The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Mentor’s Phillips making mark as coach, prof at NDC
Notre Dame College men’s basketball assistant coach Pamela Phillips and her boss, fifth-year head coach Tim Koenig, made no excuses for the 102-76 loss to University of Charleston on Dec. 9 at Murphy Gymnasium.
The Falcons slipped to 3-7 overall and 1-5 in the Mountain East Conference with their fourth straight loss in the absence of standout senior forward Will Voorhees.
The second-leading scorer in Division II last season at 26.8 points per game, the 6-foot-8 sharpshooter also ranked 16th in rebounds with 10.3 grabs per game. Averaging 24.3 points and 10.7 rebounds through the first three games this season, Voorhees was shut down with what doctors first thought was a severe groin pull. Subsequent examinations revealed a sports hernia that will delay his return until next season as a fifthyear medical redshirt.
“The injury to Will was a blow, for sure, but it’s not why we lost today,” said Phillips, a Willoughby resident and 1999 graduate of Mentor High School in her first season as an NDC assistant. “We got good shots, but we missed too many of them.”
The Falcons finished with 29 baskets and shot 39.7 percent from the field,.
Charleston (8-3, 4-2 MEC) had 40 field goals and shot 59.7 percent from the field.
“The injury to Will creates opportunities for younger players,” Phillips said.
One of those younger players, freshman guard Halil Parks, finished with game-high totals of 30 points and 12 rebounds.
Six players scored in double figures for Charleston, led by senior guard Keir Anderson’s 24 points.
“It’s great that Will (Voorhees) gets to come back next season,” Phillips said. “But for this season, our players need to get better every practice, every game, every possession. They have to learn how to handle adversity and move forward.”
Phillips, 36, has painful, real-life experience in overcoming adversity.
On Aug. 1, 2005, her husband, Brian Montgomery, a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, was killed in action in Iraq. The couple’s son, Alex, was a 1-year-old at the time.
In the wake of that tragedy, she enrolled at Cleveland State and earned a master’s degree in business administration. She remarried in August 2013, to George Phillips, the director of career services at Notre Dame College. Their blended family includes Alex, his children, Bella and Dominic, and dogs, Norman and Dory. Three years ago, she joined the faculty at NDC as a professor of finance and economics.
Phillips played basketball competitively though her freshman year at Mentor. She made her coaching debut as head coach of her son’s sixth-grade team in the Willoughby recreation league.
“As a coach, I’m detailoriented and look at things through a different perspective,” Phillips said. “It’s really not that big of a deal to me. If you can teach, you can coach.”
Phillips said the coaches who helped shape her coaching style include Bob Krizancic and Steve Thompson, the longtime Mentor boys and girls coaches and Shane Kline-Ruminski of the National Basketball Academy in Eastlake.
Koenig said the interest was mutual in adding Phillips to his coaching staff.
“She’s extremely knowledgable,” Koenig said. “We want the best and brightest working with our players. It was a simple decision.”