No matter how hard he tried, The Overlake School’s Athletic Director John Wiley just couldn’t believe it.

A woman claiming to be Sheryl Swoopes, a three-time MVP of the Women’s National Basketball Association, had responded to his advertisement in early November in the hopes of getting a job as a middle-school girls basketball coach at a small private school high in the Redmond hills. Passing it off as perhaps a practical joke, it wasn’t until Wiley met Swoopes in person the next day that he realized the opportunity his young athletes could have.

Swoopes, along with her partner Alisa Scott as an assistant coach, set out in December to transform the girls’ middle-school team into something the Owls could be proud of and help lay the foundation for the program’s success at the upper-school level.

The rest, as they say, is history.

AN UNLIKELY MATCH

Swoopes’ path to Overlake actually began during a Craigslist search for a seemingly unrelated reason.

She was looking for a house in the area, and accidentally clicked the “jobs” link instead of “housing,” which eventually led her to Wiley’s posting.

“I really didn’t think anything of it at the time,” said Swoopes, who will conduct the First Annual Sheryl Swoopes Basketball Clinic Feb. 17-18. “But I knew (coaching) was something I wanted to do on a more permanent basis.”

After the initial meeting with Wiley and Overlake’s assistant athletic director Steve Meredith, Swoopes, who earned four WNBA Championship rings during her career, knew that she had struck a chord with the program.

“Everything he said to me about what they wanted to instill into the girls and what they stood for was really everything I value about the game myself,” Swoopes said. “To be able to teach them the fundamentals of the game and be around girls who are doing it for fun, I thought it was a wonderful opportunity for me.”

A wonderful opportunity it was, but with it came a lot of work.

Wiley made sure that Swoopes realized Overlake was an academics-focused school, and that most girls were participating in sports for fun. While that made her job more of a challenge, it made the end result that much more gratifying.

A SPIRITED TRANSFORMATION

Swoopes vividly recalled the first day of practice, when some girls could not even dribble with their left hand, and would not even attempt a left-handed layup.

“They’d never been taught most fundamentals of the game,” Swoopes said. “It does my heart so good to see the players on our team now… to see how far the’ve come in two months.”

The girls now do crossover dribbles, go behind their back, and are no longer afraid to attempt a shot with their opposite hand.

Girls who used to say “I’m sorry” whenever they scored against an opponent or hit another player passing the basketball are now jumping up to grab rebounds with ferocity.

Swoopes’ team even won the Division-I Middle School girls tournament at Cedar Park Christian School last Saturday, including an incredible come-from-behind win where they were down 9-0 with about six minutes left to play on a running clock.

“We came back to win the game 12-11, and if you asked me the first week if I thought that was possible, I would have said, ‘If we get down 2-0, we’re not going to come back and win,’” Swoopes said. “One of the girls, she hit the game-winning shot at the buzzer, and they were all jumping up and down and hugging, the parents were standing and cheering.”

Although the change in her team from the first week to the last has been nothing short of miraculous, Swoopes first and foremost keeps the sport fun for the teens fortunate enough to be able to call the WNBA icon their coach.

“Some of them might not even play next year, and some of them might not ever play again,” Swoopes said, “but I feel that what we’ve instilled in them is just the love for the game, the excitement and joy of it.

“I honestly believe that if you’re having fun, wins and losses are going to take care of themselves.”

A COACHING CLINIC

Even though she is one of the most recognizable and talented athletes in women’s sports, Swoopes has always been big on giving back to the community.

She will get an opportunity to do so next Tuesday and Wednesday as she and Scott will run the First Annual Sheryl Swoopes Basketball Clinic at The Overlake School, a camp open to 7-14 year-old boys and girls of all skill levels.

Swoopes said getting into coaching has been her longtime goal.

“We are going to make it fun… when they leave after the second day, we want them to say, ‘It’s over already?’” she said.

Camp attendees will get to work one-on-one with the coaches, doing drills to improve ball-handling, shooting, defense and free throws. There will also be time for organized five-on-five scrimmages.

Should camp attendance be high enough, Swoopes would also like to see co-ed games take place.

“I grew up playing with guys, and I feel it’s really helped my game,” she noted. “It really gives you a lot of confidence.”

At age 37, Swoopes, who played most of career with the Houston Comets before a brief stint with the Seattle Storm, hasn’t ruled out the possibility of continuing her career as a player. But at the same time, the three-time Olympic gold medalist would love to stay with The Overlake School and foster relationships that have developed over her first few months there.

“I would love to (come back next season). I plan on staying in touch with them over the summer, and staying a part of what they’re doing,” she said. “I want to come watch them play soccer, play volleyball, and then when basketball comes around I would absolutely love to be be a part of this organization. Everybody here has been wonderful.”