An Ever-Growing Legacy

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – Victories and championships, postseason appearances and a run to the Sweet 16. Raucous loyal-to-the-core crowds that turned McGuirk Arena into a dreaded stop for Mid-American Conference foes, and a place where Power 5 opponents counted their lucky stars if they escaped with a win.

All part of Central Michigan women's basketball under Sue Guevara, who planted the seeds when she arrived in Mount Pleasant in 2007, cultivating a program that became the gold standard in the MAC, the benchmark for mid-majors far and wide, and a point of pride for the university.

Legacy is not what I did for myself …

Guevara did plenty for others, and the fruits of that labor and that devotion to those around her resonates in McGuirk and in college arenas from East Lansing to Iowa City to Atlanta to Albuquerque.

Her former CMU assistant coaches populate programs on all points of the compass, including New Mexico, where Bill Ferrara just completed his fourth year as an assistant; to Iowa, where Raina Harmon likewise just completed her fourth year as an assistant; to Georgia Tech, where Murriel Page just concluded her first year as an assistant; and to Michigan State, where Kristin Haynie is an assistant.

And, of course, right here in Mount Pleasant, where second-year head coach Heather Oesterle along with assistant Courtney Shelton led the Chippewas to a MAC Tournament title and an NCAA Tournament appearance in March.

Iowa, Georgia Tech and Michigan State all made the NCAA Tournament in 2021 along with the Chippewas. New Mexico won the Mountain West regular-season championship for the first time in 16 years, earning a berth to the WNIT.

Sue Guevara wasn't on the bench for any of those.

Or maybe she was.

'My Basketball Mom'
"She's what I consider my basketball mom," said Ferrara of Guevara, who brought Ferrara with her when she left her assistant job at Auburn in 2007 to return to her home state and coach the Chippewas.

Ferrara was then the Tigers' video coordinator, just four years out of college and looking to get into coaching. On the day that Guevara announced that she was leaving for CMU, Ferrara stopped in at her office on the Auburn campus. It was then that she informed him that he too was packing his bags and joining her Chippewa staff.

At the going-away party at Auburn, Guevara made an announcement that resonates with Ferrara to this day: "'This is great for me,'" Ferrara recalls Guevara saying, "'But it's also great for Mr. Bill who one day is going to be an amazing head coach.'

"She empowered me at the going-away party, planted a seed in my mind of belief. She just makes everybody who comes in contact with her, works with her, feel like more than they are and it's an unbelievable quality and something I've always taken with me from place to place. Eventually when I do get my head-coaching opportunity I will also empower my staff because of what she did for me and so many of us."

The Chippewas, with Guevara at the helm and Ferrara at her side, won just seven games in that first season, 2007-08. CMU won 20 games by their third season together, Ferrara's last in Mount Pleasant, and by then the Chippewas were the third-highest scoring team in the nation.

Guevara entrusted Ferrara, after their first year, to revamp the offense. He ran with those marching orders and together they installed the dribble-drive offense. The scoreboard started to light up, and the wins started coming.

"It was literally, 'You go find it, come back with it, and we'll put it in,'" Ferrara said. "She started me out in (coaching) and was the first one to empower me so I could say, 'I can do this.' That was special for me. I'm not in this profession without her, period."

Partners
It's that empowerment and trust that has perhaps led to so many former Guevara assistants moving on, climbing the ladder, and finding success.

"One of the first conversations I had with (Guevara) about coming to Central to coach was, 'You don't work for me, you work with me,'" said Haynie, who was on Guevara's staff from 2014-17. "That's pretty powerful.

"I think she's a coach that has helped her assistants grow on the court because she let us do a lot and I think that goes to show the trust she had in us was exponential."

Unsurprising to anyone who has ever crossed paths with the affable Guevara, she has always made others feel special. In the gym, at a banquet dinner, one-on-one in the hallway on her way to practice, it didn't matter. And it didn't matter if the listener was the person who signs her paychecks or one who changes the oil in her pickup truck.

All, especially her players and her assistants, were treated with respect and dignity -- an open ear, eye contact, a smile. She may disagree – ask any official in the MAC about that – but it would always come in a respectful, if forceful, manner.

"She makes people feel important," Haynie said. "It doesn't matter if you're the athletic director of another university or you're the team manager at Miami of Ohio, if she knows your name, she's going to say your name and she says hi to everybody and she makes everyone feel important.

"She was consistent, and she was genuine. She's a very genuine person and her players and assistants see that and feel that. … And off the court she's like your best friend. She definitely has touched a lot of lives."

Outstanding Reputation
Page joined the Chippewa staff before the 2017-18 season and served for three years, the first two under Guevara. A former All-American at Florida and an 11-year WNBA veteran, Page could have traded on that pedigree and perhaps landed an assistant-coaching job at a higher-profile school than CMU. But she took the advice of her college coach, Carol Ross, who knew Guevara well both personally and by reputation, and sought out a position under Guevara.

Honest to a fault but instinctively tactful, Guevara wasn't certain that Page would be a good fit for CMU and the MAC which, after all, is not the Southeastern Conference and certainly isn't the WNBA.

"Coach G said, 'There's no way you're going to come up here,'" Page said of their first telephone call, laughing at the memory. "'You're a prima donna who played in the SEC and in the WNBA.'

"I was a little older (age wise), but still young in coaching years. I was chasing growth and with that, maturity."

The persistent Page knew what she wanted, and after a visit to Mount Pleasant and some face-to-face meetings with Guevara sealed the deal.

"I want to work for good people," Page said. "I want to work for somebody who wants to win championships and at the same time gets the overall picture. Coach G invests so much into her players as well as her assistant coaches. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. … With (Guevara) it was an open door: 'This is how we're going to treat you here, we're all in this together.'"

Out of the Comfort Zone
That philosophy of inclusiveness and empowering of her assistants comes with expectations. Guevara, as any former player or assistant is quick to point out, is no pushover. Fun-loving and driven, she can poke and prod – as can any good coach worth her salt – but "she would be the first one to give you hug," Haynie said.

It's through that give and take, some might call it tough love, that good players become great, and assistant coaches become thinkers and, eventually, head coaches.

"Coach G really helped me grow, not just on the court but off the court as well," Page said. "You have to step outside your comfort level if you want to grow and she put me in those situations.

"She put me in front of people every day that I wouldn't otherwise sit down and talk to. She even taught me how to play golf. I watch golf, but I never in a million years thought I would play golf. I love the game of golf now. She introduced me to a lot of things that helped me grow as an individual and as a person and as a coach.

"We would have conversations about life and where I saw myself and what I wanted to do. You're coaching with someone who is invested in you to not only help win basketball games but is invested in you as a person. That's why people want to work with Coach G. When I got the job at Central, I had so many coaches tell me, 'You know what? You're so lucky; I wanted that job.'"

Passing it Along
Guevara came to her penchant for inclusiveness honestly, learning it first as a player and then as a coach at Saginaw Valley State under Marsha Reall and continuing as a graduate assistant under legendary Tara VanDerveer at Ohio State, and then as an assistant coach under Karen Langland at Michigan State.

"They gave me responsibilities and let me know when I was doing a good job and when I needed to do a better job," Guevara said, adding that when she became a head coach, first at Michigan and then at CMU, "it was not the Sue Guevara show. It's wasn't. It never was. This was our show and what we are doing as a program."

Guevara said her No. 1 priority in an assistant coach was work ethic and she sharpened her keen sense for identifying that simply by observation.

"I would tell people that when I'm out recruiting or I'm out at a game, I used to watch assistant coaches," she said. "Who's the first one in the gym? Who's the last one in the gym? Who's in the front row watching games? Or who's over talking with their friends and stuff like that?

"I want someone who's going to love the game, who has the energy and the passion."

Just as Guevara continually prepared her players for life after basketball, she prepped her assistants for a professional life when they inevitably left CMU in search of their next step.

"I'd tell them, 'You go interview them as much as they interview you because you're used to doing a lot of stuff, you're used to being on the floor and having a voice,'" she said. "That means that I want your opinion, I value your opinion. … I want to know what you think. Not every head coach does that. To me that's very valuable."

Valuable indeed. And it was never lost on those former assistants, all of whom profess an undying loyalty to Guevara.

"I've taken a ton of stuff from Sue," Ferrara said. "Never give up; you talk about somebody who has fight and her teams embodied her. The team takes on the personality of the coach and that's all of Sue's teams at Central Michigan.

"I've taken that with me from stop to stop as well."

Central Michigan University Athletics

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