Teams, Coach >>

It was a memorable season for Bishop Shanahan, winning its third consecutive Ches-Mont championship, finishing third at districts, advancing to the second round of states (where it almost knocked off eventual state champion Archbishop Wood). Directing the action on the sidelines was the 2016-17 Daily Local News All-Area Girls Basketball Coach of the Year, Fran Burbidge. The 1971 Cardinal O’Hara grad has coached players on many different levels. He coached Elena Delle Donne at Ursuline Academy and Breanna Stewart with the AAU Philadelphia Belles. He also served as an assistant coach to Bobbi Morgan for the Cabrini University women’s basketball team, and he has been the Shanahan head coach for four years. But what made this Shanahan team, and its players, particularly memorable to Burbidge was its adaptability and willingness to change. “We didn’t get off to the greatest start this season, and our [coaching] approach, which was to play in a certain way, was not playing to [our players’] strengths,” said Burbidge. “We were able to sit around as a team and talk about how we could better play to our strengths. To be able to turn it around, and to have every player embrace the changes we were trying to make in our style of play, really made it special. “The Shanahan community is a great community, the support from the Sisters [at the school] has been fantastic. And I want to emphasize this — without [assistant coaches] Katie Holzer Taraborelli and Pat Lyons, none of [our success] over the past four years would be possible. They’ve done a great job, a fantastic job.”

Fran Burbidge