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Hello, and welcome to the diary of the girls basketball coach. I am Tully Sullivan, better known in the basketball world as Coach Tully, also known as the original Black nerd. I am the founder of the Baltimore Lady Lions, one of, if not the longest-running girls-only basketball program in Maryland. Starting in 1997, we have produced eight high school thousand-point scorers, four professional international players, five D1 players, 20-plus D2, D3, and JUCO players. And we do it all without ever cutting a player. We leave no girl behind. We let—we uh—any girl that wants to play basketball, we figure out how to get them to be able to play that game that they want to play. We want to develop fans for life.
I've always coached multiple teams, in whatever I was balling with. You know, currently, I am in my world; I coach teams in K2, third grade, two fourth-grade teams, and a fifth-grade team. I'm in the gym every day and loving every minute. But this year, this year has been special for me. Number one, my youngest granddaughter plays on my second-grade team. Number two, my third-grade team—not only does my other granddaughter play on that team, I also am blessed to have three legacy players, meaning their mothers played for me when they started playing basketball. Number three, I have two fourth-grade teams, and on each one of the teams I have a legacy player: one, her mother played for me; and one, her father played for me for baseball for like eight years when he was a kid. My fifth-grade team went from getting blown out at the start of our Winning League to just losing in the championship game. Yeah, and uh, number five, uh, I just completed my 20th year coaching high school girls basketball in three different schools, with uh, my latest team, the Chester PE high school team, just winning the Maryland 2A Regional Championship. And we won against a team coached by my Lady Lion co-founder, Alexis Washington. My team—we had four Lady Lion players that I coached when they started playing basketball. Matter of fact, one of our thousand-point club members graduated from Chester Peak in 2019, and uh, hey, she is the highest-scoring basketball player in Chester Peak's history, boys or girls. Yeah, great, great year.
I've been involved in uh, youth activities for the past 35 years. In addition to the girls basketball, I spent like a decade teaching the martial arts under uh, great uh, Professor Willie Bam Johnson. Uh, I've coached various uh, recreational, travel, RBI teams in baseball, Gville baseball. Yeah, yay. Uh, I even dabbled coaching boys basketball, and when I was in high school, uh, I uh, not only coached girls basketball, I dabbled in coaching football and coaching softball. Yeah, uh, and and that case uh, when I was at the high school, I've just wrapped up my uh, most recent career, a 15-year journey in education. Yes, I've worn many different hats: a coach, an umpire, a referee, a teacher, and yes, a very, very enthusiastic parent. Uh, I plan on each week giving you a few of my insights on the world of female basketballs. I would draw—draw from my many experiences, you know, past and present, to provide the—insights on uh, the many aspects of the world of female basketball: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Let's get it together for me. 1, 2, 1, 2, me. What are we? [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Who