dean’s List in every semester of her collegiate career. She currently carries a 4.04 grade-point average (on a 4.00 scale), and was one of 30 students out of her entire class at Iowa chosen for President Mason’s leadership class.

“You are going to have basketball for a couple of years and it’s going to be some of the best times of your life,” Disterhoft says. “But after that you are going to have to make a career out of something. I’ve wanted to be known as a good basketball player, but I also want to be known as a good student.”

After appearing on the team poster as a child, picking Iowa as her school of choice seemed like a no-brainer for Disterhoft. She was a prized recruit in high school and had the chance to pursue a career at numerous other schools, but Iowa always felt right.

“Everything clicked,” Disterhoft says about her visits to the Iowa program. “It clicked with the players and it clicked with the coaches. They are wonderful people. You don’t find that everywhere. The coaches at Iowa truly care about you as a young woman, not just as a basketball player. They care about what’s going on in your day-to-day lives and your academics. That attitude is unlike anywhere else I visited.”

It wasn’t just basketball that clicked with Disterhoft. She knew academics would be a big part of her collegiate career and wanted to be challenged.

“I wanted to go somewhere with great academics and a great business school,” Disterhoft says. “That’s what the Tippie College of Business is. It’s a great institution with amazing professors. I definitely made the right decision coming here. I’ve had nothing but great experiences in the classroom.”

One look at the wall in the Iowa women’s basketball locker room signals just how important academics are to Bluder and the Hawkeye program. The number of all–Big Ten performers and NCAA Tournament appearances is a focal point in the graphics on the wall. Listed alongside those athletic achievements is the number of academic All-Americans.

“We have always stressed academics and we have it on our locker room wall,” Bluder says. “We have so many great examples of stellar student-athletes. We’ve had kids go to law school, medical school, kids that are practicing dentists. Now we have Ally, who is an Academic All-American as a sophomore.”

Bluder knows what it takes to shine as a true student-athlete at Iowa after mentoring hundreds of young women to succeed in life after basketball. She knows that Disterhoft will have the chance to pick nearly any career path in the business world because of the quality education she is receiving at Iowa.

“It’s hard to know what Ally is going to do because she is getting an education that is going to set her up for success in so many areas,” Bluder says. “It could be finance, accounting, or management. Ally could go into any type of business field and be successful, and that’s what’s so great about the degree she can get here at Iowa. It allows for flexibility to chose so many different career paths and find something she is really passionate about.”

Iowa fans have the pleasure of watching Disterhoft live out her dream for two more seasons before she will move on to the next stage of her life. She has two more years to figure out what that next stage will be.

“I want to travel, whether it’s in the investment banking or accounting field,” Disterhoft says. “I’m open to trying new things and seeing where everything takes me.”

Disterhoft will attack her next step after basketball just like she attacked the pursuit of a dream illustrated on that poster. Her big dream as a 9-year-old came true with hard work and dedication that has carried on through her academic career.

If she looks unstoppable on the court now with that attitude, wait until you see her in a boardroom after graduation.