By The TimesLedger
They weren’t the biggest team, they weren’t the fastest team, but no one in Queens played harder in the 2001-2002 season than the Jamaica girls’ basketball team.
The man who helped instill the blue-collar mentality is head coach Steve Heiss, the TimesLedger PSAL Girls’ Basketball Coach of the Year.
“I’m flattered and a bit surprised,” Heiss said when informed of winning the award. “But it’s to the credit of the girls. The thing I’m happiest about over the course of the season is that the girls believed when they play as a team and stick together, they can win.”
Heiss, who finished his seventh year at Jamaica, admits to not being the best X’s and O’s coach, instead crediting Mike Eisenberg from Francis Lewis, Larry Carradine from Cardozo and Townsend Harris’ Larry Ceraulo. But day in and day out, Heiss got the most out of a group few considered to be a playoff contender at the start of the season.
“Sometimes I would call timeouts and have nothing to say. It’s not what I do,” Heiss said. “I let the girls have a lot of the responsibility. I try and teach them certain concepts and hopefully they implement them in game situations.”
Despite only playing as many as seven players per game and always being smaller than its opponents, Jamaica still managed to be in many games by playing hard-nosed man-to-man defense and usually outworking the other team.
Never was that more evident than at the end of the regular season when Jamaica, which finished 19-9, needed to beat perennial powerhouse August Martin twice in a span of three days just to make the playoffs.
The Beavers did just that, first winning 66-58 at home and then defeating Martin, 60-52, in the first round of the Queens Borough Championships.
Jamaica went into the playoffs as the No. 20 seed, but upset Susan Wagner, 53-52, and then Madison, 72-66. The Beavers even gave No. 4 Manhattan Center a run for its money before falling, 56-46, in the quarterfinals.
“This is the best season I’ve ever enjoyed in coaching, not so much because of the nice run,” Heiss said, “but because of the personalities on the team.”
