High School Girls Basketball

4th-year coach Sweeney had big hand in development of 5 seniors since early AAU years

The unrelenting stomping of the feet. The trademark "overcoming adversity" speech. The inimitable, "Get on the line!"

For the Bishop Chatard High School senior girls basketball players, the coaching style of fourth-year coach Kevin Sweeney is well-known.

After all, seniors Anne Boese and Caroline Schutzman also played for Sweeney's CYO team as seventh and eighth graders at St. Luke. All five seniors -- Boese, Schutzman, Ellen Alerding, Jessica Hupp and Megan Gardner -- competed on the Outback Shooters AAU teams for which Sweeney was an assistant when they were seventh-graders and head coach when they were eighth-graders.

"This group of seniors probably knows what I'm going to say before I say it," Sweeney, 43, said jokingly. "They're like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, coach.' "

His players must have listened sometime. The Trojans last week won the first girls basketball regional in school history. Today, Class 3A No. 5 Chatard (22-4) plays unranked Vincennes (21-3) in a 1 p.m. semistate game at Southport. At stake is a berth in the March 1 final at Conseco Fieldhouse.

Although accustomed to Sweeney's mannerisms now, it hasn't always been that way.

Boese recalled her first experience with Sweeney when she was a sixth-grader.

"I remember hearing a lot about him, how he's real fierce, real intimidating and scary and I was frightened of him," Boese said. "But he asked me one time after a practice in sixth grade to come and just play along with them during a practice. I remember I was absolutely frightened, but after that practice and then playing with him the next year and up until now, I've learned exactly who he is and what type of coach he is."

The seniors know the impact Sweeney has had on their careers.

"He's taught me almost everything I know about basketball, to be honest," said Schutzman, who was a freshman at Brebeuf Jesuit before transferring to Chatard as a sophomore.

"Before I played for him, it was just kind of like a game. . . . He's really taught us to be intense. He calls it a different kind of fun. Some people play it because they think it's fun or whatever, but it's really a different kind of fun for us because we love to win and he showed us that."

Gardner said her senior teammates were excited when they found out Sweeney was coming to Chatard. As a freshman, Boese was a role player on its first sectional champs, a group that included Gardner's older sister, Kelly.

"He knows us and we know him, and we know what he's expecting all the time; that's always 110 percent," Megan Gardner said. "He really understands the game and he prepares us well for every game."

Gardner said the players know what type of practice it will be by the way Sweeney walks in the gym. And whether in practice or in a game, Sweeney has the Trojans' attention -- even when he disappears in the huddle when surrounded by his taller players.

"These girls look down on me," Sweeney said with a smirk, noting he has been 5-7 since sixth grade.

Sweeney, who began coaching as a college sophomore in 1986, coached or coached against all current Chatard upperclassmen in CYO ball. He said it has been fun to watch the players come together to this level.

"I've got some great kids that make me look good, and I mean that with all sincerity," he said. "These kids are the best and they know I care about them, and they care about the program and they care about each other. No matter how hard I get on them, they know I'm there for them to get better and to help them and help the team."

. Admission: $7.

At Elkhart Northside Gym

. Class 2A: Garrett (23-3) vs. Oak Hill (25-0), 1 p.m.

. Class 4A: South Bend Washington (22-2) vs. Fort Wayne South Side (22-4), follows 2A game.