Norman takes over as Bethel Park girls basketball coach
Stephen Norman never intended on coaching let alone directing the Bethel Park High School girls basketball team.
A Hampton native, he works for PNC Bank. For the past eight years, he has managed the retail lending rate management team.
After he graduated from West Virginia University, he returned to the region, where his sister asked him to coach a sixth-grade soccer club. Next, he began coaching a youth boys basketball team at the same school.
“I never played in high school or college. Honestly, I left college never planning on coaching,” said Norman, who resides in Brentwood. “Pretty soon I was coaching multiple middle school teams every season. I started coaching at 22 and just never looked back.”
Norman served as a volunteer assistant at Shaler during the 2018-19 campaign before getting a paid position on staff. He spent the last three seasons as an assistant at Baldwin before being hired at Bethel Park this winter.
Norman is excited about his new assignment and is thrilled to impress his philosophy upon the Lady Hawks, who uncharacteristically posted an 8-13 record in 2022 after a long playoff run and capturing a WPIAL crown in 2013.
“Bethel Park has a long history of successful basketball and I want to continue that tradition,” Norman said. “Overall, I just want to help build and develop confident and successful student-athletes.”
Norman noted that some of the members of the first teams he has coached are preparing to graduate from college. A number of other former players from high schools and AAU programs he has directed are currently in college as well.
“It’s exciting seeing them grow as people and players,” he said. “There’s a lot of lessons high school athletes can learn on the court even if they don’t have a desire to play later.”
The Lady Hawks already know they compete in one of the toughest leagues and they have prepared for the likes of Upper St. Clair, which was last year’s WPIAL Class 6A runner-up, Peters Township, the expected contender for the district title, as well as Chartiers Valley, not to mention Mt. Lebanon, Canon-McMillan and Baldwin. Between summer and fall leagues, the team has played a season’s worth of games, says Norman. The Lady Hawks have also practiced as much during the preseason.
“We’re in a great place to go and compete,” Norman said.
The Lady Hawks get section action started by hosting Peters Township at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 14. They will ring in the New Year entertaining Chartiers Valley at 6 p.m. Jan. 2.
“CV and Peters both return a lot of consistency. So I’d expect both will be a tough matchup, but there are no nights off in 6A. We’ll treat every game as a must win,” Norman said.
The Lady Hawks won their opener, 54-41 against McDowell. Sadie Orie led with 21 points while senior Julie Benlock provided 14 tallies.
A junior, Orie saw varsity time last season along with Becky Gillenberger and returning starters senior Ella Harmon and junior Ella Sabatos.
Because BP graduated five seniors from last year’s roster, there are plenty of opportunities for the returning quintet as well as others on the squad
While sophomore Kat Boff and freshman AJ Elphinstone are first off the bench, Norman expects freshman Gabby Labate as well as junior Liz Mackey and sophomores Bella Coleman and Abby Stutzman to be contributors. Additionally there are five other freshmen on the roster including: Avery Bonacci, Layla Bench, Lucy Dzanaj, Malana Wetzel and Sarah Nath.
“We have a lot of young players that are working hard to earn time and push the team to success,” Norman said.
During December, the Lady Hawks will be working on unity as well as skill development.
“We’re doing a great job moving the ball with pace and being unselfish and crashing the boards,” Norman said. “We’ve got some work to do with defensive rotations and communication but no different than anyone else at this stage of the season. We’ve got some opportunities to improve our spacing, particularly in transition and just overall decision making as well.
“Our season will depend on consistency and understanding that everyone is capable of leading us on any given night. We aren’t looking at one or two players to lead us on either side of the ball. We’re an unselfish team by nature and they genuinely like being around each other, I think we’re headed into a great year.”