Director Cheri Farrell keeps focus on teaching game

Farrell became youth director at the club in 1993 and started her basketball program that year with 35 kids as young as age 3. Last year, Farrell had between 90 and 100 participants from ages 4 to 12 and has had kids go through the program who went on to become high school and college stars.

Farrell, a southern Indiana native who played on a state championship team in high school and went on to play college basketball at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, runs the program by herself and focuses on small groups. Each participant goes to a practice during the week. At age 4-5, she teaches in groups of six. The older the kids are, the bigger the groups.

“When they’re first starting at 4, they’re everywhere, so the groups can’t be very big,” Farrell said. “I’ll have parents worried, saying, ‘They’re not doing anything.’ And I tell them, ‘That’s OK. They’re running up and down the floor. Who cares?’ They’re learning.”

On Saturdays, they play games, but only against other members of the program. And Farrell is the official.

“My philosophy is: If I have these 10 kids practicing with me, I’d rather have all 10 kids playing rather than half of them sitting out by playing another organization,” Farrell said. “And then the parents are in the gym rooting for everyone; there’s no one to root against. And I’m the one officiating, and I tell them, ‘I’m not going to make every call.’ That way instead of complaining, the parents are cheering on the kids — all of them.”

Farrell begins with fundamentals and adds more the longer a child stays with the program.

“That they learn the fundamentals is the most important thing to me, not winning,” Farrell said. “I’ll turn off the scoreboard during games. It’s about learning the games. There are times during games I’ll stop the clock and teach. I break down the game from the very basic when they’re young, to the more advanced as they get older.”

By the time a kid is ready to play basketball at school, usually between fifth and seventh grades, Farrell hopes they have a mastery of the fundamentals.

“When a kid is ready to move on to playing basketball at school, that’s what I want — I want to be a feeder system,” Farrell said. “But the main thing for me is: Someone did this for me when I was little. So I wanted to give kids the same opportunity I had.”

Farrell has taught players from all over the county, and many of them have gone on to successful high school and college careers. MacArthur’s Bartley brothers, James and Marcus, were longtime participants. Marcus, a sophomore, is currently getting looks from Division I colleges.

Also, Maroa-Forsyth’s Austin Peebles, Amber Patton and Val Sobol were in the program, as were Warrensburg-Latham’s Drew and Molly Dunn, Mount Zion’s Mackenzie Steck and Grant Geisler, and St. Teresa’s Jarett Bednar, Eric Althoff, Brett Althoff, Shae Genenbacher and Claire Raycraft, just to name a few.

Patton, now a professional softball player in the summers for the Chicago Bandits, participated in Farrell’s program from ages 4 to 10 and went on to star in basketball and softball for the Trojans. She later played softball at DePaul.

“I remember Cheri’s program being a lot of fun, and we all learned a lot,” Patton said. “She was teaching 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds, and that takes a lot of patience. But she had a way of teaching skills that made it fun. I think her program was a huge reason why I liked playing basketball so much in high school.”

jconn@herald-review.com|421-7971