Trevyn Gillen, Lucas Schneider and teaching what's unteachable

You'll struggle to find anyone who works harder on the basketball court than Trevyn Gillen and Lucas Schneider. Ever competitive and armed with an uncompromising desire to win, the two seniors constantly galvanize the Wrangell High School boys basketball team on both sides of the ball.

For their senior project, Gillen and Schneider imparted this same passion on the next generation of Wrangell's basketball players. The two served as assistant coaches for the middle school basketball team, an experience that not only gave the future varsity players invaluable experience but offered Schneider and Gillen an opportunity to reflect on their own basketball careers.

"I knew in middle school that this is what I wanted to do for my senior project," Gillen said.

The middle school team practiced under head coach Dustin Johnson five days a week in the fall. They also played a home and away series against Petersburg. Both boys said the experience was a rewarding one, adding that watching the kids improve throughout the season was especially fulfilling.

"You could just see it," Schneider said. "They stopped traveling. They started passing the ball and they started putting the ball in the hoop."

Gillen and Schneider cite the experience with tangibly altering their mindset heading into their senior year season under head coach Cody Angerman.

"In our games, it's really intense," Schneider said. "We're a fast-paced team and when we turn the ball over, there are emotions. I really tried to not talk with those emotions in (the middle school) practices."

For Gillen, the experience taught him the importance of playing with confidence.

"(The kids) were so confident when they didn't worry about anything else. They were so much better," he said. "That's what I realized going into this season. I didn't realize that before, but it took me to coach it to finally understand it."

One challenge, though, was coaching kids who lack the competitive fire that lights Scheider and Gillen.

"You cannot teach that," Schneider said. "You just can't. They have to want it."

Gillen added that encouraging the kids to dive on the floor for loose balls was nearly impossible if they weren't hypercompetitive, but for the players motivated by winning, it came rather easy.

After graduation, Gillen will attend Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. He wants to later transfer to Washington State University where he will pursue a degree in sports athletic training. Schneider is on a similar path. He too plans to attend Fort Lewis College, though he isn't certain about what will immediately follow.

"If I do get a job opportunity ... I'm going to take that first chance I get over finishing my degree," he said.

Both want to work in the athletic training and physical therapy industry, and both expressed a strong desire to work, especially with basketball players.

"I wish there was someone to train and help me throughout my high school career and when I was younger," Gillen said. "I've always been around basketball, and I want to continue to be around basketball. There's nothing else I see myself doing for a job."