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Saturday, March 11 High Point Enterprise - March 8, 2006. Villains develop winning chemistry BY STEVE HANF ENTERPRISE SPORTS WRITER KERNERSVILLE – Some of Bishop Mc Guinness’ players know each other too well by the time they arrive at the high school. With cries over recruiting often cast in the direction of “private” schools in the state, Bishop’s 10-player roster boasts nine girls who came up through Catholic feeder schools and one nearby resident: freshman Brittany Cox, who attended Ledford Middle School. One might guess that familiarity breeds instant success once the middle schoolers arrive from teams at Our Lady of Mercy and St. Leo’s of Winston-Salem, St. Pius X and Our Lady of Grace of Greensboro, Immaculate Heart of Mary in High Point and Blessed Sacrament of Burlington. In fact, deep-seated divisions must first be broken. “We’ve all known of each other and we used to be huge rivals, and coming into Bishop we became teammates – and started to like each other once we started playing together,” said smiling sophomore Maggie Ronan, who played with Erinn Thompson, Mackenzie Wheaton and Gina Simmons at Our Lady of Mercy. “Once we got to know each other, we all clicked really well and played well together.” The chemistry that developed among the Villains is a big part of the team’s 30-0 record. Not to be overlooked, added Bishop coach Brian Robinson, is the role of the feeder schools. “We have very good feeder-school programs that teach the girls when they’re in sixth-, seventh, eighth-grade how to press, how to run, how to compete,” he said. “When they come to Bishop, they have an idea of how to play basketball at a very competitive level.” Dont Lie by Black Eyed Peas Saturday, March 11 High Point Enterprise - March 8, 2006. Catholic schools make their mark in NCHSAA Bishop Mc Guinness, Charlotte Catholic, Cardinal Gibbons work overtime to keep a level playing field Rick Strunk held up his hand and stopped the statement cold, albeit with a friendly smile. "Non-boarding parochial schools," said the associate executive director of the N.C. High School Athletic Association. "Not private. "That's quite a mouthful, not to mention an awful lot to type when ranting and raving on the internet message boards about how unfair it is that Bishop Mc Guinness, Charlotte Catholic and Cardinal Gibbons possess membership in the NCHSAA. Three Catholic high schools can be found in North Carolina. All three play against public schools. Most importantly, all three are state championship contenders in at least one sport, Bishop breaking through in its inaugural season in the NCHSAA with Saturday's girls championship battle against Southeast Halifax. When a public school loses to a private school"oops, that's 'non-boarding parochial school' passions run high. The private schools, of course, recruit. Strunk said the application process for entry into the NCHSAA is the same for the Catholic schools as for any new public school opening in the state. The only different rules involved, in fact, are targeted directly at the nonboarding parochial schools: - Students playing sports cannot have their tuition paid for with scholarships of any kind. - Any athlete transferring from a public to a private school must sit out a year before competing. For starters, the transfer rule is far stricter than that imposed on the public schools, where policies range from non-existent to lenient in the best of districts when it comes to athletes switching schools. "Recruiting is hard to prove public school to public school," Strunk said. "I think the three non-boarding parochial schools have become really, really cognizant of that." So much so that each "private school" reports every transfer student to the NCHSAA, whether the athlete came from Durham, Delaware or Denmark. "The transfer rule is a good rule," said Bishop athletic director Jeff Stoller. "All three Catholic high schools in the state totally understand the reasoning behind the transfer rule and think it's a good rule." As for scholarships, Stoller said athletes at Bishop never have received financial aid to pay the cost of tuition, adding that the practice is outlawed by the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association, as well. Strunk recalled that Gibbons, the Raleigh school situated across from the RBC Center, had athletes on need-based financial aid prior to joining the NCHSAA and told those players in advance that they would either have to stop playing or pay full tuition. Charlotte Catholic owns the longest stay in the NCHSAA of any non-boarding parochial school, thanks in part to a decision some 50 years ago. The state Board of Education was told to change its policy of admitting only public schools into the NCHSAA, or legislation would be drafted to make it happen, Strunk said. No one complained for the longest time simply because those schools (there were as many as six "private" institutions over the years) performed woefully on the playing fields. Coaches such as Skip Prosser don't joke about playing "Our Lady of Perpetual Motion" for no reason. When Catholic started to get good in the early 1980s, six principals actually got the issue of ousting the school from the NCHSAA on a ballot. The statewide membership, Strunk said, rejected the proposition. The increase in private schools - really, who wants to keep typing "non-boarding parochial schools" anyway? - C around the state likely means more and more will seek membership in the NCHSAA in the coming years. Officials at Bishop met with the association early on in the process to be sure all the I's were dotted and T's crossed. Strunk said he actually gave a workshop at Gibbons with all the school's coaches to go over the different policies. There's a cross in the gym. They pray before the game. The vehicles in the parking lot may be a bit shinier. And maybe there aren't as many Smiths and Joneses on the rosters. But the playing field isn't all that different, when you get right down to it. "The good thing about our athletic program -not just our basketball team - is that we're big on making sure our six feeder schools are priority No. 1," Villains girls coach Brian Robinson said. "Nine of our 10 girls on the varsity team have come from a Catholic feeder school. "You're always going to hear things, especially when you're successful," he added. "If you're doing something right, you don't apologize, and we're not going to apologize for doing things the right way." shanf@hpe.com |888-3526 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous. -- Shana Alexander Wednesday, October 4 Two Other Articles Of Note... Helen Wheelock, of Women's Basketball Magazine and a writer for the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) wrote two pieces on topics very relevant to players, coaches, administration / support staff, parents and fans of girl's basketball. Click on the topic to read the article: The Reality of High School Coaches High School vs. AAU - A Culture Clash Monday, October 23 Another Article, This One On Parents ... Saturday, May 26 Why High School Coaches Burn Out. An interesting link as to why high school coaches, on the average, don't last very long. |
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