Sondra Chadwick, a former standout high school and collegiate player with close ties to the Farmington basketball community, has been chosen as coach of the Tiger girls basketball team. She replaces Jason Berg who recently took an elementary principal position with the Owatonna Public Schools.
Chadwick is a human resources project manager for Accenture, a global consulting and outsourcing company located in Bloomington.
The new leader of the Tiger girls hoops program was a three-sport athlete at Wheaton High School in western Minnesota where she led her team to a runner-up finish in the 1987 Minnesota Class A state tournament. She also qualified for the state track meet three different times.
At the University of Minnesota-Morris, Chadwick continued her basketball career, earning all-Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) honors. After her senior season, she was was named the NSIC Female Athlete of the Year.
Chadwick later served as a student assistant coach at Minnesota-Morris. In Farmington she has coached numerous teams in the girls travel program as well as several area AAU teams. She has also served the Farmington girls travel program in the capacity of president and director of skills development.
Chadwick said that one of the areas she will stress in the Farmington program in strong defensive play.
"My philosophy is that in order to be competitive, a team needs to be able to play defense effectively," she said. "That will require players to be well-conditioned and understand the game."
In recent years, the Farmington program has been very successful with two appearances in the section championship game in the past three years. Chadwick hopes to continue that success in her first year on the job.
"We are fortunate to be returning a number of experienced and talented players," she said. "I am looking forward to working with the girls, evaluating where our strengths are when the season starts and setting our goals from there."
Chadwick, who lives in Farmington with husband Joel and teenage children Alex and Sofia, has been a Farmington sports fans for years and is very much looking forward to becoming an integral part of the Tigers athletic program.
"I am very excited to now be a part of the girls high school program," she said. "I want to continue to build upon a great tradition of success and create some new traditions and memories with the girls."
