What is the importance of having a coach? How valuable is leadership? According to Ralph Nader, an American activist in the 1970s, “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders and not followers.” Unfortunately for Ipswich Girls Basketball, they have had many struggles on and off the court. The biggest challenge they dealt with was not having a coach for the beginning of the season. A coach is an important anchor of the team. According to Jayne Krause, a senior on varsity, “Having our coach leave so early made it difficult for us to create any set plays and create chemistry on our play. When our coach left it was a complete shift in morale because we had to relearn how to play with each other under different coaches.” The coach helps give the team structure and can often be the biggest leader and role model of the team. In any team sport, it is necessary to have an identity and build team chemistry to be successful.
After Coach McCarthy quit, two parents, Dan McPartlin and Jon Hubbard, were luckily willing to step up and take charge. The two coaches had no time to prepare. Coach Hubbard said, “We got the call at 5:15, and by 6:00, we were coaching practice.” Not only was this a big adjustment for the new coaches, but also for the team. The girls were under new leadership and had to adjust to different coaching styles. The new coaches were optimistic though and excited for the season that laid ahead. Coach McPartlin commented, “We knew a lot of the kids and wanted them to be successful. We wanted to make sure they had a great season.” The team had new coaches that cared about their success on and off the court.
Having coaches ready to commit to the team, the girls began to improve. They had a hard road ahead. According to captain Hazel Hoog, “We’ve improved a lot since the start of the season and even though our record doesn’t show it, we are playing much better than we were.” This team may not have had the record they’d hoped for, but with losing a coach and having to adapt to new coaching styles, they definitely persevered this season.
Despite their losing record, their improvement was significant because the girls have a very young team. The majority of the teams they were playing against had a lot of seniors and juniors. Ipswich only had 3 upperclassmen. This is a big difference because the older kids are usually taller, quicker, and have more experience playing at the varsity level. Senior Hazel Hoog, a captain who is committed to continue playing basketball at Union College, weighed in on the age of the team being a factor: “The team is mainly freshmen, so this season has been very good to their development, and as they keep playing together they should have a much better record in the next few years.” Although this year was tough, having so many younger players sets the program up for success in the years to come, as they are already gaining experience playing at the highest level.
Although the girls team went through many struggles, both senior captains, Hazel Hoog and Jayne Krause are optimistic about the future. According to Coach Dan McPartlin, “Our next step is just building up the team. We have nine freshmen, so we have a young team right now and are just planning on building it up for the future.” With this positive outlook the team has a bright future ahead of them.
