The Francis Howell North girls basketball coach Dawn Hahn has been prepping for a new season with “big conversations” and applying teaching skills to promote a culture shift.
For the past four years, the FHN girls basketball team has struggled with many scattered inconsistencies. Coach Hahn believes this was an issue due to the lack of work ethic, preparation, success and so on. Knowing she had to make a change, her goal is to promote a culture shift for the team.
“My main priority this season is to make sure that we have a culture that we can all be proud of and buy into, and support each other with,” Hahn said. “I think as soon as we establish that everything else will become more consistent for us.”
Hahn is taking advantage of new tools to teach the girls skills that will aid the way they think about certain situations. Two times a week they meet in Hahn’s classroom at FHN where they have their “big conversations.” These conversations consist of life skills such as how to treat people, how to deal with pressure, how to take criticism and more.
“Those are skills that – whether you’re playing sports or not – it’s gonna be something you need in your family, it’s gonna be something you need in your job, it’s gonna be things you need in education,” Hahn said. “Sports for me is just one vehicle that we teach those lessons.”
2018 tryouts were held late October and lasted three days. The girls were tested on skill level and how they react under pressure. This helps Hahn know who was the most coachable because she can see who the girls really are. Before tryouts, the girls went through a series of preseason workouts.
“We met twice a week and those workouts consisted of individual skills and drills on the floor,” Hahn said. “We also lifted weights, we did some speed and agility training, and we also did some sprints out on the track that everybody was a huge fan of.”
Hahn does her best to prepare her athletes for whatever happens on the floor and believes they have a good shot at an incredible season due to the incredible talent, attitude, and energy assembled.
“I am most looking forward to the group of girls who have been together for the years of inconsistency to realize what it’s going to take for us to pull together, especially for my seven seniors,” Hahn said. “I want to see them walk away from the program the last time knowing that they are leaving the program better than it was for them and that they’re leaving being better people because of it, and hopefully that translates to a whole bunch of wins along the way.”
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