Palestra’s resident funny girl

After opting to not play for the women’s basketball team last season, Amy Donovan had a lot of spare time.

She did schoolwork, saw friends and geared up for the spring track season (she throws discus for the Quakers).

Donovan also found time to hone a different set of skills — comedic skills, to be exact.

“It’s been more the last year and a half that I’ve seriously considered trying to do [stand-up comedy] as something of a career,” she said. “My parents — it kills them. I actually told them and they I thought I was joking, which is tragically ironic.”

Now that the senior forward is back with the Quakers — who travel to Cornell and Columbia this weekend ­— she has been testing some of her material in the locker room in hopes of perfecting her routine for the open mic nights at Helium Comedy Club that she plans to attend after the season.

“I definitely have some stuff about being a girl athlete, [like] going over to Pottruck and going on the treadmills and having the other girls looking behind in terror as I’m running on. I kind of have a comparison with Jurassic Park,” said Donovan, who, at six feet, is the third-tallest member of Penn’s women’s basketball team.

It seems her self-described “bizarre” sense of humor has been well received by her teammates.

“I just remember thinking the first couple weeks [of freshman year] that this girl’s sense of humor is just different than anyone else I have ever experienced because its just dry and quick and funny,” senior co-captain Sarah Bucar said. “She’s hilarious; very, very witty.”

Although her fellow Quakers seem to approve of Donovan’s comedic stylings, her musical taste is a different story. As a country music fan, Donovan’s contributions to the team’s pre-game warmup CD are usually unpopular.

“I have a very eclectic sense of music,” Donovan admitted. “If I’m trying to get [something] that everybody else will like, I tend to go with the old school. Lately it’s been Destiny’s Child.”

The Battle Ground, Wash., native’s comedic talents, and musical preferences, in the locker room have not only been entertaining, but have also had a positive influence on the Quakers this season.

In fact, she was named a team captain just over a month ago — rounding out the trio of three senior captains on the squad.

Head coach Mike McLaughlin sees her leadership as Donovan’s biggest contribution.

“I’m really proud of her not playing last year and [yet] really being determined to help us in the program as we go forward,” McLaughlin said.

Strong leadership skills or not, the action movie buff claims it may be difficult to inspire her teammates to join her in seeing The Wolfman this weekend, as she is “the only one” excited for its release.

But whether she’ll be sitting in an empty theatre or not, Donovan claims she could not be happier to be back on the team she considers her “family away from your family.”

“You have people that are going to lead by example,” Bucar said. “But you are less likely to find somebody willing to really say what you are thinking, and she definitely does that.”

And that’s a talent that will serve her just as well on the comedy circuit as it does win the huddle.

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