Sidelines: Fouty leaving her mark at Northview

Northview's Olivia Fouty goes against St. Ursula's Cassie Jones. Fouty has signed to play at Eastern Michigan.

The Blade/Jeremy Wadsworth
Buy This Image

Northview senior Olivia Fouty drives against St. Ursula's Isabelle Lishewski. Fouty averages 17.8 points per game and has surpassed 1,000 points for her career.

Northview coach Jerry Sigler remembers the first time he saw Olivia Fouty play basketball.

“I watched her in eighth grade when she played at Christ the King,” Sigler said. “When I saw her play, I knew right away she could come in and play on the varsity.

“I'm sure she didn't think that, and probably no one else thought that. Call it coach's intuition.”

Sigler's intuition was on the money.

Fouty, a senior, has made an impact on the program since her arrival. She played as a freshman — and scored 208 points — and has been a key component ever since.

She was the team's most valuable player as a sophomore and junior, earning All-Ohio honorable mention and all-district honors both seasons. This year she has averaged 17.8 points and 7.8 rebounds to lead the Wildcats to an 8-1 start.

“She just plays hard, and to get kids to play hard is pretty tough,” Sigler said. “She doesn't take plays off. She hustles up and down the floor.

“Yes, she did make freshman mistakes, but she contributed much more to the program. And the other thing she always has done is made steady improvement.”

Fouty knows she is a different player than she was as a freshman.

“I've come a long way since my freshman year,” she said. “I mainly played in the post then — I would never have thought about bringing the ball up the floor, or even shooting an outside shot.

“This year I help bring the ball up court, and anything the team needs, I'm there to do it.”

Northview's Olivia Fouty goes against St. Ursula's Cassie Jones. Fouty has signed to play at Eastern Michigan.

Fouty isn't afraid of hard work, especially in the off-season. She routinely has made a two-hour trek to Cleveland to play for a top-flight AAU team, and also worked with a trainer to help her get faster and stronger.

Last July she was home just five days all month, making trips to Florida and Louisville, among other stops, to hone her game.

“One summer coach Sigler proposed that I make 10,000 shots,” Fouty said. “I don't think I made 10,000 shots, but I tried. And remember, it's not ‘take' shots, it's ‘make' shots.

“I tried to do whatever I could to get better. I didn't try to make just one thing better; I tried to get better in everything.”

In November Fouty signed a national letter of intent to play at Eastern Michigan, and Sigler said that scholarship was the result of Fouty's hard work.

“With Olivia's height, she's probably not going to just play inside,” Sigler said. “She probably will play the 3 [position]. We know she can post-up, so this whole summer it was about learning how to play on theperimeter.

“We asked her to learn how to handle the ball better, to shoot better. And she did the work to give her a chance to be as successful as she can be.

“You can tell her things to do, and she'll do them. She always bought into the idea that whatever I or any other coach says, she'll do it to try and get better.”

Fouty said there still is one part of her game she would like to improve.

“I could do a better job of being a leader,” she said. “On the court I try to talk more, but as far as getting in people's face I could do that more.”

Sigler said she already is starting to develop that part of her game too.

“I know her teammates are going to respond to her because of her work habits,” Sigler said. “WhenOlivia isn't happy, it ain't pretty around here. I'll tell you that right now.

“By the time she's a junior at Eastern, I think the coaches there will be pleasantly surprised by her leadership capabilities.”

On Dec. 30 Fouty became just the eighth girls basketball player in Northview history to surpass 1,000 career points when she scored 25 against St. Ursula.

“My dad told me that when he scored his 1,000th point he was so nervous he had trouble playing,” Fouty said of her father Carey, who played at Cardinal Stritch. “So I told myself that I wasn't going to be nervous. I just tried to play the game and get the win.

“If I got the points it would be nice, but if I reached that without us winning it wouldn't have meant as much.”

While Fouty still has points to score, rebounds to grab and games to win at Northview, she already has started to think about what lies beyond her senior season.

“It's going to be weird [to leave], because for the last four years all I've known is Northview basketball,” Fouty said. “I know it's going to be a big transition. I'm excited, and I'm ready to move on. But I'm going to miss coach Sigler and the rest of the coaches.”

Sigler and the Northview program are going to miss that player he first scouted as an eighth grader.

“There just aren't words to describe what Olivia means to this program,” he said. “Everybody in this program respects her. Everybody she plays against respects her. She's a very good basketball player, but she's a good individual also.

“She has meant the world to this program — she's going to be hard to replace. We're going to miss her a lot.”

Contact John Wagner at:jwagner@theblade.comor 419-724-6481.