| Once upon a time, in the year 1989, there was a coach who got a job as the girls basketball coach at a small school on the East Side that had no "official" gym. Actually, this school, which has now closed it's doors, was so small it had to have an annex to accomodate all of its students. In the first season, this coach gathered together nine girls with the help of the A.P. of P.E., the best athlete being a 6'2" girl from the bowling team who had no basketball skill. By the end of the season, in which this school went 12-6, this same bowler was named to the All-Manhattan team. That summer, that coach had the team PRACTICE and play in his program in every league and tournament and all of the players improved tremendously. Even though there were a lot of girls from other schools in this program, too, the girls from this school got the ACADEMIC and athletic attention they all needed. Did I mention that they actually PRACTICED? The next season, 1990-91, this school placed third in their division and qualified for the playoffs. They lost to MLK in the playoffs (Caritas Henry & Shirlena Banks were tough to beat), but they made a mark in the PSAL. That 6-2 girl made All-Manhattan again and received tons of recruit mail from colleges. In their third season, 1991-92, after another fun-filled summer of extensive PRACTICING and playing, this team placed second in their division after splitting with the highly touted Murry Bergtraum in two marque showdowns. They now carried 14 players (all walk-ons, no transfers & none recruited) that worked hard and focused on LEARNING because they were being TAUGHT! Unfortunately, this team couldn't get past the Banks & Henry tandem, but they did finish 18-6. Oh, that 6-2 girl went on to become the starting center at the University of Houston after being a successful career at Moberly JC. Other players from that team played at St. Peters College, Johnson C. Smith, Delaware State, and Buffalo State. I guess my point is that NO ONE has to recruit to be good. Also, you don't have to go to a certain school or be on a certain summer league team to get recruted. One girl from this coach's summer league team played for a school in Brooklyn and in one game she scored all 46 of her team's points against the defending city champs. She became a first team All-City player and was also heavily recruited. It's about what you do as a student-athlete, not where you do it. It's about what you do to help student-athletes as a coach, not which student-athletes you can get to make your team better. I'm glad and very proud that I was able to be a part of the team at that little school on 2nd Ave. |