Making It Through the Hoops

MISSION HILLS —  They never seemed more distant, the almighty church officials who put Melissa Hearlihy through the ringer last summer, who made her fight to keep her job as girls’ basketball coach at Alemany High.

They never seemed more remote, the doubters who predicted that Alemany was too young and too short to sustain a winning tradition.

After the Indians defeated La Puente, 62-39, for the Southern Section Division III-AA championship on Saturday afternoon, Hearlihy cared only about the people closest to her.

Her players.

The parents who waited court-side to congratulate her.

The teachers and administrators who hugged her at school on Monday morning because they knew how she had suffered in this, the most tumultuous season of her storied career.

“They were the people who stood by me through all this,” Hearlihy said. “They are why I’m still at Alemany.”

The Indians will face Shafter in a first-round Southern Region playoff game at 7:30 tonight at L.A. Baptist.

Just another big game for a coach who has accumulated 296 career victories in 13 years, winning 10 Mission League championships and three section titles.

Except this season has been unlike any other. The championship on Saturday was unlike any other.

“More satisfying?” Hearlihy wondered. “No. Satisfying in a different way.”

The boisterous woman--a whirl of blond hair and enthusiasm--is reluctant to discuss her travails. She works from a closet-sized office, a championship banner covering a narrow wall, a cluttered desk belying her precise nature.

Her players say that not once this season has she lost her temper over off-court matters. Her husband, Bill, says she has held up “remarkably well.”

Perhaps the ordeal is most evident in her voice, the words reduced to a raspy whisper from strained vocal cords.

Hearlihy’s problems began last spring when she dropped a sophomore player, Devan Zumwalt, from the team. Zumwalt’s parents complained to the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese, of which Alemany is a member. Church officials subsequently informed Hearlihy that, after more than a decade of service, her yearly contract would not be renewed.

The news sent shock waves through the quiet campus beside the San Fernando Mission.

Senior guard Kelli Kobayashi became physically ill. Karina Siam, a talented incoming freshman, said that she was prepared to follow Hearlihy to another school. Returning guard Kate Beckler said: “We were kind of lost. We were sheep without a herder.”

In the ensuing weeks, parents and players waged a very public campaign for their renowned coach. They eventually got her reinstated, but hurt and anger remained.

“It was an emotional strain,” Bill Hearlihy said. “It was hard on her and the young kids.”

His wife responded with a determined myopia, ignoring intrusions, focusing only on the task at hand. “It’s not about me, it’s about the players,” she said time and again.

“I was kind of surprised,” Kobayashi said. “But that’s coach. She only focuses on our team and she doesn’t let anything distract her. She knows exactly what she wants.”

This season, she had her work cut out for her.

Kobayashi and Beckler were the only returning starters on a team of freshmen and sophomores. With no big players, Hearlihy implemented a transition offense and scrambling defense.

The gamble failed early on. Her players missed too many defensive assignments and played timidly. After a handful of losses, it looked as if Alemany might relinquish its dominance over the league.

“I think we were just too scared,” Beckler said. “We didn’t have much experience. Everybody was new and our team was not really together.”

The low point came with a 14-point loss to rival Harvard-Westlake in January. Kobayashi and Beckler were held to 17 points.

“I was so distraught,” Beckler said.

But the controversy and turmoil may have played to Hearlihy’s strong suit, her belief that coaching girls’ basketball is 80% mental.

“It’s because girls think so much,” she said. “Sometimes guys don’t really think, they just play.”

The coach ripped her team after the Harvard-Westlake loss. During a week of tough practices, she challenged the seniors to take charge and demanded the freshmen play harder.

“She lectured about how people didn’t believe in us,” Kobayashi said. “We were mad at ourselves, too.”

Hearlihy calls it a turning point.

“We started playing so much better as a team,” she said. “Everyone stepped up their game. And Kelli Kobayashi did a great job of supporting the younger kids, giving them the ball every time they got open, whether they made it or missed it. She knew down the stretch that was what it was going to take.”

The Indians put together a string of victories. In a February rematch against Harvard-Westlake, Beckler and Kobayashi combined for 56 points in a 73-53 victory.

The victory gave Alemany a share of the league title and propelled the Indians through the sectional playoffs, where they averaged 76 points in four lopsided victories.

“This was supposed to be a rebuilding year. Harvard-Westlake was supposed to be the team to beat,” said Siam, the loyal freshman who ended up starting at center. “Look at us now.”

Now that the team has its section championship, the pressure is off. The state tournament is perceived as icing on the cake, so the coach can take a moment to reflect.

Now that she can look up, look around, no one would blame her for counting the title as revenge against the archdiocese.

But, she said, “it’s not about revenge. They’re all the way downtown. They’re so far removed.”

Hearlihy prefers to focus on those closest to her.

“The kids and their parents . . . . I mean, those people stood up for me,” she said. “Everybody likes to be patted on the back. It was like experiencing my eulogy while I was still alive.”

Finally, her emotions surface. Tears start to well in her eyes as she talks about everything that has happened since last spring, what she calls “a season against all odds.”

She quickly recovers, smiling.

“Very few people get this opportunity,” she said. “It’s amazing.”