Last year, after three or four of the starting line up had graduated, and with only three people regularly showing up to practices, then Athletic Directors Dawn Wickstrum and assistant Elisa Ryan decided to termiate the girls’ basketball season. But this year with sufficient interested student athletes, AD Bobby Starks and Assistant AD Laura Gill have decided to rebuild the girls’ basketball program.

Co-workers and friends close to Gill refer to her as “the Bulldog.” With basketball being one of her favorite sports, there was no way she would be able to sleep at night without a girls’ basketball team.

“The first angle we tried to attack it from was ‘Have some pride in your school,’ ‘Have some pride in Parker,’” Gill said. “When schools like Latin and our other rivals see that Parker doesn’t have a girls’ basketball team, I think it reflects poorly on us.”

The athletic department is working to make the girls’ basketball program flexible in terms of how the season will be run. In listening to the feedback of the girls, they found common threads, such as requests for a shorter season, a more flexible practice schedule, and permission to blast music during practice.

The team consists of around 15 girls, and the number has been growing throughout the season. This season’s captains — senior Julia Turner and junior Morgan Harler — were chosen by the coaches for being strong leaders and overall good athletes.

“There is no difference from not being a captain,” senior Julia Turner said.  “I don’t want the teammates to feel that Morgan and I are on a different level than them. However, we are the liaison for the team.”

The team is currently competing with junior varsity teams in their conference games, and outside of their conference games with both junior varsity and varsity teams. The Parker team has not yet been divided into junior varsity and varsity teams.  

“My goal is just to keep this program going,” head coach Alex Barone said. “We’re getting a good solid base.  It starts with the squad. I am happy with who we have and how we are doing it.”

As for the practices, they are going well and have been altered to fit the athletes’ feedback, according to Harler.  Practices go from four to six, and there are no six to eight practices or morning practices, with the exception of occassions when the girls feel such a practice is necessary. One thing that most athletes wanted was to get fit during the winter season, so after practices they often do conditioning to keep in shape.

A typical practice includes a variety of scrimmages, shooting competitions, and dribbling contests. As in most sports, however, the coaches often choose two or three elements to work on from previous games, and they make sure to cover strategies for game time, like drills that teach boxing out, screens, and shell drills of different defenses.

The girls won their first game of the season but lost the second, then took first place in a weekend-long tournament on November 21which also presented them with the opportunity to bond as a team. Although the teams that they were playing were mostly junior varsity, the team showed good signs.

“Considering the fact that we didn’t have a team last year, we are doing surprisingly well,” Harler said. “I think it just proves that we can compete against varsity teams.”

Part of their success is due to their aggressive play, which they have even been warned of by their refs. The entire team has been warned for being too aggressive and reminded that basketball is not a contact sport like football, according to Harler.

With a new program there isn’t so much a focus on winning and losing as there is a focus on making sure the athletes are having fun, and attracting other people to this fun, to expand the team. The Athletic Directors, along with the coaches, have this idea in mind going forward.

No successful team comes without exceptional coaching. Barone, the new head coach, was an All-American basketball player at Saint Xavier, practice player for the Chicago Sky, and a member of a professional squad in Germany. One of the assistant coaches, Alex King, coached in Central Illinois and was also the Parker girls’ field hockey coach. The other assistant coach, Troy Hambric, who coached basketball last year, played at Loyola and also professionally in Puerto Rico.

Barone first applied for the job to coach at Parker after her friends, King and Gill, suggested it to her. Her love of basketball started when she was in the fourth grade, and she hopes to help her athletes find that same love. Barone understands that the program needs rebuilding, but she also has confidence in the school’s ability to do so.

“If I could have one thing at the end of this season,” Barone said, “it would be for the girls to be like, ‘I had a great time.’”