By Russ Waterman
MaxPreps.com
The nickname of its athletic teams is the Red Heifers. The school has such varied offerings as a Scuba Diving and Science Fiction Club. The name of its yearbook is Yameinu.
And while you might not see the Gann Academy girls basketball team listed among the top squads in Massachusetts, the team at the tiny school of just over 300 students owns an excellent record (19-4) that has it perched atop the league under a first-year coach who's played against such all-time women's greats as Cheryl Miller, Teresa Edwards and Katie Smith.
Gann, named in honor of philanthropist Joseph Gann, who donated $5 million to the school in 2003, is an independent, Jewish high school founded in 1997 and located in Waltham.
The Red Heifers are unbeaten (11-0) in the eight-team Independent Girls Conference, which is composed of teams mostly from greater Boston area, and are four-time league champions, including the past three seasons. They also belong to New England Preparatory School Athletic Council Class 'C' and have received invitations to play in the NEPSAC tournament in four of the past six years. In 2006, they made it to the semifinals of the Class D playoffs.
Following last year's 24-4 season, the best overall record in the program's history, Gann had to find a replacement for former coach Martha “Mo” Bragdon, who had steered the Red Heifers in an ever-stronger competitive and winning direction.
The school thus turned to Kelly Cole, who was a standout guard at Northwestern University from 1986-91, and who went to the Olympic trials before teaching and coaching for a while in her native state of Oregon. She later returned to Northwestern as an assistant and was an associate head coach at Boston College before leaving for Gann.
"Sue Johnson (Gann's athletic director and former UNH women's head coach) worked with me at BC and asked me if I wanted to coach here," Cole said.
She then mentioned another important detail that led to an affirmative response. "The school is right in my backyard," said the mother of three small children. "It's a perfect fit for me at this time. And I love coaching kids and teaching basketball."
Cole has implemented a flex offense that she has taught at the college level and encourages her young charges "to play aggressively and try to create some chaos to take other teams out of their rhythm. We play mostly man-to-man defense but mix it up a lot, too."
Tali Silverman, a 5-foot-5 shooting guard and backup point guard, recently scored her 1,000th career point and is the all-time leading scorer at Gann.
"(Silverman) had that (1,000 points) hanging over her for a while," Cole of the accomplishment finally achieved by her four-year player and co-captain, who averages 10 points a contest.
Co-captain Aliza Miller, a 5-10 forward, causes some havoc with her wingspan at the top of a zone defense and with her overall quickness, and averages six points per game. Nancy Epstein, a 5-8 sophomore, is the team's leading scorer at 12 ppg.
"We really missed (Epstein) when she was out last week," Cole says of her talented dribbler and shooter whom she calls "our most talented player."
The January 16 game against Winsor Academy, a NEPSAC Class B opponent, was by far the Red Heifers' best effort this season. In that game, they scored a 63-41 victory.
"Everything we did went right," Cole recalled. "We executed, we passed, we pressed, we scored points off the press and we shot the ball real well (25 of 61 from the field, 13 of 16 from the foul line.)."
Cole also runs 'Catch 22,' a summer day camp for basketball instruction, and is an individual trainer who works with college and high school athletes, including "an Olympic hopeful and players who compete overseas."
But she worries that "many young women don't get proper conditioning and proper training," noting several tended to get injuries that could have been prevented. "I also think stress fractures have a lot to do with the diet, such as drinking lots of soda and coffee with caffeine and sugar."
Who knows if someday a Gann player will play at a college level? But Cole says some of the players she has now or even freshmen at the junior varsity level could be school's first scholarship players.
"They just love basketball and I see the school providing lots of opportunities to help and support all students who desire to study and play at the next level."
Russ Waterman covers Massachusetts, Rhode Island and the New England Preps for MaxPreps.com. He may be reached at rwathoop3@aol.com.
