by Andy Prest, North Shore News
Published: Wednesday, January 13, 2010

If coaching someone in a skill really is the best way to learn it yourself, then the Sutherland basketball programs should be in pretty good shape by the end of the year.

The Sutherland senior girls basketball team is coached this year by Preet Gandhi and Kim Garma, a pair of Grade 11 students on the senior boys team, as well as athletic director Brad Thornhill.

The only problem with that arrangement is that Thornhill is also the coach of the senior boys team, so when he and the boys are off somewhere else at the same time, there is no one left to coach the girls team.

It's no problem though -- they just get Hailey to do it.

That would be Grade 12 guard Hailey Hebron -- who aside from being the team's main threat on the floor can also act as coach as she did during a tournament game last month.

With the boys team off in Kelowna, Hebron assumed coaching duties for the first game of the McNair secondary tournament in Richmond, guiding the team to a win while also scoring 27 points herself. Fill-in coaches took the bench for the rest of the tourney but Hebron still led the team, scoring 32 points in an overtime win in the semi and then dropping 37 in a losing effort in the final.

Hebron, soft-spoken and business-like in her approach to coaching the team, is able to command the respect a coach needs, said Thornhill.

"She's very mature and has a lot of confidence," he said. "I just like her whole perspective on sport -- she never gets frustrated with her teammates and is always, always going to the positive side of things. Obviously the girls listen because a) she's an outstanding player and b) just because of the way she works on things and the way she talks to the girls. They totally look to her."

Thornhill said the team relies heavily on their all-star guard.

"We can't keep her out of games very long otherwise things start to fall apart a little bit," he said. "With Hailey if she scored zero points and we won, she would be just as happy as if she scored 43 and we won. Her personal achievement -- she doesn't really worry about that. She's worried about how the team does."

Still, her personal achievements can be remarkable, said Thornhill.

"She's phenomenal. Her game is speed and quickness and she's very aggressive at attacking the basket. Factor in that she can also shoot the ball well and that makes her incredibly tough to guard. So far this year no team has had a chance guarding her one-on-one -- they need at least two girls to slow her down and even then she's very tough to stop."

The fact that the normal coaches for the team are two Grade 11 boys is pretty incredible in itself.

"They do a great job," Thornhill said of Gandhi and Garma. "At the start of the year I was running the practices and they were just kind of getting the feel for it and now they get in there, they have practice plans, they have specific goals that they want to reach each practice and they work to those pretty hard."

And the boys have sidestepped any social awkwardness that could arise from the coaching setup, said Thornhill.

"Considering the Grade 11s are all their friends and the Grade 12 girls are older than them, the girls seem to listen to them and do what they ask," he said with a laugh. "Those guys are putting in four hours a night doing two hours of boys practice and then two hours of senior girls practice. It's amazing, I don't know how they're doing it -- and they're very good students."

The senior girls have a 2-3 record in North Shore Div. 1 league play and they'll be in tough tonight when they host league leaders Windsor secondary, who boast a 5-0 record and have been rolling over opponents so far. Tip-off is at 5:30 p.m. at Sutherland secondary.