Ginny Doyle Tribute 13: Yet Another Aspect From the Recruiting Trail

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA -- A day after the official 48-hour local memorials for Richmond associate head women's basketball coach Ginny Doyle, the former Arcbishop Ryan star, concluded, an email arrived Thursday bringing yet a new aspect of a working relationship with the popular coach who was one of the three victims in the horrific balloon accident in Virginia on May 9 when it came in contact with power lines while approaching a designated landing area.

Rose Katz is head coach of Division III Arcadia in suburban Philadelphia but in a previous stint in the nationally prominent Philadelphia Belles AAU organization, one of Katz's players, Genevieve Okoro, a native of nearby Gibbsboro, N.J., who also starred at Eastern Regional High, was successfully recruited by Doyle.

Okoro will be a redshirt senior 6-0 forward in the fall having missed a season because of an injury.

Here is the full copy of Rose's memory:

Hi Mel.

My name is Rose Katz and I am the head women's basketball coach at Arcadia University.

I first came in touch with Ginny Doyle when I was coaching for the Philadelphia Belles AAU organization and she was recruiting one of my players for Richmond. Ginny was so passionate, respectful, engaging, enthusiastic, patient, and couldn't provide more care during Genevieve's recruiting process. One time, Richmond was playing at Drexel. Coach Doyle rode back to Richmond after the game with the team, and then drove all the way back up to South Jersey the very next day to watch Gen play a high school game when Eastern played against Cherry Hill West. I have saved countless e-mails from Ginny to Genevieve over the time she was recruiting her.

The summer prior to Gen's senior year we took an unofficial visit to Richmond. When we pulled up to the Robins Center, Coach Doyle was waiting for us to arrive outside. Gen was so excited to be on campus and meet Coach Doyle that she literally tripped and fell getting out of the car. It was in that moment I knew that Gen was going to be a Spider.

Gen committed to Richmond a few weeks after that. It was by far the best decision she could have made and I would say more than 90% of that was due to Coach Doyle and the love and care she showed for Gen and continued to throughout her first 4 years at Richmond. Gen is a 5th year senior due to an ACL injury her sophomore year.

This season Richmond played at Virginia Tech and I traveled to the game with some friends. Gen came up to see me after their win and Coach Doyle followed behind. Coach Doyle wanted to hear all about my coaching career (even being a little D3 coach) and how everything was going. But that's just the kind of person she was. Always wanting to know about other people's experiences and seeing if she could lend a hand in anyway.

I know Genevieve misses Coach Doyle greatly. But I know Gen is ready to lead Richmond in Coach Doyle's memory to an awesome season this year.

Thank you for keeping the blog up to date and full of wonderful memories of Coach Doyle. It really does mean a lot to everyone she has touched, including myself.

- Rose Katz

Rose M. Katz
Head Women's Basketball Coach
Arcadia University

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