Claudette Charney, head coach of the Hillsdale women’s basketball team, is retiring on April 30 after 13 seasons of leading the Chargers.
Since coming to Hillsdale in 2002, Charney has built the women’s basketball program, leading three girls to All-American status, the team to three GLIAC South Division titles, and the 2009 GLIAC championship. She also capped off personal achievements during her time at Hillsdale by becoming the first women’s basketball coach in the GLIAC to win more than 500 games.
“Hillsdale gave me the opportunity to be myself as a coach: To care about and have a passion for academics first and foremost and to train great players,” Charney said. “I truly believe in what the school stands for.”
Though she’s spent 13 years at Hillsdale, she’s spent far more years coaching in the GLIAC, making her the conference’s longest-tenured and winningest coach.
But before her successful coaching career, she was an exceptional player on the court.
“She’s the most competitive person I know,” senior guard Kadie Lowery said.
Her competitive edge helped her break the 2,000-point barrier during her collegiate career at Saginaw Valley State University and Grand Valley State University, a feat only one other woman in the state of Michigan has accomplished.
After graduating from GVSU, Charney had plans to teach, but she was not ready to leave the game behind. At the age of 22, she took a part-time coaching job at Muskegon Community College, where she stayed for three years while working three other jobs before she was offered the full-time head coaching position at Alma College, a Division III school.
After leading the Alma team to a championship her first season there, Charney was offered the head coaching job at Saginaw Valley State University. At 25 years old she started building her Division II career with the Cardinals. Charney’s teams garnered 167 wins over her 10 seasons as head coach.
Charney left Saginaw Valley to lead the Grand Valley State University Lakers where she was named GLIAC coach of the year in 1998.
After seven years with the Lakers, Charney received an offer to coach at Hillsdale.
“When I saw what Hillsdale was about, it aligned with me perfectly,” Charney said. “Hillsdale offered an opportunity to truly have the best of both worlds — it had a great academic profile and the support a competitive Division II team needed.”
Charney’s quiet intensity has shaped the women’s basketball program.
“She wants to win games,” Lowery said. “But even in practice, everything, every drill, is a competition.”
Junior point guard Ashlyn Landherr added that Charney was a “pretty quiet coach.”
“She tended to step back and watch the overall dynamic of the team at practice, and then individually coach players on how they were doing,” Landherr said.
Lowery and Landherr both said Charney was known for her “one-liners” on the sidelines.
“She’d say something and the whole team would crack up,” Lowery said.
Landherr gave an example: “She’d say to do something ‘til the cows turned blue.”
Putting a team together is one of Charney’s strong suites, Lowery said.
“She’s great at recruiting, we’re such a close team and she really knew how to keep it that way. She was able to find girls that worked and fit in with Hillsdale,” Lowery said.
While she has racked up many accomplishments and honors, including being inducted into the Hall of Fame at Grand Valley State University in 1990, she said her favorite part of coaching has been developing players.
“I’ve won a lot of games, but to be able to teach and show student-athletes that if you work hard for something you’ll reap the benefit and to have that influence is the best part,” Charney said. “Seeing the development of players like Stephanie Heid, Katie Cezat, who was actually the NCAA player of the year, and Megan Fogt, who earned first-team All-American this year, seeing those players grow was very special.”
Moving forward, Charney said she would like to finish her Master of Science Degree in Administration at Central Michigan University, which she is only one credit and one thesis short of attaining, and she would like to stay involved with Hillsdale.
“I’ve had a great run at coaching basketball, I think that part of my life is over and that I need to focus on different things,” she said. “I’d like to be in the administrative side of things now.”
Charney said she chose to strive for a masters in administration for the “leadership” aspect it teaches, which she has used in her position as the senior woman administrator and the director of compliance for the college.
As compliance director she was responsible for going to the GLIAC annual meetings and she worked closely with Athletic Director Don Brubacher.
“She was the most helpful person to me when I first got here seven years ago,” Brubacher said. “She was very knowledgable about the conference.”
Over her 33 years of coaching, Charney said she hopes she inspired women to pursue athletic professions.
“The percentage of female coaches in the country is becoming less and less. To have an influence on people and show what a great avenue of employment this is and how it’s a way to stay in the game is a great thing.”
Coaching is not a job without thanks, she said: “Seeing those former players successful in life, having kids, going to weddings, that’s the most redeeming part.”
