Meet the new Queen Bee

Zion High School Ganya Johnson is the new head coach of Zion girls basketball.
(Joe Shuman/Special to The News-Sun)

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She hasn't even begun her first season as head girls varsity basketball coach at Zion-Benton, and already Tanya Johnson seems to have things backward.

"I'm the lucky one here," said the Hall of Famer following Tuesday's practice. "The kids have responded to us, they're respectful and they're upbeat. It's uplifting to be around them. I consider myself lucky."

From the outside looking in, quite the opposite would appear to be true. It's the players and their families who are blessed to have this enthusiastic two-time state-champion coach on their side.

In fact, where Hall of Famers are concerned, the Zee-Bee girls are twice blessed. For not only do they have the former Loyola Academy leader and her 557 career victories in their corner, but they also have the added bonus of a second Hall of famer, Frank Mattucci, and HIS two state championships.

Mattucci, who boasts 353 wins at Stevenson High, has come out of retirement and will be Johnson's assistant coach. Add Mary Just, who has been Johnson's assistant for as long as the latter has been head coaching and there's no denying that the Zion girls have Wooden-like hoops minds on their side.

"Mary has always been a key for me," said Johnson. "She's always been the brains behind the operation. And Frank and I have known each other forever."

Johnson, a longtime Round Lake Beach resident, was retired one year from Loyola to pursue a masters degree in school counseling but could not resist the lure of coaching. Going after the Zion job, she said, goes hand in hand with the direction her life began taking in her last years at Loyola.

"Toward the end there, I began getting the feeling that I could help kids more in a different place. I honestly needed a challenge. Loyola is a great place where kids have a lot of advantages. I want to help kids who maybe aren't afforded all the opportunities that maybe the kids from Loyola have ... I think these kids can achieve as much or more."

She follows a two-year, 17-36 stretch of Leslie Toole as Zion's head man. She believes the talent is in place for the Bees to do much better.

The new coach observed that ability first hand during the summer and is of the opinion that her new charges are comparable in ability to the players she was used to coaching at Loyola.

"I think we have a lot of talent and athleticism here. There are some outstanding athletes. They just have to believe in themselves. They have to buy into the system, on and off the court," said Johnson, a self-professed grade-stalker when it comes to academics for her team members.

"We knew during that summer that the kids were responding to us," she said. "It's a small thing to a lot of people, but to us it's important that the kids realize that no matter how far you're behind in a game, you never quit. And we started seeing that. The kids were playing their guts out. They never gave up."

As an example, she talked about playing Mattucci's old school during a summer tourney. The Zee-Bees lost to Stevenson and its own first-year Hall of Fame coach, Tom Dineen, late of Buffalo Grove, by 20 points the first night. Zion then beat Libertyville and Lake Forest before getting a rematch with Stevenson and losing by just three.

"I felt really good about the effort those kids had," said Johnson. "As a coach, that's all you can ask."

"So the question is are our kids going to be disciplined to play like we want them to? Well, we've already seen good progress in that direction."

The Zee-Bees will play aggressive, in-your-face, blood-and-guts defense under Johnson and Mattucci.

"Frank and I love defense," she said. "What we'll see here is a better effort on defense, utilizing the quickness we have. Our goal is to take a lot of pride in defense. That's what we're going to build our program on.

"We're looking to build a tradition that when a team comes to play Zion, they know they really have to come to play. We're talking about taking baby steps right now. And we've done that already."