Five on the Floor, Five on the Bench

Kayla Tetschlag, a junior forward at Green Bay, is a Women's Basketball correspondent for the HLN Blog.

Everyone knows that a basketball team has coaches and players. But five staff members? Really?!? I mean, what do all those people do anyway? Well, a lot actually... and I'm going to give you a behind-the-scenes look at just what it is that keeps them so busy.

Let's start with Assistant Coach, Sarah Bronk. Coach Bronk has a major role in player development and working with our post players in practice. That is, if she comes to practice. What I mean is, Coach Bronk is also our recruiting coordinator so she often times grabs her standard cup of coffee and piles on the miles watching prospective players in high school gyms across the country. When she is in practice, she plays post defense and accumulates some nasty bruises on her arms (she IS the one who taught us to protect the ball with our elbows!). Along with post players, Sarah often puts our two transfer players through skill workouts. Outside of the gym, when she's not on the road, Coach Bronk is making sure we're on top of our academics. She sets a team GPA goal at the start of the school year and meets with players to mark progress and also encourage us to compete for our "class challenge." Each class is its own team for the challenge, and the highest average GPA wins. Needless to say, Coach Bronk stays busy, but our team is all the better for it.

Next up is Assistant Coach Amanda Leonhard. Amanda was a former star player here at Green Bay, and still holds a few records to her name. In case you didn't know, that makes her a legend. Amanda's claim to fame is preparing the team's film session by doing some tedious work: cutting video clips. She'll sit down with video from a previous game and within a couple hours, the game will separated into any number of categories including offense, defense, out of bounds plays, set plays, etc. This way, Coach Bollant can conveniently explain each category and have specific clips of our next opponent during the film session. Coach Leonhard also takes the title of team stylist. That's right: for your clothing, shoe, or any other gear needs, Amanda's your girl. She's the reason our team looks so trendy, yet clean-cut, on and off the court. However, this job is harder than it looks. Amanda must find the right styles, in the right sizes, for the right price... but she never seems to struggle. What can I say? She just has a knack for fashion. But make no mistake — Amanda knows her basketball. With all her experience as a collegiate athlete and assistant coach, she's right there to give advice or point out possible improvements. Oh yeah, and she likes to bask in her glory days by launching half court shots and occasionally reminding us of her ESPN "Top 10" play in this year's Alumni game. Like I said... legend.

And rounding out the females is Kari Flunker, Director of Basketball Operations. Kari is vital to our team's success due to one major reason: food. She makes sure that we are fueled before the games, re-fueled after the games, and plain fueled just about every other day of the week. I'm not saying this job is easy — on the last road trip our team took a meal vote and it ended in complete division with one half of the team shouting "PA-NER-A!" and the other chanting "STEAK-AND-SHAKE!" But she handles it with ease... and even has us compromise once in a while. Aside from food, Kari's specialty is logistics. She handles bus schedules, flight schedules, and hotel reservations. Kari was also a "baller" in her glory days, and a successful one at that. She's good at motivating us and her laugh is simply contagious.

I have strategically placed Assistant Coach Mike Divilbiss and Head Coach Matt Bollant last for a specific reason: that's their normal order for arriving on the team bus. I know this. The team knows this. They even know this. I was glad to see Coach D finally wearing a watch after Christmas, but I have come to realize some things never change.

OK, in all seriousness, Coach D and Coach Bollant have many, many years of experience between the them, so they are very knowledgeable about the game. They review hours upon hours of game film, set up practice plans, and prepare us for our opponents. Both of them are always encouraging, challenging, and motivating us. There is so much intensity and passion between them, that players WANT to play for them. But basketball aside, Coach D and Coach Bollant have really prepared their players for life. They are often teaching us things like leadership, teamwork, communication, and deeper things like responding to adversity and not backing down from challenges. Because of this, I know that my teammates and I will remember these two coaches for many years to come, thanks to the life skills they've taught us and the memories we've made together.

Well, there you have it! Our coaches (along with their counterparts across the country) work crazy hours, spend their summers recruiting in stuffy gyms, and travel every other weekend for months at a time. But, they are a huge piece of our program's success and we couldn't do it without them.

So here's to our staff at Green Bay... all five of 'em!