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April 18, 2008

Amey Takes Aim: West Vigo grad ends prolific coaching career

By Andy Amey

TERRE HAUTE — You might recall that we started this week talking four great people I know, and about the naming of the new gym at Woodrow Wilson Middle School for Trannie Grainger and Mike Kennedy.

I’m not sure if there’s a name for the gym at Hinsdale South High School in Darien, Ill., but if they’re looking for a suggestion, I’ve got one. How about Brenda Whitesell Gym, or maybe Brenda Whitesell Field for the school’s softball team?

Whitesell, still practically a child at 53, submitted her resignation as the school’s girls basketball coach less than a week ago, after 500 wins and 271 losses in the past 27 seasons. Counting the four seasons she spent at Knox (Ind.) High School, her overall basketball record is 544-301.

She was also Hindale South’s softball coach from 1983 through 1997, with a 330-144 record there.

“I only have two years left before I can retire from teaching,” she explained by telephone earlier this week, “and I figured it was time that someone else needed to be learning how to do everything.”

Don’t take that to mean that Whitesell, a West Vigo (1973) and Indiana State (1977) graduate, is going to take it easy. She expects to be available for consultations with the new coach, if needed, and even has thoughts about trying to coach another sport — maybe boys tennis, she said, giving her a chance to coach boys for the first time.

She hasn’t coached tennis yet either, she said, although she played the sport one season at Indiana State. She has also coached track and volleyball; played volleyball and ran track at West Vigo (because girls basketball and softball weren’t high school sports yet when she was in school) and competed in volleyball, tennis, basketball and softball at ISU. She expressed disappointment this week that her student teaching, in the fall of her senior year with the Sycamores, prevented her from playing a fall sport that year.

Oh, and before she graduated from West Vigo she was also playing for the nationally renowned Chevettes in women’s softball. While at Indiana State she played in four national tournaments — two WNITs with Edie Godleski’s basketball team and two College World Series with Mary Swiess’s softball team. She also played for seven state championship teams — catcher and shortstop — with the Chevettes.

She was ISU’s Athlete of the Year in 1977, was named to the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame in 2005, and was inducted into the Illinois Coaches Association Softball Hall of Fame in February of this year. Those three were honors she appreciated, she said, because she was nominated and elected by her peers.

Godleski and Swiess — who also coached the Chevettes, making Whitesell a pretty easy recruit for the Sycamores to get — remain huge influences in her life, she said.

“I was fortunate to be able to take the best from two of the earliest role models for women,” she said this week. “I learned a lot about discipline [from them], and I learned about teaching the game.”

You might find her more often in the future at Pizza City on North Second Street, where Margie Whitesell — her mother and, she quips, chief publicist — can usually be found behind the counter.

“I’d like to pursue some other interests,” Whitesell said when asked about any upcoming free time. “Be able to come home more and spend time with Mom and my family.”

But there might also be a small college or a junior college that needs a coach, she admitted. And for that matter, she still hasn’t tried coaching baseball, or golf, or gymnastics, or badminton ...

• • •

• He’s almost there — Then you might remember Evan Austin, the Terre Haute South freshman who is already on any list of all-time mental attitude award winners.

Evan spent his spring break in Minnesota trying out for the U.S. Paralympic Swim Team, and wound up first alternate on the men’s team after winning three gold medals and setting a national record in the process.

“If anyone drops out, I’ll be going [to China],” he told me by telephone this week.

Evan won the 100 butterfly, the 50 freestyle and the 800 freestyle, was second in both the 100 freestyle and 400 freestyle and was third in the 100 backstroke. If you are asking, like I did, how he could win three times and not make the team, it comes down to times. Evan’s best time on a worldwide basis is actually in an event he didn’t win, the 400 freestyle, where he ranks 12th in the world; the 20th man on the 20-man swim team is 11th in the world in one of his events.

Evan’s favorite moment may have been learning about his national record — in the 50 freestyle, which ironically wasn’t supposed to be one of his strongest events. He didn’t know about it until the next day, when he saw the list of national records being posted on the huge scoreboard. “We have a picture of that,” he said.

And did he have a good time?

“It was absolutely wonderful,” he said this week. “I was so amazed with the capabilities of everyone there. It was an honor to be there.”

And, of course, he has plenty of time to make the team in the future.

“They told me, ‘If you don’t go to China, be ready for London [in 2012],’ ” Evan said.

• • •

• Throneburg, Hayes update — Denny Throneburg e-mailed me this week to update people in the Terre Haute area on the progress of the Lake Land College softball team. As of Monday it was 24-3, 15-1 in the Great Rivers Athletic Conference, and ranked first in the nation in hitting for Division I junior colleges with a team batting average of .429.

Helping that average stay so high has been Terre Haute North graduate Alicia Hayes, who is batting .476 (39 for 82) so far with 15 doubles, two triples, two homers, 32 RBIs and a .780 slugging percentage. She’s already signed with IUPUI for next season.



Andy Amey can be reached after 4 p.m. for comments or news items at (812) 231-4277 or at 1-800-783-8742; by e-mail at andy.amey@tribstar.com; by mail at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, 47808; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.

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