Forest Park stars will honor commitment to Mason
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By Dave Utnik
Published: March 25, 2008
All three Forest Park girls basketball players decided Tuesday that they will play for the Patriots even though Debbie Taneyhill has resigned as the team’s head coach.
“Mason is going to be it,” said Epps. “It’s still a good school and we still have a chance to be a good team. We just want to stick together.”
Epps basically said the same thing when Forest Park went through a coaching change last sea-son and the Bruins wound up reaching the state championship game.
So while Taneyhill’s departure following a 9-21 season creates some temporary uncertainty in Fairfax, it won’t alter Epps’ loyalty to her friends or to George Mason.
“We’re just hoping that we get somebody good,” the Bruins’ senior said.
Of course all three players already have a candidate in mind — former Forest Park coach Chrissy Kelly, who just completed her first season as a Patriots assistant.
“Coach Kelly is a big reason that I decided to go there and I hope she can stay,” said Scott, a jun-ior who has made a verbal commitment to play at George Mason. “When I first heard I got a little upset but I talked to coach Kelly [Monday] night and she said everything would work out.”
And there is recent precedent to warrant that belief.
When Kelly accepted the job at George Mason, there was a universal mentality within the high school basketball community that Forest Park would quietly fade into the background. Only the Bruins never thought so.
Kelly was gone, but a foundation built on family, trust, loyalty and, ultimately, defense, still re-mained and Forest Park used all those pieces to advance to the state finals for the fourth time in five years.
“I’m hoping that we’ll all be able to play together again,” Epps said. “There may be a possibility that she’ll go for the job and I hope she does because she’d do a great job.”
Taneyhill transformed George Mason into one of the Colonial Athletic Association’s elite teams during 11 seasons as head coach, leading the Patriots to a 21-9 record in 2000-01 and to the CAA Tournament championship game in 2003-04.
The Patriots played in the Women’s NIT in 2001 and 2004, but after four consecutive losing cam-paigns, Taneyhill announced her resignation on Monday night — leaving three Forest Park re-cruits with a tough decision to make about their future.
“When I got to school [Tuesday] morning I talked to Amber and we decided that if she stayed then I’d stay and if I stayed then she’d stay,” Scott said. “The way I look at is, I still have Deidre and Amber so I’ll be OK.”
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