Driving Miss Maggie

Marina’s Pete Bonny says he would pay money to watch her play. Troy’s Kevin Kiernan says she kills his team every time they face off.

In coaching circles, Maggie Barnett has some not-so-secret admirers.

And one of those admirers lives in the Barnett household.

Rich Schaaf, Santa Margarita’s girls’ basketball coach, is Barnett’s uncle and has been living off and on with his sister Patty’s family in their 6,000-square foot ranch house the last 23 years.

“I have five brothers and a sister and all of them have lived with us at some point,” said Patty Barnett, laughing.

Schaaf has been instrumental in turning Maggie Barnett into one of the county’s best, and most exciting, players.

A 5-foot-6 junior guard at Rosary, Barnett is averaging 19.1 points, 4.4 assists and several floor burns per game.

Barnett considers herself fortunate to have her uncle upstairs. More important than introducing her to lifting weights, running every day and working on fundamentals, Schaaf provided her a bit of life-altering advice.

During her freshman year, Barnett was assigned to bring an inspirational quote to practice. Schaaf gave her one he had heard: If what you did yesterday still looks good today, you haven’t done much today.

“That is soooo true,” she said. “If I’m going to do something, I should do it to my full potential, continue to prove myself and not live in the past.”

That credo has helped her not only become a more well-rounded player, but also a more well-rounded person.

“I’ve applied it to many things, especially school,” Barnett said. “I keep on task with my homework, try to get the best grades I can, follow through and reach my full potential in every aspect.”

Barnett didn’t need much prodding to make a practical application because “she’s driven like her mother and father,” Schaaf said.

Her father is a notable criminal defense attorney, John D. Barnett. Her mother is completing her third college degree, in literature, after degrees in art and psychology and has started pursuing her fourth, in creative writing, at Chapman.

“They are extremely driven,” Maggie Barnett said, “and they’re workaholics.”

Barnett is just as hard-working on the basketball court. She doesn’t take it easy, she simply runs out of gas.

“She leaves it all on the floor,” said her Rosary coach, Rich Yoon. “Maybe she should pace herself. But she’s such a competitor, she plays hard all the time.”

Maggie and her uncle often spend dinner watching basketball on television, as well as weekends and in their free time, dissecting teams, studying movement away from the ball, talking strategy and reading defenses.

“We watch as much college basketball as there is,” Barnett said. “It doesn’t matter what teams. Whatever’s on is usually good.”

The backyard tennis court has baskets on each end, and Saturday afternoon one-on-one or two-on-two games are not uncommon. Neither are 11 p.m. shoot-arounds, holiday games of H-O-R-S-E, or Rosary team gatherings that turn into full-court games.

When Schaaf walks in the door at 11 p.m. after a Santa Margarita game, Maggie might be watching SportsCenter and doing push-ups or stomach work.

“I lived with Marv Marinovich when Todd [the Southern Section’s all-time passing leader at quarterback from 1984-87] was going to Mater Dei,” Schaaf said. “I’ve been around driven people before. Maggie is well-balanced.”

Schaaf learned some weight-training techniques from Marinovich, who raised his son to be a quarterback. (Todd played at USC and was a first-round draft pick by the Raiders.)

“I kind of did the same stuff with Maggie when she got interested in basketball [in the seventh grade],” Schaaf said. “I showed her stuff to do with the weights that Marv had shown me in terms of how to get stronger and quicker; we’d go to the tennis court and teach her how to run properly.”

Schaaf also did something else. “It’s kind of a chauvinistic remark, but we would play ‘man-ball’ with her,” he said. “You can foul, hack, whatever. We did that to make Todd stronger, and I did that with Maggie to make her tougher because the game’s so physical now.”

One of Barnett’s strengths is driving to the basket. Man-ball seemed to work.

“I don’t want to paint a picture of this girl who only lives and breathes basketball,” Schaaf said. “She handles it like her mom and dad handle what they’re involved with. She takes it seriously. Anything she does, she takes pride in doing it well.”

Schaaf, who works with Barnett only on fundamentals, avoids critiquing Rosary. Yoon, the Royals’ coach, doesn’t feel the least bit threatened.

“I know he’s only trying to help her become a great player,” Yoon said. “He’s not saying anything about the team or team philosophy. I don’t think he’s saying anything about concepts. She takes everything from all her coaches and applies them to who she is and how she can help the team.”

Schaaf said his job as mentor was easy.

“She was an outstanding soccer player and golfer in seventh grade, and she was looking for something else to do,” he said. “She would come out to the backyard and watch us play basketball.”

Pretty soon, she was shooting on her own at the other end, a rapt pupil and willing opponent for her older brother, Case.

“That helped a lot, her having to play against [6-foot-4] Case,” Schaaf said. “He’s your typical brother--unmerciful. He’ll block her shot, knock her down. I’m a little kinder, of course--I don’t want to get thrown out of the house.

“But Case [who is 19] works her over pretty good.”

Interestingly, Maggie, 16, seldom plays in front of her mother, Patty, who gets too excited.

“When Santa Margarita played Rosary, she wouldn’t even talk to me,” Schaaf said of his sister. “In fact, that morning she snapped at me. Maggie looked at me like, ‘Holy smokes.’ ”

Rosary defeated Santa Margarita, 41-37, for the first time in four meetings (including a summer game) at the Marina tournament in December. Schaaf told his team exactly what Barnett likes to do with the ball, and packed the defense into a tight 2-3 zone because the Eagles weren’t quick enough to defend Barnett one-on-one to the basket. It wasn’t enough. Barnett scored 14 points with eight rebounds and six assists. Afterward, Schaaf didn’t go home right away. Instead, he killed time playing video games at a restaurant.

“It was hard to come home--we’re all so competitive,” said Schaaf, 44. “I thought maybe because they beat us [that] maybe Maggie would lose a little respect for me as a coach. Up until that point, they had never beaten us, and I think she thought I knew what I was doing, and not winning may have tarnished that a bit.”

It was the furthest thing from the truth.

“I still give him my utmost respect as a coach,” Barnett said. “I sometimes feel I have something to prove to him. But he knows I try hard and play hard, and I think that’s enough for him.”