Stagg's Mason has quite the coaching tree

Updated: April 25, 2011 6:24AM

I'm not so sure about today's Southland high school athletes, but there definitely was a day when the majority of them wanted to be like Mike.

And I don't mean Michael Jackson.

But when it comes to following in the footsteps of a coach, I can't think of one in these parts who has a bigger family tree than Stagg's Missy Mason.

In fact, I gave her a headache last week when I asked her if she kindly would compile a list of her former basketball and softball players who have been coaches or are coaching today.

Some aren't coaching anymore because they're having babies. Some are assistants. Some are running their own programs.

Missy hit the aspirin bottle, I'm figuring, when the number got to double digits. She finally settled at 15.

Be like Missy?

"Well, I don't know if they want to be like Missy," Mason said, laughing. "But they had good experiences with every coach that they have here, which is awesome. We have some males who teach and coach female sports, and we obviously have women, too.

"But I think what it comes down to is that Stagg High School is a special place. Kids like it here."

Mason has been part of the reason since coming to Stagg in 1990. She was the girls basketball coach from 1990 through the 1999-2000 season. She was the assistant softball coach to Bob Dillon for a handful of seasons before taking over the reins in 2001. She ran the program through 2007, when she resigned to care for her mother, who lost a battle with lung cancer in May 2008.

In December 2008, Mason was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She underwent 30 rounds of radiation and eight rounds of chemotherapy before returning in 2010. Her condition has remained stable, and she's leading a Chargers squad that won its first 15 games this season.

Her assistant is 1999 Stagg graduate Jen Tyrrell, who played when Mason was an assistant to Dillon. Tyrrell replaced Mason as coach during the two years Mason was away and gladly stepped aside when Mason became healthy enough to return to the dugout.

But anyway, the kids who became coaches. It's an impressive list.

The first was 1990 Elgin grad Renee Diebold, who went on to coach softball at her alma mater. The rest are from Stagg.

Nicole Faustich (1995) played basketball for Mason. She now coaches softball at West Aurora. Abby Booth (1997) played basketball and softball. She coached softball at Stagg and now coaches track. Rachel Gensch (1998) played softball and now is an assistant at Lockport.

Erin Hanson (1998) played softball and was an assistant to Mason. Paige Shemoski (1999) played softball and is coach of 2009 Class 3A state champion Oak Forest.

Jayme Brown (2000) played basketball and went on to coach at Marian Catholic. Ana Patejdl (2000) played basketball and coaches at a middle school in New York. Kara Bucci (2001) played softball and coached at Stagg.

Colleen Kilduff (2002) played softball and is coach at Mother McAuley. Sara Polensky (2002) played softball and coaches at Taft in Chicago. Jill Kroll (2002) played softball and is coaching at Seiver High School in Tennessee. Lori Potacki (2003) played softball and is coaching at T.F. South. Lauren Shemoski (2004) played softball and is a volleyball coach at Stagg.

If there are more, we both apologize.

At any rate, this list is absolutely remarkable. A common thread, I found out through conversations with a few of these individuals, is that as much as they learned about the game from Mason, they also gained confidence in themselves. Confidence tends to produce leaders.

"I didn't appreciate it until I got older, the way she pushed us," said Kilduff, who was an All-American at St. Xavier University. "She saw potential in us that I guess we didn't see in ourselves when we were younger.

"When we got older, especially after seeing what she went through and pushed through to get over her illness, was just the most inspiring thing I've taken from her."

Patejdl said her inspiration to coach struck working with Mason, as a player, during summer camps for grammar-school kids.

"I remember for one of them she had us (players) come in take the girls through some of the our drills," she said. "I volunteered, but I didn't know if I could handle it. But she convinced me that I could, and I really got into it.

"That led to one of the main things she always did for us. She always raised the bar above where we thought we could be."

Luckily for today's young athletes, a lot of them reached even higher.

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.