11— In-season and Out
In-season or out, Coach Harry DeFrank is seldom far removed from his Trinity Lady Shamrock basketball program. It’s not that he’s consumed, exactly. Committed would be more like it. But by whatever you call it, rare is the day when DeFrank isn’t working in some way—at the high school or at his home--on Lady Shamrock basketball.
One reason is that in this very competitive age of high school athletics, sport, for better or for worse, has become a 12-month-a-year proposition. You either keep up or you get left behind. It’s just that demanding for the coaches and the players. But in DeFrank’s case, there’s another reason, a more compelling reason. Sport is just who he is, and basketball is just what he does!
Steve Bischof served as Harry’s chief assistant at Trinity for almost 16 years before family obligations—“the job, the kids getting older”-- took him out of active coaching just prior to the Lady Shamrock’s second state championship season in 2000-01. But he remains close to DeFrank and he remembers how dedicated DeFrank was and is to his players and to his program.
“It’s just amazing the time he puts in,” Bischof says. “The man spends hours and hours just writing letters and making phone calls to colleges. He sits down and writes letters; he talks to coaches on the phone. And he tries for every kid, every kid…even kids who didn’t play at Trinity. He tries to help everybody, and that doesn’t happen at a lot of schools.”
Of course, it helps when a coach has the time to do all DeFrank does with his program. DeFrank has the time because he retired from his position with the federal government in 1988. And in his school of coaching, there’s much to do. Curiously, as it turns out, more so in off-season than in-season.
As might be expected, his week during the season is fairly predictable. He gets to the school early on game days to prepare for that evening’s opponent.
Once the ball goes up, DeFrank knows the result is largely in the hands of the players. His job is to make certain the team plays within itself and keeps mental mistakes to a minimum. He wants the girls to stay with the game plan when it’s working or adjust accordingly when it’s not. At 585-127 after 23 years at Trinity…well, that says as much as needs to be said on how successful he’s been in that regard.
It’s a different story on non-game days, however. DeFrank’s off to school early, as usual…(he) uses the time to mull over any lineup changes he may be contemplating based either on game or practice performances or the strengths or weaknesses he perceives in the next opponent. And he organizes the practice for that evening. His practices run about an hour-and-one-half each night. If there are new offensive or defensive strategies to employ, or old ones to refine, this is the time for he and his assistants to do that.
And that’s just the way his week goes during the season, Monday through Friday, November through February, into March for the District 3 play-offs and, ideally, a spot in the state championship tournament. Year in, year out, that’s the Lady Shamrock’s target. And they hadn’t missed the mark once in the DeFrank reign.
There’s another game Coach DeFrank must play every season. This one’s away from the court. It’s called the collegiate recruiting game. He knows it’s coming. He’s ready for it and he takes it seriously for his players.
Like clockwork, the Lady Shamrock standouts receive letters each year from college coaches interested in recruiting them…the Glessners, the Murrays, the Balabans, the players with the talent to take their game to the next level.
The players usually give DeFrank a copy of the recruiting letters they receive. He puts them in his file and responds at the appropriate time. In October of 2005, he had 50 letters to answer for his players before his preseason practice began in a month. Sometimes, for players with extraordinary potential like a Daly or a Murray or, many years ago, a Rita Balaban, he will take it upon himself to write the colleges even before they contact him or the player.
“I tell em I’ve got a player here who is an outstanding player,” he says. “I tell ‘em she has this many points, this many assists, that sort of thing…that she’s a heck of a team player, in excellent academic standing. I put all that in there.” And he includes a copy of the Trinity schedule in case the colleges want to see more for themselves.
A letter from Coach DeFrank, by the way, has certain standing among the collegiate community. “If you get word to a college that this girl played for Harry DeFrank and Trinity,” Steve Bischoff observes, “…well, this might help that girl get accepted to that school. The coaches know him and they know the reputation at Trinity.” Bischoff knows whereof he speaks.
DeFrank’s youngest son, Matt, was on the campus of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend for a football game a few years earlier. The DeFranks are ardent Irish fans. Muffet McGraw, the coach of the Lady Irish basketball team, was coming off her women’s national collegiate championship. A local sportswriter had written a book on that magical season and McGraw and he were engaged in a booking signing at the University bookstore. Matt bought the book and when he handed it to Coach McGraw to inscribe, she asked to whom she should address it: “Harry DeFrank,” Matt responded matter-of-factly. McGraw looked up and said: “You mean Coach DeFrank…Let me have that book!” She grabbed it and penned:
“To Coach Harry DeFrank—
“Best wishes to one of the best high school coaches in the country!
Muffet McGraw”
Now, none of DeFrank’s players ever played for McGraw at Notre Dame. But the incident does reinforce the point. When it comes to women’s basketball, Harry DeFrank’s reputation reaches far beyond the confines of Central Pennsylvania where he built it.
It’s summer time and, if Gershwin was to be believed, living ought to be “easy.” If not easy, certainly leisurely. But that’s not necessarily so. At least, not for Coach DeFrank. Down time is not a luxury for him to enjoy very often, even in the off-season. He has just so much to do. Try this for size:
…Team statistics to prepare for the concluded season;
…Game videotapes to make and pass out to his players;
…A team party to plan;
…Summer leagues or summer camps to be entered;
…An “open gym” to run two days each week for the entire summer;
…A one-week summer camp to conduct for grade school girls, fifth through eighth grades;
…And, most time consuming of all, the “Battlefield Shootout” he and his buddy, Coach Lamar Kauffman of Lancaster Catholic, conduct one Sunday each Fall on the campus of Gettysburg College some 35 miles south of Harrisburg.
It is, in short, a rather full plate. But DeFrank, being DeFrank, would have it no other way.
…Harry DeFrank is a coach as hooked on statistics as he is on the fundamentals and techniques of the game. He has in his files team and individual statistics for each of his years at Trinity…the stats have purposes other than merely serving as an instant history of the Lady Shamrocks during the DeFrank reign. The team holds a season-end party each year. A player like Allison Daly, Kristen Daly’s younger sister, for example. When he handed Daly her copy of the stats for 2004-05, he called her attention to the ratio of fouls she made versus fouls she attempted (21 of 27 in 32 games). “What’s that tell you?” he asked. “That’s pretty good,” he remembers her responding. Percentage wise, she was right; but she missed the larger point. “That means you’re not going to the basket enough,” he explained gently in that direct way of his. Message received. At open gyms that summer, Allie Daly was driving to the basket more. DeFrank was off to the side watching, just a slight hint of a smile on his face.
It’s an obvious question for the curious: What’s with the videotapes?
The videotapes he makes of the games from the season past are among the most time consuming and, perhaps, the most unnecessary in terms of their practical application. So the obvious questions to ask were simply: Why does he do it, and what does he get out of it? His answer isn’t precise. But it does lead back to recurring theme one encounters when attempting to capture the personality of the man. He does it because he wants to do it. For Harry DeFrank, that’s reason enough.
DeFrank has been videotaping each Lady Shamrock game for almost as long as he’s been coaching at Trinity.
Seniors like Katelyn Murray get a tape of each game they played in their senior season.
Underclass women get a tape of selected games. Underclassmen, he expects, will look at the tapes in the off-season and get a picture of what they did in a particular game and what worked, what didn’t and why. Lessons to be learned, so to speak. For the graduating seniors there’s a more benevolent purpose to the tapes. “Why do I make them tapes?” he asks in repeating the question. “So when they get married and have kids, 25 years from now, they can show that their mother played. And that’s good!”
10 AM, Saturday, July 9: The sky is clear, the temperatures are in the comfortable high 70’s, low 80’s. There’s just no other way to describe it. It’s simply a nice morning…a nice morning for a walk or a run or a bike ride; a nice morning to go to the pool or plan a picnic with your buds; a nice morning just to be outdoors enjoying it for what it was. Yet, 18 young ladies are assembled in the Trinity High School gymnasium this delightful morning, choosing up sides for a pick-up basketball game. They’re going to sweat a lot in the next two hours so their water bottles and towels are at hand. Coach DeFrank stands off to the side, watching…always watching.
That’s the way it is twice a week in the summer…from 6-8 PM on Wednesday evenings and 10-noon on Saturdays. It’s “open gym,” and “open gym” means exactly what it says. Players show up, they pick their own teams and scrimmage up and down the court—7, 8, 9 players to a team, depending on how many are there.
DeFrank may not be coaching in these sessions. But he is observing. Sometimes he likes what he observes—Allie Daly, for example, moving more to the basket. Sometimes he doesn’t. And he makes a mental note. Courtney Dentler, the sophomore transfer from Northern High School who the PIAA ruled had to sit out the entire 2004-05 season, is a talented young lady who could add size (5-11) and skill inside for his 2005-06 Lady Shamrocks. But Dentler doesn’t seem to want to be inside…at least not at these open gym sessions.
But Harry believes her real value to the team will be inside. So he makes a mental note. “We’re going to have to get her to move inside more,”
Competitive high school athletics at the turn of the 21st century has become for most coaches and players of promise virtually a year-round proposition. A coach who doesn’t stay with his program for 12 months of the year, as Frank Cackovic observed, runs the risk of being overcome by his opposition. The legendary Satchel Paige put it this way. “Don’t look back,” he said. “Someone might be gaining on you!”
Well, Harry DeFrank and his Lady Shamrocks spend very little time in their off-season looking back. There’s just too much ahead for them to do. The one-day camps like Cumberland Valley or Bucknell University to attend…the Lower Dauphin summer league where they play one night each week against other similarly constituted high school squads…open gym sessions at Trinity twice each week. That and more. Attendance is not mandatory. But the players know DeFrank will be there. So most of them will be, also. For obvious reasons.
For DeFrank, the summer is primarily an opportunity to observe. It’s an important opportunity. “You can always find out different things,” he explains. “Some kids play better with different people. You can also find out if certain people won’t throw the ball to certain people, either. That happens, and I can find that out just by watching em…”
For Harry DeFrank, the off-season…the summer camps, the summer leagues; the open gyms and the grade school clinics…they all come together one Sunday each Fall, again on the quiet campus of Gettysburg College. That’s when DeFrank and Lamar Kauffman of Lancaster Catholic High School, after months of preparation, conduct their annual Gettysburg “Battlefield Shootout.” It’s a one-day event of intense, virtual non-stop basketball competition for freshmen to senior high school girls.
The preparations begin in April. Invitations and applications are sent to almost 200 high schools in Pennsylvania and surrounding states like Maryland and New Jersey. Notices also go to underclass registrants from the prior year. DeFrank contacts the high schools; Kauffman, the underclass enrollees.
The two coaches, friends and yet rivals for years, started their event in 1997. It’s sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. It’s drawn as many as 142 players for the day and as few as 92. 100 is the ideal number. DeFrank and Kauffman assign the girls to 10-member teams according to the positions they play as indicated on their registrations. Each team is directed by a bona fide high school coach and each team is guaranteed to play at least three games during the day. Similarly, each player is guaranteed 50 per cent playing time in each game. Finally, each game is officiated by certified PIAA game officials. It is, in short, a logistical challenge of major proportions to pull together.
College coaches across the Eastern seaboard also are informed of the date of the “Shootout” each year. Additionally, once DeFrank and/or Kauffman knows a college has expressed an interest in a registrant—ala a Murray or a Daly—that college is notified about the player’s attendance.
For the players, the upsides of the “Shootout” are obvious—the exposure the players receive and the competition they play. There are downsides, however. “The problem with the “Shootout” is that everybody wants to shoot,” DeFrank laughs. “Nobody wants to pass the ball. They want to show the (collegiate) coaches they can shoot. We got a problem with that.”
There’s also another downside to events like the “Shootout.” That’s the seamier side they can expose to contemporary high school athletics. As preparations for the 2005 “Shootout” were underway, DeFrank and Kauffman came across the communication from a rival camp, The “Keystone State Shoot Out.” A letter…sent to hundreds of coaches and players from across the state read in part (no emphasis added):
“The Keystone State Shootout is a HUGE NCAA RECRUITING EVENT…This is an upper level shootout. Keystone State is the only upper level shootout in Pennsylvania…It is time to graduate from shootouts for beginners and step up to the big time…
“If your players are interested in a shootout that is guaranteed to give them a lot of exposure, if your players are interested in a shootout with great competition and if you have college prospects who want to perform for college recruiters and college scouting services at a bigtime NCAA shootout, they cannot afford to pass up this opportunity.”
DeFrank was non-committal when he was asked about the…letter and what, if anything, he was going to do about it. “I’d never say anything…” But the word has a way of getting around. Two collegiate coaches who knew of the communication told DeFrank they “were not amazed, but they thought it was a damn shame…”
As events played out, DeFrank and Kauffman decided to push their event back three weeks because of a new NCAA regulation that would have prohibited Division 1 college coaches from attending prior to the first weekend in October to observe and evaluate the players.
So it was, on the first Sunday in October, unseasonably warm for that time of year, DeFrank found himself at the registration desk of the Bream Wright Hauser Gymnasium on the Gettysburg campus. Up the hallway to his right, 30 girls were running up and down three basketball courts in virtual nonstop play, many under the watchful eye of their parents and 25 college coaches from schools ranging from Division I University of Pennsylvania to Division 2 institutions such as West Chester and Shippensburg Universities of Pennsylvania. Another 70 competitors or so were standing by waiting their turns. And that’s how it went for six hours, from 9 AM through 3 PM. Three games at a time, 20-minute halves, each half stopped every five minutes for substitutions. No score was kept. Ten of DeFrank’s Trinity players registered for the event. None were paired with their Shamrock teammates. Ten of Kauffman’s Lancaster Catholic players likewise were enrolled.
DeFrank spent most of his day at the registration table. No observing. No coaching. Just administering. If he had the time, incidentally, he would have seen Courtney Dentler working hard on the inside. Perhaps her penchant for the jump shot wouldn’t be as much a problem in the season ahead as he thought earlier in the summer.
At 3 PM, the final shot was taken, the final whistle blown. 105 young women basketball players departed for their homes. The 2005 “Battlefield Shootout” was over. What remained was for DeFrank to complete the paper work to file with the NCAA, a two-week process. With that behind him, the 2005-06 basketball season lay ahead. He was ready.
Copyright (c) 2008 VPC, L.L.C.