Janel McCarville made fans of teammates and coaches, and they don’t mind recalling the era

Patrick Reusse, while preparing a column about Janel McCarville coaching high school basketball, sought expertise from those who played with McCarville and coached her. Here are four takes:

“She is like a homebody, just liked to hang out. The legend of her getting thrown out of practice by [coach] Pam Borton … honestly, I don’t remember that. She had that intensity; maybe Pam did tell her to go to the sideline a few times, but I think all the coaches appreciated her. We did as teammates.

“I’m not surprised she has stayed in the game as a coach. She loved the game, to talk it, to dig into it.

“Those two NCAA games in Williams Arena in ‘04, against UCLA and then Kansas State, were amazing. Almost 14,000 in the Barn; there had to be a few thousand first-timers for women’s basketball.

“I remember Janel set a pick, and it was like the UCLA player had hit a wall of bricks. There was this amazing ‘oooh’ from the crowd.”

Lindsay Whalen: Three seasons a teammate and co-star with McCarville on the Final Four team

“Janel was a free spirit with strong opinions about how sets, how plays, how defenses should be run. If Janel disagreed with the coaches, she’d tell them. I don’t remember meeting her on a recruiting visit, but when you first saw her, you wondered at her size, how athletic she was going to be.

“Then practice started, and you saw her in the workout room, and you saw those hands, those skills, and she was getting so fit …

“She was just a rare talent.”

“I was with the Lynx for all three of Janel’s seasons. I love her. Janel is one of my favorite all-time people.

“She’s a walking party … fun, engaging, smart, with an extremely high basketball IQ. I’m not surprised she’s coaching. Janel should be coaching.

“The first thing that comes to mind for all of us is her incredible passing from the post. Ten years later, I still have Janel plays on my cellphone. I’ll send you one right now. She has the ball on the left low block. She takes a quick peek around. Then, she throws a perfect, no-look, backhanded pass to Monica Wright in the far right corner. One of the most amazing passes I’ve ever seen.”

Petersen’s amazement can be heard at the end of the eight-second clip from a scouting tape when he exclaims: “Are you kidding me?”

“She had so much game, but her passing from the high post to speed cutters, that’s what sticks with me. She saw things ahead of time that other players didn’t.

“She did like to play cards. I had a red Dodge Dakota Sport truck that was fairly new. She would ask me to use it to go somewhere … usually Mystic Lake. I was two classes younger. She was Janel; big, forceful, beloved by everyone. I was afraid to turn her down."

The truck often returned with litter, but it always made it back to the nervous young owner.

“That we were able to experience a player of Janel’s caliber for a few years in Swedish basketball is extremely rare and I know that it meant a lot to both players, coaches and the leagues she played in (1st and 2nd division). It was also much appreciated that she started her coaching career in Sweden before she decided to move back home to continue coaching there.

“On a personal note, Janel and I used to jokingly say that we would finish our basketball careers together in Sweden, so for me to actually play my last game in Sweden in 2017, with Janel by my side, was a very nice way to end my career. Even more so since that win meant winning the Swedish second division and helping our team advance to the first division, very much thanks to Janel.”