Basketball coaches Shelly Ethridge and Melanie Marcy bring the Lady Archers to the top by encouraging a supportive family environment.
By: Spencer Gleason
-Sports Editor-
The total amount of time that athletes spend with their coaches and teammates on a day-in and day-out basis is a number that combines countless hours into days, days into weeks and weeks into months. Over the course of a season, from preseason through the regular season and playoffs, the relationship becomes a family away from family.
Since 2009, before the STLCC Archers united Meramec, Forest Park and Florissant Valley, the coaching duo of Shelly Ethridge and Melanie Marcy represented Meramec Magic women’s basketball. Using the family-oriented mentality in coaching, Ethridge and Marcy led the 2010-11 Lady Magic to a National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Tournament appearance.
When athletics was consolidated between the three campuses in July 2011, Ethridge and Marcy continued with the same family-oriented approach. The result was the same –a NJCAA Tournament appearance.
This past season, the 2012-13 Lady Archers made it a three-peat.
Three consecutive years resulted in three consecutive NJCAA Tournament appearances.
“The consolidation changed the framework and structure of their team so drastically and forced Shelly and Melanie to re-think how they run the program,” former Meramec Sports Information Director Bob Frischmann said. “To be able to not miss a beat and continue qualifying for the national tournament in the midst of all this is a testament to their dedication and their instincts and skills as coaches.”
From the Meramec Magic to the STLCC Archer history books, Ethridge’s and Marcy’s formula for success has stayed the same.
“We’ve had a coaching formula that we’ve implemented and it’s showed success. It’s simple. It always starts with the kids knowing that you care about them,” Marcy said. “Even at the collegiate level, where kids are pretty focused and goal-oriented, they really do need to know that you do care about them. So that any coaching tactic that you choose on a daily basis, if you’re on them, you’re motivating them and pushing them; behind that is a genuine care for who they are as a person.”
The care for their players, both present and former, extends beyond the basketball court.
Janey Milligan, who played for Ethridge and Marcy from 2009 to 2011, went on to play two more years of collegiate basketball at Lindenwood-Bellville after her time with Magic. According to Milligan, the helpful hand of Ethridge and Marcy helped her continue her love of playing basketball beyond Meramec.
“I didn’t know if I wanted to continue playing. But they encouraged me and both of them gave me confidence,” Milligan said. “Just the fact that they had confidence in me gave me confidence in myself. They helped me decide that I should continue to play and they’ve been supportive throughout the past few years.”
According to Ethridge, it has always about the kids and their successes on and off the court.
“It’s always about our kids. If the kids are having a good time and they’re being successful on and off the floor. We’re rewarded by them getting that scholarship and being able to go play somewhere,” Ethridge said. “So that’s where we get our fun. But this is all about the kids. This is what we do. It has nothing to do with our success. It has everything to do with the kids’ success.”
Milligan’s former Meramec teammate, Kasei Evans, also attributes her successes to her former coaches. Evans, who was an All-American, currently plays at St. Catherine’s College in Springfield, Ky. After her time at St. Catherine’s she is planning on transferring to play basketball at Temple University.
“Once you play for them you can always go back to them,” Evans said. “They want you to succeed. They want the best for you. They helped me grow into a better person.”
According to Marcy, the key to success is keeping that family intact.
“Collegiate basketball is a business, but if you treat it like a business I don’t think you’re going to get very far. We treat our kids and our team like one big family,” Marcy said.
While the 2012-13 season progressed and the Lady Archers continued to get one step closer to their goal of the NJCAA Tournament, the Lady Archer family grew as it had for previous seasons. The family atmosphere also includes parents of the players cheering for everyone on the team. WWW“Obviously as a parent you always want to see your kids do well, whether it’s my child or somebody else’s child,” Rick Maclin, father of STLCC’s Lauren Maclin said. “But I look at all of them as my child because they came together and played well.”
As the seasons begin to accumulate for Ethridge and Marcy, the list of Christmas cards only gets longer.
“Obviously we’d like for kids to always come from a good family background, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes we have kids where this is the first sense of a family bond that they’ve had,” Ethridge said. “That’s what really makes it special, when kids get that sense of someone really does care for me. That’s really what is humbling and rewarding for me personally as a coach; when you have some kid that wasn’t doing so well and then we get them underneath our wing and they’re able to do great things and be successful.”
