Batastini Has Found Her Niche
Former Classical Star is Back in
Basketball has taken
It took the former
Classical All-American and New England Basketball Hall of Famer
to the West Coast, where she played for Stanford, a top university with one of
the country's best Division I programs.
Basketball also took her
overseas, where she visited nearly a dozen countries and learned two new
languages while playing professionally for four years against some of the best
players in
And now, basketball has
brought Batastini, 28, back to Rhode Island, where for the past 10 months, the
Providence resident has been helping other young people build a solid
basketball foundation, which just might help them create their own exciting
opportunities.
"I'm doing this
because I enjoy it and there's a need for it," said Batastini, who has
created The Batastini School of Basketball.
Basketball was not the
only area of excellence for Batastini, who was the 1996 Providence Journal
Honor Roll Girl. She also earned All-State honors in cross country and track,
and was named to both the Nike and Parade All-America basketball teams.
Even while she was
playing pro ball in
Although she enjoyed serving
as an assistant to Brown women's basketball coach Jean Marie Burr for the
2004-05 season after deciding it was time to bring her professional career to a
close, it was becoming clearer to Batastini that she was meant to utilize her
talents on the court in a different way.
Those talents and the
direction she's taking them can be traced to being a 5-year-old sitting on the
bench beside her father, Armand, watching him coach the St. Pius CYO teams.
Batastini has seen the lasting impact her father has had on generations of
players, and now she would like to do the same.
She began working with
two sixth-grade boys who played for her father's team and were looking for some
help on their games in the summer.
Then the phone started
ringing as word got out that Batastini was providing individual instruction. In
no time, she was working with 30 kids.
Last fall, she began
conducting camps and clinics at various gymnasiums in
"It's just enjoyable
working with the kids," she said. "It's fun to see the big difference
I can make. I feel like I'm really helping them. My only goal is to make them
better. I've embraced the idea that I can help a lot of players get to where
they want to go."
Although she does work
with boys, Batastini's client base has been primarily
girls. And that's fine with her.
"I think that's going
to be my niche," said Batastini, who feels strongly about including
current and former
Batastini says that the
one-on-one instruction she provides is something that most coaches simply don't
have the luxury of doing when they are trying to manage a team of 10 to 12
kids.
She is amazed at how many
youngsters lack the proper fundamentals, attributing some of the bad habits
kids develop to shooting with "the wrong size ball at the wrong size hoop
at a young age" and mimicking what they see the pros doing on television.
When working with a
player, Batastini doesn't give them the ball until they have mastered a
particular drill without it, and she won't let them shoot at a hoop until they
have perfected their form.
"We go over and over
it, and until someone can do something little, I don't introduce them to
something more complicated," she said. "In order to move up, you have
to have strong fundamentals."
Seeing some of her former
Stanford teammates and classmates working on Wall Street, running start-up
companies in
"Sometimes I ask
myself, 'What am I doing?' " Batastini said.
"But in the end, I wouldn't be happy without having basketball in my life.
I always knew I would be doing something with athletics. It's just a part of
me. I can't separate the two."
Information about Batastini's school is available at www.batschoolofbasketball.com
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 7,
2006
, The