It’s been a season for the ages for the conference champion women’s Wolfpack basketball team.
However, prized recruit Rachel Kovach, whom Loyola lured away from smaller NCAA Division I schools, hasn’t participated in a single minute of it – on the floor, at least, as she’s become a vital part of coach Dobee Plaisance’s championship-winning coaching staff.
Kovach, a 5-foot-3 history junior who participated in all 14 games last season and scored 23 points as a backup point guard, ruptured three disks in the lumbar part of her spine after absorbing a violent fall on The Den’s floor against the Belhaven Blazers a year ago.
Earlier this season, doctors informed her continuing to play basketball would worsen the injury and also further deteriorate damaged cartilage between her vertebrae.
“Basketball ends in four years, but I have the rest of my life ahead of me,” said Kovach, a native of Albany, La. So she heeded her doctor’s advice because she “wants to be able to walk straight whenever that’s over.”
Assistant coach Alton Clivens said, “Rachel took her team to the state Final Four for four years in a row when she was at Albany High School. She won a state championship with them, so we were very lucky to get her to come to Loyola. It was devastating for her and for us when she went down.”
The Wolfpack women often had to keep All-GCAC point guard Trenell Smith, psychology sophomore, on the court for an entire game. Kovach’s presence would have meant an occasional breather for Smith as the season played out.
“Trenell’s a scoring point guard, and Rachel’s a pure point guard. We could have moved Trenell over and let her score and used Rachel’s pure point guard abilities a lot more,” Clivens added.
FOREGOING NIKES FOR HEELS
Not only was Kovach used to being good when she switched her residence from rural Albany to St. Charles Avenue, but she was used to being in charge.
The All-State, two-time All-Parish MVP basketball queen at Albany also served her class as president all four years of high school.
And after powering Albany’s run to a state championship, at the end of the basketball season Kovach reigned as monarch of the Homecoming and Prom seasons her senior year.
“I’m a leader. I’m not the type to just sit back and do nothing,” Kovach said.
So when the doctors delivered the gloomy news, so as to not miss out on a “season all about breaking history,” Kovach forewent her basketball jersey and drawstring shorts for a black sweater and gray slacks.
Then she stashed her Nikes in her closet and slipped into black pumps with two-inch heels and showed up for practice – but to coach, not play.
“She points out different things to the girls that Dobee and I might miss, and during games,” Clivens said. “We only have two coaches on the bench while most teams have four. She’s done a great job helping out with that.”
And instead of pushing the basketball the length of the floor, “Coach K” Kovach instead totes a white clipboard with the Wolfpack logo on it.
On the clipped sheets, she keeps track of player fouls, timeouts and jots down observations Plaisance makes aloud. When the GCAC’s Coach of the Year forgets in the frenzy of a game what she said just a minute ago, Kovach reads the notation she scribbled and reminds her.
“Rachel is really good at it because she played point guard in high school,” Clivens observed. “And a point guard is like a coach on the floor. Being that she was a great point guard in high school and still is, she brings the mentality and attitude to helping us out with everything.”
It’s just that her assists don’t show up on the scoreboard, the result of her feeding an entry pass to the open shooter under the basket. While Plaisance and Clivens point out to players what it is they’re doing wrong, it’s her job in timeout huddles to point out what is they’re doing right against an opponent, Kovach chuckles.
“I’m not on the court, but I love the girls so much, and this entire season is about breaking history, and it’s amazing to be a part of,” Kovach said. “I’d love to be on the court, but I do as much as I can from the bench.”
Ramon Antonio Vargas can be reached at [email protected].
