Fresno Bee (California)
February 13, 2009 Friday
FINAL EDITION

Ex-Memorial star presses on the court

by Andy Boogaard

Since playing perhaps the best supporting role in the history of girls
high school basketball in the central San Joaquin Valley, Sue
Mahackian has never wandered far from the game she cherishes.

A former star point guard for Memorial’s nearly unbeatable teams of
the late ’70s, she continued to play some at Fresno State, though
limited because of knee injuries that would require six surgeries.

She was then a graduate assistant coach at Cal State-Fullerton, a head
coach at Riverdale and an assistant at Memorial.

And look at her now — back at the top of her game not only as a 22-2
first-year coach at Edison but also a budding official on the high
school and junior college levels.

"The future for her is unlimited," says Bob Kayajanian, basketball
supervisor for the San Joaquin Valley Officials Association. "She has
a good foundation, solid mechanics and understands the game."

As a coach, Mahackian, 47, is teaching what she calls "basketball
academics" — definition: court sense, discipline and fundamentals —
attributes she brought to Memorial as a player.

"My perspective of the game is I want to use it as a tool for life
because it gave me so much," she says. "I want to give back to
whomever I come in contact with."

Those contacts as a coach are satisfying.

The contacts with the court as an official are stimulating.

"When I got onto the floor as an official for the first time I was
45," she says. "I loved the feeling of the court underneath my feet, I
just loved running up and down, being sweaty, being on the floor once
again in my life. It gives me a high, the same high athletes get."

All that’s missing is the touch of leather, the ball, the one that she
once distributed so well.

"When I was younger, oh what a feeling to have the ball in my hands,"
she says. "But this is enough for me, without it. At this stage, I’ll
take it."

No surprise that she once again is mastering the game.

Consider what happened 30 years ago.

Memorial coach Mary Brown gave Mahackian the ball, the four-year point
guard in turn fed it to Jackie White, and the rest was four years of
unmatched glory for any high school team of any gender in any sport
between Fresno and Bakersfield. Ever.

Overall record: 100-7.

League record: 46-0.

Central Section titles: Four (when all schools played in one
division).

History has recorded Brown, the pioneer perfectionist, who embraced
the high school girls game in its infancy in the Valley, going 317-45
(section-record .876 winning percentage), with 16 league championships
and eight section titles in an 18-year career that closed in 1986.

It has recorded White, who scored a then section-record 2,375 points
in four years and would eventually become only the second female to
join the Harlem Globetrotters.

But it has kindly ignored Mahackian: "In the world of basketball, I
flew under the radar."

Off the screen, yes, but not off the chart, proven when Fresno Unified
School District athletic director Doug Semmen — seeking a girls
basketball coach at Edison — called a legend, Karen Wood.

The section’s winningest girls basketball coach (443 at Lemoore,
Caruthers and Memorial), and still staying involved as an assistant at
Buchanan, Wood didn’t hesitate: Sue Mahackian.

"Jackie White got all the publicity," Wood says, "but the glue to
those teams was Sue Mahackian. What a great floorleader and passer.

"When Doug called I thought Sue would be a perfect fit because she
knows the game, has a calm personality and all the makings to be
successful."

Says Semmen: "Sue’s a quality coach, a quality person and a quality
teacher. She exemplifies everything you want in a coach and teacher."

Mahackian’s priorities are balanced with harsh reminders: Her mother
and half-sister have had breast cancer surgery; a sister is in
advanced stages of it; and her father and a brother-in-law died of
cancer.

It was her father, Richard — the "traditional, full-blooded Armenian"
— who recognized her athletic ability as a child, supplied her with
the boys tennis shoes and shorts at a time female sports apparel was
nonexistent, and taught her one-on-one moves in the heat and chill of
the Valley.

And so it is today, before Mahackian takes the floor as a coach or
official that she raises her head, asks Dad for wisdom and says: "I
hope you’re with me."