Coach Kevin Kiernan
…I think that is the biggest part of building a winner; that you have something you can always trust, always return to, and always depend on…
Kevin Kiernan
Head Girls Basketball Coach
Mater Dei High School
USA Today National Champions 2010 2011
USA Today National Coach of the Year 2010
California High School Division 1AA State Champions 2011
California High School Division II State Champions 2010
Troy High School
California High School Division II State Champions 2003 2005 2006
Russell Athletic/WBCA – Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Coach of the Year 2006
WillofaChampion: You won state championships at both Troy High School and Mater Dei. What have been the differences in the two programs?
Coach Kiernan during a game
Coach Kiernan: Troy is a public school and Mater Dei is private so there are inherent differences. With Troy we started from scratch. There wasn’t much tradition in regards to winning championships. We had to build the tradition over time. By the time I left there we had won five CIF titles and three state championships. (California is separated into a southern and northern section in which the CIF is the governing body. If you win your section then you move on to the state championship) Mater Dei has been different. They’re a very athletic school. Coming here was like going to the next level because of tangibles such as facilities and support. Troy was a strong California team that went to a couple national tournaments and did well. Mater Dei is a strong national team that has done well.
WillofaChampion: Do you have a mission, vision, or purpose statement for your team?
Coach Kiernan: We develop a new theme every year because each team is different. We always start with defense. We are a full-court press team because we want to put a lot of pressure on the ball. We start 75% of our practices with defense. We hang our hat on defense. Offensively things will change based on our personnel. We consider the level of maturity and leadership style. We develop a theme that suits the team offensively within the parameter of what we do defensively.
WillofaChampion: What was the theme of your 2011 national championship team?
Coach Kiernan: Last year the theme was “Sisterhood”. The challenge for us at Mater Dei isn’t finding or developing talent. We have four girls from last season playing division one college basketball this year. Our challenge is chemistry – getting the girls on the same page and playing together and happy or content. The past few years our themes have been unselfishness and working together. We want our girls to see the big picture; that when we play well everyone gets noticed. We don’t want them worried about individual statistics.
WillofaChampion: Besides the theme what else have you done to cultivate a team first attitude amongst your players?
Coach Kiernan: That is the hardest thing at Mater Dei. That is another reason why we believe in defense first. Because if you’re a good defensive team, that means you work well as a unit. You can’t be a good defensive team and have selfish players. You will be done. So we approach a team first attitude from a defensive aspect. If we’re playing good defense then we’re playing together. That solves a lot of our problems. We are very proactive in developing a team first attitude. We have a lot of meanings. We do team bonding activities. I have individual meetings before and after each season. We are honest and tell girls where we think they are and what their role may look like for the up-coming season. Sometimes I may leave it open if I’m really not sure. But we try to avoid surprises so there are no misunderstandings.
WillofaChampion: How did you create a culture of winning? Especially at Troy since they didn’t have the tradition of Mater Dei.
Coach Kiernan: Dedication and hard work. Those kids practiced so hard. They were very ambitious. They wanted to take it to the next level. We were fortunate to have kids with high ambition and big goals. Once you achieve some success, every year builds off of it. The next group of players doesn’t want to be the team that let’s down the tradition. Once you’ve got that, it is a little easier to keep it going because the players have bought-in. The new kids coming in learn from the seniors what and how to do things. Once you have that leadership it snowballs. It makes our job a lot easier.
WillofaChampion: At Mater Dei you just maintained that culture of winning? Did you have to do anything special?
Coach Kiernan: One of the reasons I came in was because they weren’t having much success the past few years. The guys have been a national power the past twenty or thirty years. But the girls were on and off. They had won a state title before we got here. But the past few years had been dry. So we came in with the same defensive intensity we had at Troy. We started with hard work. The talent level here is really high. It is good at Troy. But Mater Dei has kids playing at the UConn and Tennessee level. That made some things easier. The basketball skill level wasn’t our problem. The biggest problem was getting them on the same page. Now the issue is dealing with expectations. We have won back-to-back national titles so the expectations are really high. Dealing with the by-products of winning are our challenges. But the facility and support we get at Mater Dei is unparalleled. We are in a position where we can be successful.
WillofaChampion: Do you mind expanding on the challenges or by-products of winning?
Coach Kiernan: Since we’ve won two national and state titles, people may take winning for granted. That we’re going to win since we have before. Players may take short-cuts instead of being fully committed to the road to success. We have talented kids that we don’t see a lot in the summer. They’re on international basketball teams, Olympic teams, and high level club teams. Those are great things for the kids. But our team doesn’t get much done in the summer. So our kids have to work on their own or with their summer teams. No shortcuts. Our parent’s expectations are really high and can be present different types of challenges.
WillofaChampion: How do you instill physical and mental discipline in your athletes?
Coach Kiernan: Through defensive conditioning. We run as hard as we can in practice. We scrimmage a lot. 70% of our practices are defensive work. We do a lot of fundamental work. We practice game like situations. We try to improve areas where we’re not very good. We try to instill a work ethic. We did that at Troy too. Those girls really bought into the idea that hard work will take them somewhere. Some girls are so talented they know they will be fairly successful even if they don’t work real hard. So we stay on them and try to motivate them to do their best. We want them to develop that fantastic potential.
WillofaChampion: What do you expect from the captains or leaders of your team?
Coach Kiernan: We want them to help their youngest teammates. In girls’ basketball it is easier for a freshman girl to play at a higher level than a freshman boy. Girls are just a little more ahead of the game. I have four freshmen on varsity right now. Their basketball skills are very good. But emotionally they are still 14 year olds playing with 17 and 18 year olds. We really want our captains to bridge that gap. We want the seniors to help the freshman get through practices and understand what we do to be successful. We want more of a team chemistry leadership than on the floor leadership.
WillofaChampion: Do you work to develop those leadership skills in your players.
Coach Kiernan: We actively search for it. Some kids are better suited for it than others. We try to identify that as early as we can and work with those kids. Some people have it and some don’t. Some kids are great players and they lead by example. Some are just great teammates and do the right things. So part of the process is identifying and encouraging it.
WillofaChampion: Do you run a camp or anything to reach out to young girls that may join Mater Dei in the future?
Coach Kiernan: We run summer camps. We call it The Camp of Champions. We ran it at Troy and now at Mater Dei. It is for grades three through eight and only for girls. We get about ninety to a hundred each week. We cannot actively recruit kids. But we see a lot of kids and it has gone well. We get to expose them to what and who we are.
WillofaChampion: What else comes to your mind that is critical to building a state championship caliber program that we haven’t discussed?
Coach Kiernan: If I was going to speak somewhere I would tell everyone; whether they’re just trying to improve their record, win league, or win state – you have to go in with a clear vision of how you want to do things. Then you have to stick with it. We come as a defense first staff. We never change that. The kids know that, they can hang their hat on that. We’re going to do this well no matter what. No matter what our talent level is, our effort level on defense is going to be fantastic, we’re going to work hard, we’re going to be in every game because defense will keep you in every game, and we will build off that. As we get more talented and players get better we still have that foundation as our base. That is the philosophy of our team and that is what we want to get done. We never stray from it. I think that is the biggest part of building a winner; that you have something you can always trust, always return to, and always depend on. Offense may change every year, personal will change every year, but our base will never change. Players may never say this but they know the hard work is worth it because we are good at defense. After they graduate they can always come back and say they were a great defensive team. They can always come back to that.
Interview: November 2011