An Unlikely Heroine of Alma College Men's Basketball
By Lindsay CarpenterSport Marketing Manager
“I have always believed that the most important thing about a coach is their passion for the game and their love for young people – nothing else should matter.”
So stated Alma College men’s basketball head coach Ed Kohtala, espousing his long-held belief that anyone with those two key characteristics should be allowed a spot on the sidelines. After a few trying seasons at Alma College, it was to be an energetic, five-foot-three recruit who would test that belief.
In the fall of 2005, Kohtala pulled aside a new assistant coach on Alma’s volleyball staff – Coach Lu – to ask if an opportunity coaching on his staff would be of interest.
“I lacked the confidence to take on the challenge when Coach Kohtala first asked me, but then I thought ‘why not take on this challenge?’ Coach saw promise in me, so I told him ‘if you have confidence in me, then so do I. He trusted me with his program’.”
Kohtala brought Coach Lu on board without hesitation.
“That long-held principle, it had never been tested,” states Kohtala. “It’s extremely easy to hold a philosophical belief that you’ve never tested. She proved my principle right, from my perspective.”
Coach Lu – Cheyenne Luzynski, 24 – is wrapping up her second season as an assistant men’s basketball coach for Alma College and has steered the junior varsity program during this time as well. Perhaps an unlikely heroine for the story, but pushing boundaries and demonstrating courage, coaching a sport of men.
A 2005 graduate of Central Michigan University, Luzynski played club volleyball and graduated summa cum laude. Her coaching debut at Alma College came in the fall of 2005 when she joined the staff of Alma’s volleyball program. She had intended to coach the women’s junior varsity basketball team, but when the numbers weren’t there, Kohtala presented her with an opportunity on the men’s team.
It was a learning experience, hands-on and a little overwhelming at the outset. Like any coach, she set expectations of herself and her team.
“From the start, my expectations of the team were to improve, to develop team unity, to enrich these players’ Alma experience and to compete hard in games and in practice,” says Luzynski.
Her team competed and became one of the best junior varsity teams in the league, with only Hope College’s junior varsity program winning more games than Alma’s JV team.
“The real test of any coach is do their teams perform hard and improve over the course of a season – she did that,” notes Kothala.
But it was an interesting road with twists and turns that she herself might not even recall.
There was the moment when a coach told her that with the guys she had playing on her team, anybody could win the number of games she did. Throughout the season that first year, referees did not shake her hand, instead bypassing her and shaking the hands of the student assistants on her sideline, never imaging the marathoner-in-training to be the coach of this team. But she’s changing perceptions – this year, that hasn’t happened. This year, she has embraced her femininity instead of shying away from it - she wore noticeable makeup, something she hadn’t felt comfortable enough to do before. She wore pink in honor of breast cancer awareness month, wore her hair down (“I guess it feels more feminine and natural,” she says), and even wore a skirt, a major hurdle, along with heels.
Josh Shattuck, a player on the junior varsity team Luzynski’s first season and a varsity player this season, had coached as a student assistant prior to joining the junior varsity team.
“One thing I noticed that was different for me was that the coaches who I would talk to and shake hands with before games when I was a student coach, would talk for much, much longer with her,” he says with a wry smile. “It was weird for me that first year to go from coach to player and it was a difficult transition for me, and she talked to me about it and it was just ‘hey, I’m the coach’.”
“She’s an excellent communicator, so she’s really easy to talk to,” says Shattuck. “You’re never guessing with her. I don’t know why it wasn’t weird – her being a woman coaching men - but it wasn’t.”
That isn’t necessarily true for everyone though. While her players insist that their coach is their coach, if you listen in to conversations in the stands at the team’s games, a better understanding can be pieced together.
In the midst of an arena reserved for thousands, a junior varsity NCAA Division III basketball team contests a game that will never make the papers or much of a memory as the opposing teams fans begin filtering into the arena.
“You don’t think that little gal is actually their coach, do you?”
“No, it can’t be.”
“No, I think that little girl is the coach of these boys.”
But she continues to be different, embracing the opportunity to learn from a head coach she respects and with players who she believes in.
“At first it was different,” recalls freshman Mike Bowman, “but only because I’d never had a girl coach. Now I’m used to it…other than the changing part…we can’t change in front of her.”
“You know, it’s selfish and it’s personal, but I have two daughters,” says Kohtala. “It has never crossed my daughter Camille’s mind that Coach Lu shouldn’t be coaching her college boys. Anything that removes those types of limitations or stereotypes has to be a good thing.”
More than that, Luzynski is teaching the game and teaching young men who someday, with daughters of their own, will thank her for what she’s done, even if they might not fully appreciate it now.
“I want to allow these guys the lesson to appreciate women, to have more respect for the gender, to accept women in roles of power,” says Luzynski. “Coaching is about trust, though. If you have the trust of your team and your players, any player will play for you.”
Posted: Tue, February 20th, 2007 at 10:46AM
