New Lafayette Jeff basketball coach Jenna Sullivan brings winning pedigree

LAFAYETTE — Jenna Sullivan is a winner.

She won in high school, both as a star volleyball and basketball player at Frontier. She won in college as a two-time national champion for Marian University's basketball program.

But before she won, Sullivan had to lose.

Lafayette Jeff's new varsity girls basketball coach knows success in her new role might not be instant, but she's been a part of turnarounds before.

"My freshman year of high school, we were (2-18) and my freshman year of college we were 16-16," Sullivan said. "We weren't instantly good. I was never on a team that was instantly good. I was on teams that had to work hard and grind and get through it and battle to be eventually, in high school, we had an undefeated season. In college, we had a couple national championships, but we had to lose and lose bad a few times to get where we were by the time I was ready to graduate."

Lafayette Jeff is coming off consecutive four-win seasons and is 13-54 since its last winning season in 2018-19.

Sullivan helped Frontier's volleyball teams advance to consecutive semistates in her final two seasons and as a senior was Journal & Courier Small School Player of the Year after Frontier went 21-0 before losing in the postseason to Central Catholic.

She left Marian as the program's career leader in rebounds and blocks.

Since, she's embarked on a coaching career she knew was likely her path even dating back to her days as a high school student.

"Even as a high school kid, if you would've asked me, I think I would've said I don't think there's a whole lot more in this world I like than basketball," Sullivan said. "I like playing it. I like coaching it and I like learning it mostly. I kind of always knew I wanted to be involved some way, somehow. If I wasn't playing and it turns out coaching was the next best thing."

After graduating from Marian, Sullivan moved to Tennessee and began that second phase of her basketball career on the staff at Martin Methodist College. After one season, she returned to her alma mater and coached under Katie Gearlds — now Purdue's women's basketball coach — at Marian.

Connections in Indianapolis led to Eric Schellhammer getting Sullivan on board coaching youth basketball in a program then called Showtime that plays out of the Finch Creek Fieldhouse in Noblesville. That led to Sullivan's involvement coaching Indiana Elite AAU basketball and those programs were pivotal in Sullivan finding her passion coaching younger talent versus collegiate coaching.

She began applying for open high school positions and last week, Lafayette Jeff gave Sullivan her first opportunity to run her own high school program.

"We are excited for Jenna to take charge of our program," Lafayette Jeff athletic director Justin Gardiner said in a press release. "She brings a championship pedigree, extensive basketball knowledge and experience with player development that will take our program to the next level."

Sullivan is aware of Lafayette Jeff's recent struggles.

But she can look at what she has to work with and know there's potential with a commitment to pressing and man-to-man defense. In addition, coaching at a school with more than 2,000 students, Sullivan believes there's talented athletes walking the hallways that no one has heard about yet.

"There is no way I don't have something available," Sullivan said. "A kid that wants to play. A kid that wants to win. A kid that wants to get in the gym and work."

Which brings us back to learning how to win.

It might not be a quick turnaround, but Sullivan isn't going in with a losing mindset.

"The youth program that they have started it impressive to me. The first thing I want to do is keep our kids together and playing," Sullivan said. "A lot of times, the younger kids don't get an opportunity to play with the ones in their grade level because they are out playing AAU. And AAU is great, but especially at a young age, it is important for these kids to grow up and play together. A lot of times, those state championship teams you see have been together for a long time playing in the program.

"You start from the youth program up and build on what they already started, it will give us an opportunity to win in the future. That is not to say that I am not interested in winning games this year though. I think we have a good opportunity to get better. I have a lot of kids who seem like they want to get in the gym and get better."

Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @samueltking.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette Jeff basketball coach Jenna Sullivan brings winning pedigree