EDMONDS — Before last season, Jennifer Schooler was hired to revive an Edmonds Community College women’s basketball program that had gone winless the year before.
Schooler, a former University of Idaho player, set about instilling a new attitude and work ethic. She stressed commitment, preached fundamentals and demanded hustle. Above all, she pushed her players to believe in themselves and each other.
Before long, Schooler was seeing discernible changes.
Discernible, that is, in every way but one. The Tritons were again winless in 2008-09.
“The emotional ride I had to go through with (last year’s players) is something I wouldn’t wish on anybody,” Schooler said. “Going 0-25, there were definitely a lot of phone calls to my parents (asking), ‘What did I sign up for?’ There were a lot of tears, too.”
Two months ago, the Tritons opened the 2009-10 season with back-to-back defeats and Schooler’s self-doubt grew. “I was thinking, ‘Maybe I’m not that good. Maybe I’m all talk. Maybe what I envision, I can’t teach.’
“But then,” she added, smiling now, “that went away.”
Indeed it did. On a glorious night in early December, in the team’s third game of this season, Edmonds CC rolled past visiting Grays Harbor CC 72-41, ending a losing streak that had reached 57 games over two entire seasons and parts of two others.
“As the minutes were winding down,” said sophomore guard Whitney Anderson of Bothell, one of two returning players from a year ago, “I was looking at the scoreboard and thinking, ‘We’re still ahead.’ … It was a great feeling. It wasn’t a perfect game for us, but it felt like a perfect game.”
When it was over, “all the fans were standing and clapping,” she said. “And I didn’t want to leave the floor.”
Since that night, there have been more victories for the Tritons. They are 7-10 overall — those seven wins equal the team’s total over the previous four seasons, and two of those were forfeits — and 5-4 in the North Division of the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges.
With eight games to play, Edmonds CC has a chance for its first winning season since 2004-05, when the team went 17-15 overall and 10-6 in league games.
“I don’t care what anybody says,” Schooler said, “winning validates what you do.”
Yet even during last year’s winless season, the new coach was initiating the program’s turnabout. Always vocal, Schooler made it clear that she would not tolerate indifference. Firmly and often loudly, she kept prodding her players to give more — so much so that four women left the team, leaving just six to finish the season.
Unbothered by the attrition, Schooler brought in new players this season and kept hollering.
“When I raise my voice, it’s because I care about you,” she said. “I come from a family that yells and my dad used to tell me, ‘Listen to the message, not the tone.’ And that’s the same message I give to my kids. I have to yell because I’m excited. And if you can’t understand why I’m excited about you growing, then you don’t get why I love you.
“My biggest challenge is to get our players to understand that ‘us’ is better than ‘me.’ I’ve even told them, ‘I wouldn’t even mind if you all hated me. But do it together.’”
There are days, she said, “when they walk out of here and say, ‘Coach, we’ll never satisfy you.’ And I say, ‘Isn’t that great?’”
“One of her greatest attributes as a coach is that she gets every ounce of effort and ability out of her players,” Anderson said. “Every single ounce. I don’t know how she does it, and I’m still trying to figure it out. Because there are times she pushes us to a point where we had no idea we could go.”
“She’s really vocal,” agreed freshman post Samantha Gulisao from Port Orchard. “When you mess up, she’ll say, ‘You messed up. And now this is how you fix it.’”
The Tritons enter the second half of their conference schedule with a solid chance of being in the playoffs. The top four teams in each division advance, and Edmonds CC is tied for fourth with North Seattle CC (both 5-4), and trailing division leaders Skagit Valley (8-1), Bellevue (8-1) and Everett (6-3).
And she is already out talking to recruits about the program’s new direction.
“The winning helps,” she said, “because now my phone rings and the e-mails come up. … And the conversations are a little nicer, too. Now I’m able to say, ‘Look what we did and it worked. And look what we’re doing now.’
“I want this program to be a place where kids come because there’s a (winning) mentality and expectation. And if you understand that I’m going to be the most demanding person you’re ever going to meet, and if you’re OK with that, then I can’t wait for you to come to campus.”
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