New Coach On Mission To Save Girls Sports In Bethel

BETHEL, CT — Danielle Scolpino is on a mission to save girls sports.

To be clear, girls sports in Bethel is in no more need of saving than girls sports anywhere else in the United States. But Bethel High School's new varsity girls basketball team head coach said she hopes to reverse a disturbing nationwide trend.

"I read a statistic that 40 percent of girls quit playing sports when they get to high school," Scolpino said. "And that's something that really resonated with me. I have to try to do a better job of getting girls to continue to play basketball when they get to high school because it really will help grow the program."

She said she is looking to organize trips to college games and practices to keep high school athletes engaged and get middle school girls interested.

Scolpino's "holistic approach" ropes in alumni as well.

"It's important to build relationships beyond just high school," the coach said. "So that the girls that graduated want to come back, and they want to come to a game and hopefully run an alumni game in the future. We've never had a girls alumni game before."

Scolpino is an alumna herself. The fifth-generation Bethel native graduated BHS in 2010, then went on to play Division III ball at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Shortly after graduating MCLA in 2014 she was back at Bethel High coaching JV girls basketball. Since then, she has gone on to coach 7th and 8th Grade Amateur Athletic Union and travel teams, as well as serve as the assistant basketball coach at Western Connecticut State University.

The team the new coach has inherited is in good shape. Last year, the BHS girls varsity was 13-10, so there's no talk of "rebuilding" or "reinventing." Instead, Scolpino said she is focusing on "creating a space that is goal driven, positive and all about lifting each other up."

That support extends off the court, and most especially into the classroom. Scolpino emphasized that when it comes to student-athletes, the student always comes first.

"We will have them go to some extra classes, extra studies, and make sure that they really focus on that before anything else, because that's why they're at school in the first place."

Scolpino said her work with the team will go beyond lay-ups and free throws to "growing them emotionally physically and beyond basketball, and helping them with things that they can carry on for the rest of their life."

If it works, the whole town stands to benefit: Team bonding exercises will include community service events, Scolpino said.

So far, "the school has been 100 percent supportive" of the new coach's new initiatives, according to Scolpino. Time will tell whether that support extends to her dream of reviving frosh ball at Bethel High School.

"We used to have a freshman, JV and varsity team when I was in high school, and that is something we definitely want to get back to so that we have more girls and build the program even more," Scolpino said.