Donovans Girls Shine Bright in Defeat

[Where Are They Now]

Special training:[/B] After a 40-36 loss in the Division V girls final, Eastside College Prep's six players stood poised at the free-throw line wearing "Seal Team Six" T-shirts over their uniforms. Coach Donovan Blythe [/B]embraced Navy Seal training early in the season and his team regularly had 5:30 a.m. practices. All of it led to the school's first Northern California title.
"It's been an unbelievable season," he said. "I'm at a loss for words. ... I couldn't be prouder of a group of six girls."

SFChron

 

[BKWRDKUROUT]

Since I've never had the answer to this - maybe there is one from others here on the board.

Why, what are the reasons that Eastside Prep - in 2015 - went with six girls total on the team?

 

[ClayK]

That's always been a question for me. I can't help but believe there are more than six girls who would play basketball if encouraged to be on the team. From the outside, it appears that ESCP basically just takes the best players and doesn't actively try to give other kids the chance to benefit from playing a high school sport.

Then again, maybe no other female on the campus is interested. I do know, though, that most D5 schools of a similar size carry several inexperienced/less talented girls who want to learn the game.

 

[bodyguard]

Originally posted by ClayK:
That's always been a question for me. I can't help but believe there are more than six girls who would play basketball if encouraged to be on the team. From the outside, it appears that ESCP basically just takes the best players and doesn't actively try to give other kids the chance to benefit from playing a high school sport.

Then again, maybe no other female on the campus is interested. I do know, though, that most D5 schools of a similar size carry several inexperienced/less talented girls who want to learn the game.

I don't have time right now to go into the details, maybe I can expand later... but simply put, in the eight years we've been at Eastside, Donovan has not cut one girl who wanted to play varsity basketball as long as she was willing to make to commitment to attend practices.

 

[ClayK]

That would explain it then. ESCP is a very small school and numbers are down everywhere.

Donovan does a tremendous job with the available talent ... beating O'Dowd with four players has to be one of the best in-game coaching performances/adjustments in many years.

 

[Nor Cal Scout]

This makes the previous point more valid. Not cutting and actively trying to give kids a chance to benefit from playing a high school sport are at two ends of the spectrum. Sometimes it is not what we do or what we say, it is what we don't do or what we don't say.

 

[snacks5]

Eastside has a full JV team don't they?

 

[SouthBayHoopFan]

>> Coach Donovan Blythe embraced Navy Seal training early
>> in the season and his team regularly had 5:30 a.m. practices.
>>

>> What are the reasons that Eastside Prep - in 2015 - went
>> with six girls total on the team?
>>

>> Donovan has not cut one girl who wanted to play varsity
>> basketball as long as she was willing to make to
>> commitment to attend practices.

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Hmm, I'm not sure it takes a rocket scientist to figure this one out.



This post was edited on 4/9 9:11 PM by SouthBayHoopFan