At one point in his life, Michael Seberger seemingly spent more time on a golf course than he did in his own bed.
Seberger estimates he played 150 rounds of golf a year. But in his quest to become the next Phil Mickelson, Seberger was called off the course – all because of his daughter, Sarah.
“My oldest daughter wanted to play basketball and they needed park district coaches,” Seberger said. “My wife (Gina) told my daughter, ‘If your dad has all this time to play golf, he should be able to coach your team. Ask him.’”
Eight games later, Seberger’s coaching record was, ahem, 0-8.
“It was terrible,” he said. “I said there’s got to be something better than this.”
There was. In time, after a stint in the park district and coaching a feeder team – “They ran me out of there, saying I was too serious about basketball,” he said – Seberger joined another coach in starting the Illinois Lady Lightning. Seberger’s daughter and the assistant’s daughter came up with the name.
“I ran with it from there,” Seberger said. “I think there were two teams our first year (2001). This summer we had 19 teams.”
The Lady Lightning has evolved into an all-encompassing program, offering skill development sessions and fall youth teams, among other services. You wouldn’t call it an empire, but it also wouldn’t be fair to minimize the Lightning’s contributions to the advancement of hundreds of players throughout the year.
“We’re kind of covering all facets of it,” Seberger said.
Examples?
“Two years ago I started a post skills camp,” Seberger said. “In April we started the Illinois Lady Lightning Skills Academy and that runs six days a week now. That has blossomed for us.”
There’s more.
“I think it was eight years ago we started the Illinois Lady Lightning Youth League. We had 100 teams last year in that youth league. Not only our top players, but our competition’s top players have rolled through our youth league. Jewel Loyd, Ariel Massengale, Michala Johnson, Morgan Tuck – all of those kids have gone through our youth league.”
The skills classes conducted by Seberger and his coaching staff have gained popularity in short order. Classes, typically kept to smaller groups of eight or so, fill quickly. The emphasis always is on the building blocks each player must conquer to improve her game.
“People are finding out about it, how we’re breaking everything down, the footwork, getting low, the body position, finishing aggressively to the basket,” Seberger said of the post workouts. “Our kids have always played tough, but we haven’t been the most polished and I think our future is really, really bright.”
The implementation of the Skills Academy dovetails with Seberger’s philosophy in player development. Winning games is great, but making players better is what receives the highest emphasis.
“We see it when we compete at AAU nationals or other national tournaments,” Seberger said. “We play all 10 of our kids. We run into teams that play seven, and the other five never get into the game. Our philosophy, especially in our youth program, has been to stay the course, and we’re trying to prepare you to compete for a varsity position as a freshman or a sophomore. That’s our mission. It’s not to win every game as a seventh- or eighth-grader.”
The Lady Lightning will be well-represented at the USJN Battle of the Programs in the Chicago area Sept. 29, though it might not look like the same group that had success this summer.
“This is the roughest time of year,” Seberger said. “You’re dealing with homecoming, fall sports, and your teams are kind of mish-mashed together. We’ll be a little shorthanded in all of our teams.”
Some of the Lady Lightning players have developed enough to reach the top level. A look at a couple of the higher-profile players in the Lady Lightning program:
Diamond Thompson (6-foot-4, Lombard Montini, Class of 2013, Notre Dame commitment): “I run (Montini’s) fall workouts for them. I got a chance to work with her as a freshman before she even played for us. To see the growth from her freshman year to where she is now … I think Diamond’s best years are ahead of her.” (Thompson will play her senior season at Wheaton Warrenville South.)
Malayna Johnson (6-4, Lombard Montini, Class of 2013, Wisconsin commitment): “She did not start playing basketball until her eighth grade year, where Michala played with us in the fifth grade. I thought Malayna had her best July ever. The USJN Summer Final was one of her best tournaments of the summer.”
