There’s a laidback game of one-on-one taking place in the Keystone gym. The big guy is on defense. He moves in from behind his driving opponent, stuffs an attempted layup and the ball goes out of bounds.
He and the offensive player laugh about it, because the big guy has a slight advantage.
He’s Colin Irish, a 6-foot-6 former All-Ohio player at Cleveland’s old Cathedral Latin School and a four-year star at Bowling Green. Irish went on to play 14 years of professional basketball in England and France, and was briefly a player-coach.
The player whose shot he had just blocked is his daughter, Chloe, a 5-9 Keystone post. She is one of three Wildcats seniors who’ve been starters since they were freshmen and whose 9.9 points per game led the team in scoring last season.
The other seniors are 6-2 post Erin Gallagher, who led the Wildcats in rebounding (7.8 per game) and averaged 9.2 points, and 5-7 guard Taylor Bell, who averaged eight points. The trio led Keystone to a 16-6 record last season and the Patriot Athletic Conference championship.
“I want to have a good season, I want to have fun this year,” Chloe said. “We have the same group of girls coming back and we have so much fun together. We’re more than a team. We’re all really good friends and we spend time together outside of basketball.
“It hit me that it’s our last year and that we’re not going to get to come back and experience this again. It’s really hard. But also it’s not just the end of something, it’s the beginning of something new. It’s one step toward the future.”
She has had an advantage of her own, growing up with and learning from a dad who has excelled at every level of the game.
“It’s a lot of fun growing up in that atmosphere,” Chloe said. “I’ve had the benefit of having him teach me everything he knows. He keeps my head up. He knows how to be positive with me and teach me. There are times when I just want to quit, but he makes me laugh and we move on.”
Colin’s wife, Paula, is English. Chloe and her sister Darcy, 12, were born in England and have dual citizenship. Chloe spent two summer months playing for England’s under-18 women’s team.
“I went over there in June,” Chloe said. “They had a tryout and they picked the top 15 girls to go to camp. I got to travel to Estonia and Luxembourg and I got to play in the European championships. It was a lot of fun.”
She is also a top student with a 3.8 grade-point average and a three-sport star (basketball, volleyball and track). Several schools have been in touch with her about all three, plus her academic record. She hopes for a career in early childhood education and coaching.
“I’d love to coach,” she said. “I don’t think I couldn’t coach. I love going to (Colin’s) camps and helping out, especially with the younger kids. I love the atmosphere and I’m definitely going to coach. Hopefully, I can be half as good as this guy (motioning to her dad).”
“I’m so proud of her as an athlete, but I’m even more proud of her as a student,” Colin Irish said. “She’s a very intelligent girl who obviously takes after her mother. The world is her oyster right now. She has a lot of options. The sky’s the limit for her.”
Colin’s basketball career continues as boys junior varsity coach at Admiral King. He also works with students at Southview and Admiral King in the Lorain schools’ GEARUP program — Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. This is a federally funded program that encourages young people to go to college.
He said the family decided to move to LaGrange six years ago, because he had friends from the area when he was at Bowling Green.
Contact Bob Daniels at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. 

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