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Sports
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 — 7A
A dad and his daughter: How Katelynn Flaherty became the face of Michigan
Katelynn Flaherty’s back was
acting up again.
During the summer, she spent six
weeks off the court recovering from
a back injury, her only basketball
activities consisting of dribbling a
ball as she walked around the block
and taking between 800 and 1,000
foul shots every day. She pushed
herself — that’s a habit of hers —
and got clearance to start pushing
a little harder with three weeks left
in the summer.
“We knew that we were gonna
do it,” said Tom Flaherty, her dad
and Amateur Athletic Union coach.
“It was just me and her — and then
all the sudden, with three weeks
to go, the other girls came down,
couple of the high school girls came
around that were real good players,
couple of the college girls came
down, couple guys came down. We
used to have some 2-on-2, 3-on-3
games. … She looked real good.”
But now — at halftime of a Jan.
10 contest against Indiana — she
had just four points and to go along
with four turnovers in the first
20 minutes, an uncharacteristic
performance for a player who
was on the verge of becoming
Michigan’s all-time leading scorer,
woman or man.
Her dad knew something was
wrong. She knew that she would
get through it.
19 second-half points and an
84-79 win later, Flaherty had done
just that. Three days later, she
passed Glen Rice to become the
Wolverines’ all-time leading scorer.
The scare had passed.
On that day, actions spoke louder
than words. Flaherty got through
it. She always does.
***
Flaherty’s story starts before
she could even walk, with one
of the best women’s basketball
players of all-time: Asjha Jones,
a two-time national champion at
the University of Connecticut, who
was then a high school freshman
looking for a team.
She found HoopsAmerica, a
clinic operated by Rich Leary and
Tom Flaherty. At the time, it was
without a girls’ team, but Jones
seemed a pretty good reason to
start one.
“I was coaching just boys and
one of the fathers kept inquiring,
inquiring, inquiring at the location
where we played, and then a girl,
Asjha Jones, was his daughter, and
he wanted me to train her,” Leary
said. “Now, I had no idea the level
of girls’ basketball player (she was),
this was just some random, rising
ninth-grade girl.”
Jones
started
training
at
HoopsAmerica regularly and it
didn’t take long to see what she
could do.
“I let her come down to work
out with us, she fit in pretty well,”
Leary said. “It was a gym full of
very, very talented boys … and
Asjha and a friend of hers started
working out with us and then they
brought their whole team over and
we started a New Jersey Demons
team.”
Tom coached the newly formed
squad, and soon enough, Flaherty,
age four by Leary’s recollection,
was in the huddle with him. And in
practices.
“We’d be in my backyard with
the Demons team that I was
coaching and we were playing in
games,” Tom said. “And say I would
have her in a game — she was
maybe five, six years old — and she
was fast-breaking, she got the ball
and we’d throw to her the ball, if
she would go down and she’d make
the layup, it was good. If not, they
would rebound and play the game
back. She would do that and then,
while we were going over work,
practice and stuff like that, she
would do her coloring book and
stuff like that.
“But then after that, we would do
baby hooks on a little basket, little
moves, we started doing moves
right away, like, basic moves. Jab
step moves, in-and-out moves, little
(dribble) moves, stuff like that.”
Even at a young age, Flaherty’s
competitiveness and athleticism
were evident. She was a standout in
neighborhood softball, kickball and
wiffleball games. When her cousin,
two years her elder and a next-door
neighbor, learned to ride a bike, so
did she — while young enough to be
in kindergarten.
“She took her training wheels
off and then I was like, ‘Well, I
want mine off,’ ” Flaherty said.
“Cause we hung out all the time, so
whatever she wanted — it’s like a
sister — that I wanted just as good.
So I remember telling (Tom), he’s
like, ‘No, we’re not doing that.’ … I
like begged him and begged him.
And I remember by the end of that
day … I was riding my bike without
training wheels.”
By the time Flaherty reached
seventh grade, basketball was a
constant. Tom would organize
pickup
games
between
other
girls from HoopsAmerica and his
daughter that often went to 30,
full-court, no matter the weather.
When people came down the bike
trail that cut through the same
park as the court, they stopped and
gawked.
After that, Flaherty would take
300 extra shots and run two miles
on the boardwalk.
Tom had two rules: Flaherty had
to do well in school and she had
to work out. They only ran into a
problem once — a day in middle
school when Flaherty decided she
didn’t want to go play basketball.
The Flahertys’ backyard had a
stone wall, and Tom got creative.
“Here, shovel stones,” he told
her. “See how you like that.”
Flaherty obliged and soon had
tears in her eyes. She stopped after
two minutes.
“He was just making me dig
stones and put them back,” Flaherty
said. “Like, the most pointless thing
ever.”
“Dad, I think I’d rather play
basketball,” Tom recounts her
saying. “I’d rather work out at a
sport.”
***
The blacktop smelt like tar, the
humidity was thick enough to add
extra weight to clothing and still
the games went on.
Tom kept an attendance book
throughout, to see who kept
showing up every summer, every
day, to work out and play pickup.
The initial workout was for two-
and-a-half-hours,
followed
by
two or three games, then a two-
mile run. Flaherty estimates they
started in fifth grade and went until
her freshman year in college. Only
the strong survived.
“There’d be 20 girls on again at
the beginning of that summer that
started. And you would see the
attendance, and maybe five lasted
through the whole (time),” Tom
said. “ … And you could see the
five or six or seven or eight people
that stayed with it went to major
Division I colleges.
“ … It’s pretty intense. I mean, a
lot of people would say, ‘Oh yeah,
we’ll go down to the park and play,’
or ‘We’ll go down.’ They ended up
not lasting long. Because these
kids had the ability to work hard.
They wanted to make something of
themselves, you know?”
“It felt fun. It felt free,” said
Sadie Edwards, a former Demon
and current senior guard at USC.
“ … It was much different from like,
structured basketball. But, that’s
for me, personally. I don’t know,
that’s where you learn to play
basketball.”
With Tom, a former guard at
Seton Hall, involved — and often
playing in the games himself —
hours stretched into full days.
“We’d play like three games to
20 and he’d be like, ‘No, do another
one,’ ” Flaherty recalled. “So you’re
there all day, basically. That’s your
whole day.”
Once everyone else went home
for the day, drenched in sweat,
Flaherty stayed and worked. She
would do 300-400 extra shots
those days, just like the extra
workouts with her dad after AAU
practice, just like the 500-600
extra shots she does on the gun
now, even with leftover soreness
from a foot injury sustained two
weeks ago against Northwestern —
the same game in which she scored
a season-high 36 points.
Not everybody on the team
worked as hard as Flaherty. Then
again, not everybody had Tom,
the impetus for working out seven
relentless days a week. When the
team was together at practice,
the workouts were the same. But
Flaherty
separated
herself
by
working at home.
“I would say other girls all
worked hard, but Katelynn would
be an exception because she had
her dad there to do the work each
and every day and make sure that
she was doing it,” Leary said. “And
ultimately, it became who she was.
That’s who Katelynn is.”
Flaherty’s dad rode her harder
than everybody else in practice,
in part because it dispelled any
notion of bias and in part because
he wanted her to develop an ethos
of hard work.
“I think he wanted a lot out
of me,” Flaherty said. “And then
showing that he could get on his
own daughter made other people
feel comfortable when he yelled at
them.”
In the summer of 2016, when
both were going into their junior
collegiate
years,
now-senior
forward Jillian Dunston joined the
festivities. The workouts nearly
broke Dunston — a basketball
warrior in her own right.
“I was so beat up after two
days that (Flaherty’s) dad told me
just to do the drills to half-court,”
Dunston said. “Everyone else did
them full-court. I said, ‘I can’t
move.’ My body was cramping — I
only cramp in basketball games,
not in workouts — I mean, it was
tough.”
Added Flaherty: “People say it’s
crazy and (Dunston) was like, ‘No,
you’re literally crazy.’ But I think
it’s just been a way of life.”
Tom and Leary preach the value
of hard work like nuns preaching
abstinence.
“(Flaherty) would come back
(after practice) and work out,”
Tom said. “Other girls had the
opportunity to, but they did other
things.
“Which was cool,” he adds in
a tone that makes you question
just how cool it was. “You know,
everybody has their own thing, you
know?”
It’s rare that anybody actually
works hard for such a sustained
period of time. Flaherty did, and
started reaping the rewards before
high school.
After a local tournament at
Rutgers
when
Flaherty
was
between eighth and ninth grade,
C. Vivian Stringer, the coach of
the Scarlet Knights, asked to meet
with Tom. She promptly offered
Flaherty a scholarship. Tom’s
reaction was one of incredulity.
He didn’t know if his daughter
had the speed to play in Division I.
He knew she could shoot, sure, but
running with the best competition
in the nation was a different issue
altogether. And if he didn’t know
for sure, neither did Stringer.
“ ‘It’s ridiculous to think my
daughter can play Division I
basketball when she’s just starting
9th grade,’ ” Leary recounted Tom
saying. “ ‘That’s impossible.’ ”
In the coming years, however,
Stringer would be proven right.
“I think that’s when I knew,
‘Okay, well if I can start working
really hard, then I can get a lot
of these pretty big-time offers,”
Flaherty said. “ … That was
definitely
incredible,
in
ninth
grade, you have a full ride to a huge
school.”
***
The Demons are unlike most
AAU programs. Leary describes
their philosophy as similar to the
Golden State Warriors — sharing
the ball and shooting a lot of
3-pointers — then explains they
don’t practice shooting 3-pointers
and believe in the value of 1-on-1
games for development.
“It’s been Tom’s feeling that
you don’t have to practice a large
number of 3-point shots in order to
be a really good 3-point shooter,”
Leary said. “It’s developing a
rhythm in that your body identifies
with the distance that you are
from the basket. You don’t have
to rethink it, when you’re — or
make
adjustments,
conscious
adjustments, when you’re shooting
from 17 feet to 25 or 26 feet. You’re
— if you’ve done enough repetitions,
your body just naturally knows the
additional force that you need in
order to shoot from (distance).”
It’s a contradiction, but one that’s
developed, among others, Flaherty
and Jones on the women’s side and
Luol Deng and Jay Williams on the
men’s.
“You just practice your form
over and over and over again, so it
becomes natural,” Flaherty said.
“And then when I was at the point
where I was strong enough to shoot
from (3-point range), it just felt like
shooting a regular shot.”
The Demons don’t play in many
tournaments either, purposefully
so, preferring to focus on training.
They do, however, participate in
the Rose Classic, a New York City
staple. The Demons were in the
finals against Exodus during the
summer before Flaherty’s junior
year. Then, Tom got ejected, with
his team down big and without
doing anything wrong.
The first technical went against
him because someone affiliated
with the program yelled at the
referee. The second because the
referee mistook his yelling at a
player for arguing. Tom was forced
to leave the gym.
“Tom never talks to referees,”
Leary said. “I mean, he’ll talk to
them, but he doesn’t complain
about fouls, that’s just not what
he does. He coaches, and is just
entirely focused on the coaching.
Whatever happens with the refs
happens with the refs, so be it.”
Added Flaherty: “I think that’s
the first and only time ever (he was
ejected).”
Exactly how much the Demons
were losing by at this point varies
depending on who you ask — the
consensus is between nine and
15. What doesn’t is the awe in
describing what happened next.
Flaherty went off, raining triples
like a math savant rattling off digits
of pi.
“She scored like the next 17
points,” said Leary, who coached
in
Tom’s
absence.
“It
was
unbelievable.”
Added Edwards: “They were
tough (shots). They were like, off
the dribble, stepbacks, all sorts.
“... That moment, I was like,
‘She’s special.’ Like, she has a
chance to do something special. As
she can channel that and be that all
the time. Because she can be that
all the time.”
Tom watched part of the
ensuing action from the door, but
not enough.
“After the game is over, I go out
and tell Tom, ‘Tom, you gotta come
back in for the awards ceremony,’”
Leary said. “So he’s obviously
fuming — he just got kicked out
of a game in which he did nothing
wrong. He said, ‘Let’s just go. I
don’t want to, I’m so upset right
now, I don’t want to go in.’
“Tom,” Leary replied, “we won.”
***
Her first year in Ann Arbor,
Flaherty was coming off a lisfranc
injury and struggled in the early
goings of practice.
When the tide changed, though,
it changed fast.
“We came back from (a trip to)
Cedar Point and she didn’t miss a
single shot in open gym that day,”
Dunston said. “ … We played like 10
games. I’m talking not one thing.
I was like, ‘What’s wrong with
you?’ She was like, ‘That’s how I
normally shoot.’ ”
Flaherty’s work ethic also made
an impression. Nicole Munger had
met her just once — an awkward
hello forced by their parents
when the two future Wolverines
attended the same game in New
York — before she enrolled a year
behind Flaherty.
Munger thought she worked
hard, but she hadn’t worked out
with Flaherty. She kept trying to
outlast her and kept falling short.
“She’ll be in the gym for four
hours on a summer day,” Munger
said. “I’ll just be like, ‘I’m going
home.’ ”
That work ethic has always
paid dividends for Flaherty, but
none more this season. The senior
has turned Crisler Center into her
personal
playground,
draining
pull-up triples and blowing by
anyone who closes too hard. She
has played 40 or more minutes
eight times this season and hasn’t
slowed down. Against Illinois —
days after playing the entirety of
an upset win at then-No. 8 Ohio
State — she heaved a half-court
shot at the first quarter’s buzzer to
the delight of a group of little girls
in the crowd, then finished 5-of-8
from outside for the game.
On Senior Day this Thursday,
she’ll play her last regular season
home game at Crisler Center,
leaving as the face of the program
— not just for this season, but ever.
Her number will likely be the
first ever retired by the Michigan
women’s basketball team. She
deserves that honor without a
shadow of a doubt.
***
The game ended 45 minutes
ago, a standard blowout over
the Fighting Illini, but the girls
are still waiting. They’re on the
Blissfield travel basketball team,
age nine, and can’t stop asking the
same question: “When is Flaherty
coming?”
Without ever spending hours on
a blacktop, running extra miles or
taking extra shots together — hell,
without ever meeting — Flaherty
imprinted a love of basketball onto
the group.
“I’ve been following her a long
time,” says Kara Perser, proudly
informing her audience that she
has been to almost every home
game and watches them on the
road. She even brought a poster to
the game.
Flaherty had left the interview
room a few minutes prior after
taking questions, mostly about a
half-court shot and another great
game in the midst of another great
season. Whether she’s coming to
meet this starry-eyed crowd is an
unanswerable question, at least for
a reporter who stopped to talk on
his way out of the building.
“When is Flaherty coming?” the
chorus chimes.
Finally, one changes up the
question.
“Have
you
interviewed
Flaherty?” another one asks.
Once she hears an affirmative
from the reporter, she makes a
request.
“Tell her I love her.”
COURTESY OF THE FLAHERTY FAMILY
Katelynn Flaherty began sitting in the huddle of the team her dad, Tom, coached at the young age of four.
COURTESY OF THE FLAHERTY FAMILY
Katelynn Flaherty grew to love basketball from a young age thanks to the tutelage and encouragement of her dad, Tom.
ETHAN SEARS
Daily Sports Writer