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By: Kate Harman
For Renie Shields the “hunger” started when she was in fifth grade - she remembers it vividly.
Shields was playing in her first ever Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) basketball game when she went up for a lay up and got taken out.
She “knew” from that day on, the Archbishop Carroll coach said. That’s all it took.
The hunger would stay with her, as it followed Shields from the court of West Catholic to the floor of St. Joseph’s University, where she also played softball and ran cross country. After a Big 5 Hall of Fame career with the Hawks, Shields immersed herself in coaching for the next three decades, whether it was with St. Bernadette CYO, the Comets AAU organization, Villanova, or her alma mater.
In other words?
“Mom has always been in a coaching role since we were born,” her daughter Erin, one of four Shields children, said. “We didn’t know the difference. We thought everybody was born in a gym and went to games like we did. It wasn’t until later on that we realized not everybody does that.”
That hunger? It’s been passed on, as Erin and Renie now share the sideline for the Patriots (13-6).
“She started coaching me when I was very little,” Erin said. “You can’t quite understand at the time but going through high school and college you start to realize. Then it becomes ‘Wow. How did you see that? How did you know to look for that?’ She just has a passion for the game. She just loves it - loves to coach, loves to help girls get better.”
Renie has been with Carroll since the 2007-2008 season, first as an assistant to Chuck Creighton, before she took over as head coach last year, while Erin is in her third season as an assistant, having scored 1,000 points for Carroll before going on to net 1,300 more at St. Joseph’s.
Over the years, the combination of Shields and Carroll basketball has been a fruitful one, with the program capturing the state title during the 2008-2009 season, when Erin’s older sister Kerri – also a 1000-point scorer for the Patriots, as well as at Boston College - manned the point. The team earned the state championship again in 2012, winning Catholic League championships in 2009, 2010, and 2012, too.
“I like to think of it as respected, that the coaches before me helped lay the foundation for a respected program,” Renie said, of how others view the name on the front of the white, black, and red jersey. “That’s something we want to continue. That whoever our opponent is, that they think Carroll is a team to respect with good players, good people.”
With good reason.
Last year, the Patriots earned a berth in the PIAA Class 5A state quarterfinals and were only five points away from the final four. Led by high-scoring senior guard Molly Masciantonio, currently the squad sits in fourth place in the Catholic League, having won big contests against Archbishop Ryan, Bonner-Prendergast, and West Catholic.
“The only way I know how to do this is that you work really hard,” Renie, the Associate Athletic Director for St. Joseph’s, said. “Nobody hands you anything, if you have that hunger in you, the other things sort of take care of yourself.”
It’s a mindset the team has glommed on to.
“They’ve been through it, so they know what it takes,” Masciantonio said. “They want to win just as much as we do – we couldn’t ask for better coaches.
“She does all the little stuff that we wouldn’t think is big,” she added. “But all the little stuff actually matters. When she says to get up in the lane, jump the pass, be one step ahead, it actually makes a difference. Her [basketball] IQ makes us better.”
What else makes them better? The enthusiasm from the coaching staff – which also consists of Leanne Ockenden and Nora McGeever (a 2011 Carroll graduate).
“It’s the passion for the game. We have so much fun at practice,” Erin said. “The girls know it too. My mom smiles the whole time.
“She just loves coaching, I really can’t say that enough,” she added. “That’s the heart of what she brings to this team and every team she has ever coached. It’s been cool to see her pass all that on to everybody. She doesn’t talk about herself. She doesn’t do it for herself. She does it for the team. It shows.”
The passion was on display Friday night, just like it is every game night, as the Patriots faced off against Bonner-Prendergast.
“She walked,” Renie said from the bench.
“Go, go, go,” immediately followed.
“Pick it up,” she said, as Carroll tried to grab a loose ball. “Pick it up.”
Renie kept it up, intently focusing on all facets of the game, as her team went up and down the floor.
“Good Molly,” she said, referring to a Masciantonio steal.
“Rebound.”
“Where are we?”
It wasn’t a CYO game. She may no longer be in the fifth grade.
But that hunger remains.
@Ka_Harman