When I was offered a position on the staff at Barrie Central, my old football coach, Dave Garland, was on the interview committee and it was clear right from the onset that his agenda included me helping coach football. The long and short of it was that I coached the Jr team to a lacklustre performance in year one, and then a couple of years at Sr, winning a GBSSA Championship in 2001, but I really wasn't in love with the whole scene. Don't get me wrong, my co-coaches were awesome, and while there were players who whole-heartedly embraced the values and practices we were preaching, there remained a sizeable number that weren't really interested in become elite, and that drained much of the love out of it for me. This eventually led to me opening the door to coaching girl's basketball as my fall coaching duty.
I was blessed with talent in both co-coaches and players throughout those years.
As for coaches, the late Bob Caville and I were like Gump's "Peas and Carrots" when it came to what we both had to offer to the team, while Robin Lawrence, BNC grad and hoops star, and I shared a much closer make up and she became a close friend as the years rolled by.
As for players I got to work with, Kayla Alexander (Bio), the Lukan sisters Alyska (Mac+Ott), Megan (Bio) and Kaili (Bio), Kirsten Shedden, Nerida Kort Vander Linden, the Innes sisters Kira and Kylee, the Schweitzer sisters Holly and Ally (Mac) but they were supported by amazing athletes who's primary focus was a different sport like Emily Belchos (Bio). There are a plethora of others who may feel slighted that I didn't name ... Ladies, please understand that I mean no offence.
One team, in particular, immediately causes a coronary flutter, partially because of how it concluded but also because the girls came together over a win-filled season to be one of the best joint-effort tournaments I have ever coached.
The backbone of the 2011 team was 5'10" Sr Kaili Lukan, the youngest of the three superstar sisters to grace Central and quite possibly the best one on one defender I have ever coached, male or female. Kaili could single handily take over a game by locking down the opposition’s best player and breaking the opposition’s spirit in the process. She was so talented, she would go on to an incredible NCAA career with Wisconsin-Green Bay, following in her sister Megan's footsteps, where she helped WGB appear in multiple NCAA tournaments and was Defensive Player of the Year in the Horizon League in her Sr year.
Providing significant help was 6'0" Soph Ally Schweitzer, who would go on to her own successful career as a member of McMaster Marauders where she was a heralded recruit (Click).
The rest of the supporting cast were a plethora of incredible athletes like Nerida Koert Van der Linden (who also holds the record for the longest name I have coached), sisters Kira and Kylee Innes, Ally's sister Holly, Emily Belchos, Emma Chown, Corinna Mageean, Brittany Triemstra, Claire MacDonald, Tori Bailey, Chanel Frangakis and Laura Benson.
My co-coach was Pappa Bear himself, the late Bob Caville. Bob was a "Salt of the Earth" type of man and a terrific basketball coach, to boot. We each brought our own strengths to the team and I am forever in his debt for sharing his knowledge and friendship with me.
We won the GBSSA title going away and entered the tournament seeded #9. The hype about our team grew with each upset as we posted wins over #8 Glebe HS, #15 St Ignatius and #6 Thomas A Stewart. We eventually won our way into the Gold Medal game against heavily favoured #1 General Amherst, who's starting line up was the stuff of legends going 6'5", 6'3", 6'1", 6'0" and 5'10" ... Sr Girls ... Are you kidding me? In the end it came down a 2-point lead for GA in the waning seconds after Kaili’s last second shot bounced out, and I prepared myself for the inevitable tears of a heart-wrenching loss … Except that didn’t happen.
As the girls rushed into a group at mid court, the resounding cheers swelled in volume, “We’re Number Two! We’re Number Two!” Bob and I looked at each other incredulously, tears welling in our eyes, and we shared a long embrace filled to the brim with pride. The school's first OFSAA Girl's Basketball medal AND my highest placing OFSAA medal in basketball.
I can still hear their favourite song, “Ooooh ooooh ... Sometimes … I get a feeling …”
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