McGunnigal lets the Lady Bruins do the coaching in the summer
The winter basketball season belongs to Tom McGunnigal. When it comes to the summer season for hoops, however, the Lady Bruins coach says it all belongs to his girls.
He delivered his Lady Bruins to the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin Team Camp on June 19 and turned around and drove home. This was their weekend, not his.
McGunnigal went to Bloomington to watch former Lady Bruin Sam Galas play in the IBCA All-Star game. On Sunday morning, he returned to watch the Lady Bruins in action and to pick them up.
The girls get to run the show sans coach. They coach themselves and make all the substitutions.
It’s all about team bonding, he says.
“They hang out and be together, and rely on each other. It’s pretty
much a vacation from coach,” he said. “I yell from November to March enough. They don’t need to hear me in the summer.”
He said the girls were happy to see him on Sunday morning, or “at least they seemed to be.”
The Lady Bruins played against teams from Wisconsin and ran into Elmhurst Immaculate Conception, which McGunnigal said, seems to have inherited players from defending state champ Addison Driscoll, which has closed its school doors.
In McGunnigal, you will find a coach as intense and competitive as you will ever find or see. But he knows the summertime is not about wins and losses.
The Lady Bruins just returned from the Ottawa Shootout this past weekend where they lost all five games playing against the likes of Rochelle, Byron, Sterling, Kankakee Bishop McNamara and Geneseo.
“We took our lumps, but we’re learning,” he said. “That’s what summertime is, and remembering it’s summertime. We’re gaining some good experience against good competition.”
The Lady Bruins will take the Fourth of July weekend off and travel to the Galesburg Shootout over July 7-8.
• Friendly face: Former Princeton High School standout Brittany Mueller is spending the summer getting acquainted with her new teammates at Pontiac High School, traveling to shootouts and summer league. When the junior-to-be got hurt at the Bourbannais Shootout, an old friend came to her aid.
Mueller rolled her ankle during a game and one of the first persons to offer a helping hand was none other than her former coach, Princeton’s Spencer Davis. The Tigresses were also participating in the shootout, though they only got to play the Pontiac JV.
In so many words, Mueller’s old coach told her to get up and she’d be OK.
“She’s a good kid. It’s tough to see a kid you’ve worked with for two years move away,” Davis said.
• No contact week: Princeton High School is observing a no-contact week this week with all sports teams and athletes taking a timeout from all organized summer activities. Coach Pat Hodge said the next scheduled cross country run will be at 7 p.m. Monday. High school summer football camp at PHS will be held July 20-24.
• New coach: Davis will be joining the Tiger football staff this fall, helping head coach Dave Moore with the offense. Moore coached Davis, a quarterback in high school, at Manlius/Tampico. Davis will be a volunteer coach, taking the place of Curtis Odell, who’s taking a timeout from coaching in the fall.
