Basketball
Favorite athlete: Caroline Doty
Favorite team: Golden State Warriors
Favorite memory competing in sports: Qualifying for states on our home court last year after coming back from down five points with 23 seconds to go and winning in OT in front of a huge crowd on silent night.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Freshman year I tried to make a crosscourt PASS, but it got stuck in between the basket and backboard; it was not a shot, it was indeed an attempt at a pass.
Music on iPod: Pop and EDM
Future plans: Attend Emory University and continue basketball career, major is undecided as of now.
Words to live by: “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”
One goal before turning 30: To have a family
One thing people don’t know about me: I like to bake.
By Mary Jane Souder
Coach Morgan Funsten preaches a ‘next play’ philosophy to his players.
Allison Chernow not only gets it, the Upper Dublin senior lives it.
In this year’s SOL Tournament semifinal game against Central Bucks West, the American Conference champion Flying Cardinals suffered the kind of loss that tests a team’s character. They not only watched a late lead slip away, they couldn’t buy a basket, connecting on just 1-of-21 shots from the floor in the second half.
Chernow, a senior captain, was as upset as everyone else on UD’s sidelines after the heartbreaking loss, but she chose to look ahead in a conversation with her coach.
“It was a - hey, we’re going to be all right kind of conversation,” Funsten said. “The line we use in our program is ‘next play.’ You can’t let a previous play affect the next play. You have to worry about the next play.
“Allison was already on to the next play. She was already on ‘we’ve got to get ready for playoffs.’ It really helps to have your leader on the same page with you, and to have that mindset that soon after a really ugly loss like that really says a lot about her maturity.”
Making Chernow’s response especially remarkable is the fact that she chose to put aside her own feelings.
“The loss to CB West really hurt,” she said. “We played them three times last season – all in the postseason, and they beat up on us each time, and that is not something you forget as a team, as a player, as a coach.
“We really wanted that game, and we had them right where we wanted them the whole game until the very end. I was just as upset, disappointed and mad as everyone else, but we had to remember that game meant absolutely nothing and districts means absolutely everything. The girls look up to me and Ashley (Barber) so when everyone else is feeling down, we have to be the ones to pick them back up and keep our team together and keep rolling like coach Funsten says, ‘Next play.’
“I just try to be whatever the team needs me to be, and a lot of the time it is that positive factor and just bringing a positive attitude and vibe into everything we do, but most importantly after things don’t go our way.”
Chernow is the point guard and undisputed leader of a Flying Cardinal squad that captured its fourth consecutive SOL American Conference title. It’s a role she has held since her sophomore year when she was thrust into the position after a pair of devastating setbacks.
Within a span of one year and 15 days, the senior captain twice tore her ACL. Small wonder she lists former UConn great Caroline Doty – who endured three torn ACLs but never threw in the towel - as her favorite athlete.
Chernow tore the ACL in her right knee on Jan. 16, 2012, during a scrimmage with her travel team when she was in eighth grade.
“I hyperextended my leg,” she recalled. “My sister had done it four years before that, so we knew what a torn ACL was, but it did not seem as common until after I did mine, and then we started hearing about all these people getting it.
“It was the last response I wanted to hear.”
Three weeks later, Chernow underwent surgery, and she was cleared to play a week before tryouts her freshman year. Two-and-a-half months later, on Jan. 31, 2013, Chernow, a swing player, went down again in the closing minutes of her team’s game against Springfield.
“We were winning by a lot, so I went into the game,” she said. “I was playing defense and a girl bumped me.
“I think I fell, and it hyperextended. I felt it, I heard it pop. They scored, I got up, somebody passed the ball to me, and I actually ran and dribbled down the court and got fouled. I was going to shoot a one-and-one, but I walked off the court instead because I knew what had happened. I basically broke down.”
A doctor’s visit confirmed what Chernow already knew.
“The doctor did the test and looked at me,” she said. “That was about it. He didn’t even tell me, he didn’t have to. I was a little bit of a mess after that.
“The hardest part of going through something like this is after you injure yourself and then having to sit through the next game and realizing that you can’t play. That’s the toughest part.
“Unfortunately, I knew what to expect and I knew what I had to do. There’s no point in sulking anymore because there’s nothing you can do except work harder and come back.”
And working hard is something Chernow continued to do even after she returned and became an impact player.
“She worked twice as hard,” Funsten said. “After practices, she would go to strength training to build up the strength in her entire body, especially in her legs. Once and someone’s unlucky, but when they get the second one, you start thinking – maybe that’s it. Maybe they shouldn’t continue to do what they’re doing.
“She’s been so proactive. I remember saying to her sophomore year – ‘The best thing about you is you have a desire to be great.’ No one works harder at her game than Allison.”
***
Chernow grew up playing just above every sport that came down the pike, competing in basketball, soccer, tennis, softball and swimming. Soccer and basketball stuck, and she would have been hard pressed to choose a favorite.
“It was whatever season I was in at the time,” Chernow said.
The torn ACLs brought an end to her soccer career, but she stayed with basketball. Chernow – who missed two AAU seasons - was cleared to return to action the first day of tryouts her sophomore year, and if coming back from an injury wasn’t enough, she also found herself playing a new position – point guard.
“I had never done that before because I was always on a team with (Mount St. Joseph point guard) Caitlyn Cunningham,” Chernow said. “Missing those two years, I had no point guard skills yet.”
But Funsten had no misgivings about giving his sophomore guard the reins to a team that included six seniors.
“They all wanted to start,” the Flying Cardinals’ coach said. “Allison ended up earning a starting spot. She just went about her business, and she’d always pride herself in trying to do the little things right.”
And that attention to detail - as well as a willingness to accept criticism - is what sets Chernow apart.
“That’s what makes her so much fun to coach,” Funsten said. “Sometimes you can’t be completely honest with a player because you’d crush their confidence, but you can shoot it straight to Allison.
“She takes it, she processes it, she’ll maybe ask you a question about it and then she works on it. That’s what has kind of helped mold her into the player she is now because she’s open to improve. Her game from sophomore year to now has just elevated so much.”
The senior point guard – who averages over 10 points a game - is on pace to break Curtrena Goff’s single season mark of 127 assists. Chernow has 122 and is averaging 5.3 assists a game.
“I went back for the last 10 years, and the most the last 10 years – and we’ve had some really good guards - is (Goff),” Funsten said. “She never really gives a vibe of caring how much she scores and really cares more about watching her teammates have success, which is really what you want to see in a leader.”
“I say sometimes that I’d rather have double-digit assists than points,” Chernow said. “As long as I’m taking care of the ball. The most important stats to me are assists and turnovers.”
When it came time to choose a college, academics came first for the honors student. Emory University will give her the best of both worlds – an excellent education and the opportunity to play basketball. Chernow, a member of the National Honor Society, is undecided on a major.
With district playoffs set to begin this weekend, Chernow is savoring every minute of her final high school season.
“Every year we seem to just have a great group of girls,” she said. “Everyone gets along, and it’s really fun.
“I think it starts with coach Funsten. He believes in us more than anyone. If we’re ever doubting ourselves, he knows exactly what to say, and he knows that we do have the ability and capability to be successful on the basketball court.”
