Lewiston Sun Journal, March, 22, 2001
Home Sweet Home
Lewiston's Lynn Girouard is perfectly happy plying her trade across the river at Central
Maine Technical College
By Peter Mullen
Auburn -- The setting easily could be very different. It could be at St. Joseph's College in Standish, or the University of Southern Maine in Gorham. Maybe even courtside at Alfond Arena in Orono. It could have been almost anywhere Lynn Girouard wanted it to be.
Instead, it is a classroom converted to a coaches' lounge in Kirk Hall on the campus of Central Maine Technical College.
When Girouard graduated from Lewiston High School in 1999, she had an impressive resume. The guard let a strong Blue Devils team to the Class A state finals and was a fixture in the Lewiston backcourt for four years. She scored 1,000 career points and was named Miss Basketball as Maine's outstanding senior female basketball player.
What's a hot prospect to do?
"USM was a big one that was recruiting me," said Girouard. "Quinnipiac in Connecticut was one. St. Michael's in Vermont. St. Joe's. There were a few. So I went to check them out, but everything was so overwhelming, so big. I just wasn't ready."
The 5-foot-6 guard looked much closer to home.
"So I came here to CMTC and checked it out," she said, "and basically
fell in love with it. It's like a family up here. Everybody gets along and everybody knows you. I
decided to put my education before basketball, and I was afraid I wouldn't have done well
education-wise at those bigger schools. I kind of keep to myself, (so I) didn't want a ratio like
one teacher to 200 students."
Girouard, who will graduate from CMTC this spring with a business degree, is glad she made
that choice two years ago.
"Those bigger programs are all about the basketball," she said. "I had played so much basketball (over the years) that I was ready to kind of get away from it. Not that I have gotten away from it here. I'm still playing and everything, but it's not my top priority. In junior high and high school it was my priority, but not now."
Girouard is one of several local players who will lead the top-seeded Mustangs into tonight's National Small College Athletic Association Division I semifinal game on their home court. Game time is 6 p.m.
CMTC women's basketball was in its infancy when Girouard first visited the campus on outer Turner Street.
"It was only their first year, and I came and watched them because I had a friend on the team (former Lewiston teammate Jamie Auger). I watched them a lot. I'd get joked around a lot by coach (Mike) Bridges and (men's coach Dave) Gonyea about where I was go ing to play," Girouard said. "Then it started getting more serious about where I was going to go. It was kind of a last minute decision."
No one was more surprised than Bridges.
``A lot of people might consider me a genius for getting a coup like Miss Maine basketball," Bridges said. "The fact was, I never thought that we would be able to recruit a person of her stature to a smaller school. And in talking to her I realized she had her head on straight. She wanted to go to college for all the right reasons. She didn't want to be that piece of meat at the larger universities. There is no doubt she has the ability to play up, but that is not what she wanted out of college."
Girouard chose her college for all the right reasons, but the CMTC program has benefited, as well.
The team has never lost a regular season game with Girouard in uniform, and its only loss came in the NSCAA Tournament in Salina, Kansas last winter CMTC was also the first women's team from New England ever to win a game in the nationals.
This week, CMTC hosts the tournament for the first time.
Role models usually have role models of their own, and when asked whom she looks up to, Girouard had a ready answer.
"My sister Michelle," she said. "She was the one that got me into basketball. I remember when she would play in junior high, I would be the only one on the court shooting around at halftime. I think I was five or six. That's when I started playing. I basically followed in their footsteps."
Bridges, in fact, recruited Michelle to play for him at Westbrook College, now the University of New England, shortly after he launched that program.
"In my 16 years of coaching basketball," said Bridges, "Lynn is absolutely one of the most positive, focused players that I've ever worked with. She's a lot like her sister. Michelle was one of the hardest workers that played there at Westbrook. I know Michelle admires (Lynn) as well."
Bridges believes that Girouard's presence has convinced other local athletes that it's "OK" to play at CMTC. Girouard's high school teammate from Lewiston, Lakeesha Holloman, joined the squad this year.
Even with Girouard graduating this May, Kirk hall has not see the last of her playmaking and scoring.
She is seriously looking at a program that will give her one more year at CMTC, then transferring to Lewiston-Auburn College to finish her Bachelor's degree. The plan would keep her home where she wants to be.
"I am a big family person," said Girouard. "We always get together on the weekends. If I was away right now playing somewhere else, I wouldn't be able to see my nieces and nephews. There are a few babies in the family, and I want to see them grow. So I like being home and being able to do that."
So it appears that local fans can enjoy one more year of the crafty guard dishing the ball out to her teammates for the Mustangs, a skill that has enabled Girouard to lead the NSCAA in assists the past two years. After that, you might catch her at a local business, or in a rec league somewhere, playing the game she loves, but doesn't want to be consumed by.
Better yet, Girouard may be roaming the sidelines as a coach.
"She is one of our most popular instructors during the summer basketball camps here," said Bridges. "I think she has the ability to definitely do some coaching and making an impact on other young players coming through."