It’s hard to believe that six months ago, a large portion of the Berkshire County, Western Massachusetts and state basketball communities were raking the Hoosac Valley High School administration over the coals for the decision to not bring girls basketball coach Ron Wojcik and his staff back for another year.
Since that is the case, we have to praise that same administration for hiring Holly McGovern as the new girls basketball coach.
There is a complete turnover of the basketball head coaches at Hoosac, with former coach Bill Robinson coming back to take over his old job. Robinson steps into a program that had a down couple of seasons, but not one where there had been controversy.
If you remember back to June, Wojcik had spoken to me and had the following to say about the decision by the Hoosac administration. When asked to be specific in the criticism, a reticent Wojcik said the following:
“I would say typical things that programs have issues with. Parents with playing time or kids being unhappy, numbers and not having a JV program last year. I would say typical things that you hear. I never heard tension between me and the administration — I didn’t personally feel as if I had tension. I never heard anything really besides that.”
I thought — and more people than I could count agreed — that the decision was a major overreaction. Once you make that kind of decision, there was no going back.
And while it is often said that no coach wants to be the guy/woman who follows THE GUY/WOMAN, if there is someone ready and able to follow “THE GUY,” it is Holly McGovern.
She has been one of those coaches who fit into the category “she can beat you with her players or she could beat you with your players.” To me, that is the ultimate tribute.
McGovern was a great player at Westfield State in her own right, earning first-team, All-MASCAC honors from 1997-99. She is in the Westfield State Athletic Hall of Fame and is all over the school’s record books.
McGovern took the reins at MCLA in 2005 and spent 12 years there. The school has had six seasons of .500-or-better basketball, and McGovern led the Trailblazers to five of them.
Sure, coaching in college is far different than coaching in high school. At an MCLA, you do get an opportunity to recruit players. In a high school, whether it’s Hoosac or Cambridge Rindge and Latin or Mount Everett, you have to coach the players that you get. That, undoubtedly, will be the biggest challenge facing McGovern. If anyone is capable of getting the best out of the Hoosac girls, it is McGovern.
She told me that one of her first goals is to strengthen the symmetry between the varsity coaching staff and the youth programs in Adams and Cheshire. After all, any coach can have a successful team. What coaches want are successful programs. The only way to get successful programs is to have a feeder system.
So for those coaches in Eastern Massachusetts who think that Hoosac is going to fall off the basketball radar screen, think again.
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Czubryt, Misiuk, Burke, Coughlan. Those are just a few of the names of players who cycled through the Hoosac Valley boys program under Robinson.
His resume is as good as anyone’s in Massachusetts, and having Bill Robinson back on a sideline is nothing but good news for Hoosac basketball, for Berkshire County and for the game itself.
And yes, I will break out the Bill Robinson dance video that I shot back when Jameson Coughlin hit the basket in triple-overtime to beat Uxbridge in an MIAA Division III state semifinal game at the MassMutual Center.
But that was not the game of his I remember most.
Back in March, 2003, Hoosac and Wahconah were involved in a heavyweight title fight. Every time a team got knocked down it would get up off the canvas.
But with little time on the clock and with Mitch Belanger’s hand in his face, Wahconah sharpshooter Greg Noel hit a 3-point basket that knotted the game at 59.
“The peaks and the valleys, the electricity in that gym when Noel hit that shot, the Wahconah people just erupted,” said Robinson, in a column I wrote back in 2013.
But instead of calling time out, Robinson had the Hurricanes inbound the ball. Guard Chad Misiuk, depending on your age and knowledge of basketball history, went all Danny Ainge with BYU or Tyus Edney with UCLA. Misiuk streaked the length of the Curry Hicks Cage floor and scored the game-winning shot as time expired. It was Hoosac’s first-ever Western Mass. boys basketball title.
“On that night, we were evenly matched. Nobody wanted to lose that game,” Robinson told me back in 2013. “It was probably the most draining game I ever coached, I can tell you that.”
Here’s hoping that both he, and McGovern, have a few of them in their futures.
Welcome back, coaches.
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Howard Herman | Designated Hitter: Hoosac Valley administration made correct calls in filling basketball jobs - Berkshire Eagle
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