Carla Siegel led the Fort Loramie Redskins to innumerable conference titles, district championships, four OHSAA state titles and 584 wins. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
The enormously successful coach of Fort Loramie women’s basketball announced over the weekend that she’d had enough…four state titles, 584 wins, innumerable conference championships, and more outstanding proteges’ than you can even name. So why now?
After 27 years of being the head coach of the Fort Loramie Redskins’ women’s basketball program, Carla Siegel announced last week that she was retiring from coaching.
And along with it, came the immediate questions, and yes – issues – over why someone so recognized, so respected in the coaching community, and so successful (584 wins, four OHSAA championship, and two-time runnerup in Division IV) would do the Roberto Duran thing and say, “No mas…no mas” (no more…no more)?
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Answers?
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA and Ohio State sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Well, when I last spoke with her personally following her team’s loss to Russia at the end of the regular season in February, I posed the question to her, myself. Was there any consideration of how much longer she might coach? Was retirement a possibility?
She smiled as she considered her answer, and said what years of decision-making on the sidelines had taught her about others anticipating her next move.
“Would it be the worst thing I could do?” she answered (paraphrasing), flashing her familiar smile. I got the gist, and the wisdom of Carla Siegel.
It was her way of acknowledging appreciation for herself, the wear and tear, and the change in contemporary culture about things like coaching autonomy, discipline, commitment, and yes…winning. Because behind that Siegel smile comes one of the most competitive personalities you’ll ever know.
Appreciation for herself? Well, first to thine own self be true. Even Shakespeare recognized that, long before the day of there being so little appreciation for coaches who demand the afore-mentioned, as well as a standard from year to year that doesn’t allow for exceptions. Standards and winning have always been enormously important to Siegel. And those values are obviously in question presently with the expansion to seven divisions of basketball and the public’s embracing a kinder, gentler competition in deference to the harsh reality of the scoreboard.
Generational?
Siegel grew up under the tutelage of then coach Jane Poeppelman, at Loramie, before moving on to play college basketball at Mount St. Joseph, in Cincinnati. So whether you call it generational, or not, she’s experienced the transition from the days of Poeppelman and boys coach Dan Hegemier at Fort Loramie, and the consequences for performance then compared to now – without explanation at special meetings of the school board. Kids learned from their mistakes, not from the satisfaction of having the coach questioned over personality differences and uneven playing time.
And there have been rumors of her retirement, even since her last state title two years ago, in 2024.
“It must be state tournament time,” she said with a smile during our last visit together. And, “Why would I want to leave after this?” she reiterated after the Russia loss in February.
“We played hard. But we’re young, and we need to play a lot of basketball.”
But the time, the people, and the stress of the culture of basketball had worn on her, as it’s always done with other coaching notables in the past.
“Would it be so awful to spend spring break somewhere warm?” she said to me in February, flashing that Siegel smile.
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And how much more basketball would she have needed to play, and what kind of basketball, compared to her standards?
“It’s just been a different year,” she said, concluding our February conversation – a concession, perhaps, to her recognition of the future.
Her final year will show a record of 15-10, overall, and 9-3 in Shelby County League play, hardly something to hang your head about.
But if you read between the lines her statement about playing more basketball is telling. Coaches of Siegel’s caliber are legendary for their ability to anticipate.
And she’s never been one to settle for something less than she’s helped build, at home and across the state.
I congratulate her for that, and best wishes for whatever comes next.
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