Mount Assisi staff here to stay

Updated: March 22, 2011 4:18PM

It is said that all things happen for a reason, the concept being the reason ultimately turns out to be a good one.

The revolving coaching door at Mount Assisi the past couple of seasons has had a reason for every spin, and it's been all good for the private girls school in Lemont.

The stars of our story are Eagles head coach Karen Van Assen and her assistant Frances Oprondek. Or, as it was in 2009, head coach Frances Oprondek and assistant Karen Van Assen. Or, as it was in 2008, head coach Karen ... you know what? Let's just tell the story. It's a neat one.

Van Assen, a defensive specialist on Mother McAuley's 1989 Class AA supersectional squad, took over the coaching reins at Mount Assisi from longtime coach (and current athletic director) June VerSchave in 2002. Soon after Van Assen began raising a family with her husband, Marc.

Somehow, some way she was able to juggle the births of three children in five years with coaching.

In 2007 Van Assen got a new assistant coach: former Mount Assisi player Frances Oprondek. The two together gave Mount Assisi one of the younger, more enthusiastic coaching combos in the area. After the 2008 season Van Assen announced she'd had enough juggling and went home to be a full-time mom.

Suddenly Oprondek, already the track and field coach at the school, had her dream job.

Van Assen wasn't too good at staying away during the 2009 season. Well, she did stay away from the school building, but her phone bill got a little out of hand.

"I talked to all three coaches on a daily basis," Van Assen said. "So I might not have been there in body, but I was there in mind. So I never truly left Mount Assisi."

Mount Assisi struggled in 2009, going 10-24. Sometime in May, according to Van Assen, she was talking with VerSchave when a door was opened.

"June said, ‘When are you coming back?' " Van Assen recalled. "I talked to my husband about it, and now that my kids are 3, 5 and 7, it's not like I'd be bringing an infant to practice anymore. I called her the next day and said, ‘I'm coming back.' "

The question was, in what role?

VerSchave said her original intention was to have Van Assen ease her way back into the program and discuss the coaching arrangement with Oprondek. Then came another twist. Oprondek was thinking about going back to school to pursue a teaching degree. The stars aligned perfectly when Van Assen and Oprondek got together for dinner.

"Karen said she was very nervous about talking to me about it, but that she wanted to come back and coach," Oprondek said. "I was like, ‘Oh, good.' I was kind of worried if I was going to be able to handle coaching and going back to school and doing my regular day job on top of everything. When she said that it was like a big weight had been taken off of my shoulders."

What are the chances?

Van Assen got her coaching job back. Oprondek enrolled in classes at NIU and got a job in DeKalb. And, believe it or not, she stayed on as Van Assen's assistant.

It's an hourlong commute from NIU to Mount Assisi, but she's missed just two days of volleyball. Oprondek still is awaiting her spring schedule at school before deciding to give up the track and field position.

"She loves the girls and she loves Mount Assisi," Van Assen said of Oprondek. "She coordinated our ‘Dig for the Cure,' breast cancer awareness game last year and they raised more than $3,000 for the Susan G. Koman Foundation. "This year the girls are selling T-shirts and hope to surpass that. That's real important to her."

What isn't important is what would have happened had Van Assen asked to be the head coach and Oprondek didn't want to give it up.

The closest I could get to an answer came from VerSchave: "We'd have talked about it."

Van Assen is just glad they're a team again.

"I guess everything worked out the way it was supposed to," she said. "Frances and I are pretty close. She's very complementary to me in all ways. (As head coach) I'll take the brunt of the bad times, be the ‘bad guy,' and she'll be my ‘good guy.'

Good guys don't come any better.

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