Changes include new workouts, jerseys and traditions | by SHAUGNESSY MILLER

The clock on the gym wall shows 5 p.m. and a group of girls dressed in new, mesh and reversible practice jerseys form a circle. Each girl takes her designated place around the circle, the place she will stand in every practice until she leaves the program. To start off practice, new head coach Doug Nelson offers an inspirational quote: “sometimes you just have to follow your coach. It’s kind of like a blind person with a guide dog. You’re not sure where it will take you, but it will take you somewhere you wouldn’t have gone on your own.”

After a moment of silence to let the quote sink in, the girls begin their warm-up. After two hours of hard work, the team gathers once again and point guard, junior Caroline Gray cracks a joke: “Knock-knock.” “Who’s there?” “Gorilla.” “Gorilla who?” “Gorilla me a sandwich.”

These jokes and quotes are part of the new team tradition: each day Nelson presents a new quote and a different player must bring in a joke.

“My hope is that the next round of jokes will be funnier,” Nelson said. “Like anything, it just takes practice.”

This new tradition is just one in a long list of changes for the basketball team this season, including a new coach, workouts, and jerseys, courtesy of a $10,000 donation.

Nelson has brought one more new thing to the team: the desire to revive a once very successful program through hard work and commitment.

“Change needed to be made to maintain the status quo,” Nelson said. “I didn’t come in with the idea of changing things, I just came in with an idea of how we should run a program.”

Athletic director Mark Hough said that he hired Nelson for his commitment to each player and to improving the program.

“With it being our first year at St. Teresa’s Academy, Coach Nelson and I were able to approach this with a clean slate and based decisions going forward on what is best for all of the stakeholders in the program,” Hough said.

Even at tryouts, Nelson made it clear he wanted to impact the team. Nelson required players to show up for both early morning conditioning and after school practice.

“I felt that [two-a-days] really made sure that the players we had show up at 6 a.m. were really serious about playing basketball,” Nelson said.

The tryouts focused on more fundamentals, whereas last year the team mainly scrimmaged. Gray feels this helped to ease the freshman into it, although she thinks scrimmaging is a better way to see who performs well in a game situation. She also felt the tryouts were more fair this year.

“Everyone was equal and coach Nelson started from scratch… where before [coach Jamie Collins] already had in her mind who she wanted to pick,” Gray said.

In addition, Nelson has added several new workouts and a weight training program to practices.

Although Gray finds it is a struggle for the team to adjust to the new coaching style, she is happy with the direction the team is moving.

“It’s really stressful learning basically a whole new style of play, and we’re all not used to it and don’t always agree, but it’s all positive and going forward,” Gray said.

Nelson agrees that the team is improving and handling the situation well.

“I’m impressed by the effort that’s going in to all of our practices,” Nelson said.

Ultimately, the team is not looking to win State, according to Gray and Nelson, but to take it step by step.

“My goal is that every day we step off the court a little better,” Nelson said.