“I see them as my kids, and when I use the phrase ‘my kids,’ people have to ask me if I mean my actual kids or my team because I use them interchangeably,” says Annette Gennaro.
Girls basketball coach Annette Gennaro, a 1987 Aragon graduate, has worked at Aragon for the past 20 years. And yet, her impact is by no means limited to her role as an educator but the ties that she shares and continues to build with the Aragon community as an alum, a parent, teacher, and coach. Each of these different roles has given shape and meaning to the intimate culture that she has established with the girls basketball team.
Junior Kelly Chang says, “Gennaro is like my second mother. She manages to check up on our grades, watch our health and what we eat. Some teammates baby-sit her children too.”
Gennaro takes it upon herself to keep an eye out for her team and keep them accountable. “Their parents aren’t here to scold them, but I see them so I can catch them,” she says. “I have expectations for them, and if they’re not meeting those, I will yell at them and tell them I’m disappointed in them. You’re a student first, and an athlete second. That’s huge.”
Gennaro explains, “I took a lot from my coaches that I had in high school, the boys’ coaches that were here before me, and my dad. Those were the four people that probably influenced the way I coach,” she says.
The team participates in many unifying activities. Typically, they go out to dinner on Fridays after quads, and Gennaro opens her home up for potlucks every Thursday night.
“It’s a lot of fun because then they get to know each other off the court, not just on the court, and it transcends beyond the game of basketball,” says Gennaro.
She adds, “Having fun is important because 99 percent of these kids don’t go on and play, so most of it is about making friends and remembering high school as a fun time when they succeeded in something and worked together. That’s the thing that lasts in high school anyway—the friends you’re with. Alumni come back all the time and talk about the team dinners and the quads and hanging out with their friends. None of them remember what the score was, they probably don’t even remember if they won or lost.”
Gennaro attests to this Aragon experience. “I always tell people I bleed red and black. If you think of how long I’ve been here, as a student and as a coach, I think I’ve spent more of my life at Aragon than I have anywhere else.”
