What is the one criterion that must be met when I choose to write a story on someone or something in my last 24 years as a sportswriter doing 660 features for Rivals.com and SLAM Magazine?
You have to be really dope!
Ever since I wrote my landmark DeMar DeRozan and Brandon Jennings features back when they were in junior high, people have come to expect me to discover remarkable people to write about.
Like past Sydney Douglas and Kaleena Special K Smith stories of those transcendent players in girls basketball. They are rising to top rankings by all accounts.
I’m trying to deliver in this story about someone who you might want to track and know about, April McDivitt Schilling!
She’s the most fire coach/trainer/mentor/player of her age and is still on an upward trajectory to do fantastically amazing things at the early age of 40!
This epic unbelievably humble person has a resume stretching longer than Giannis Antetokounmpo’s arms. She actually defines herself as just a real one, a genuine person who always tries ultra hard to be there for people in her life. 100.
Get to know April really well over the years as I have and you’ll notice she’s easily adaptable and always switching lanes. She recently moved to Malibu from Phoenix after going back and forth for months between Dallas and Phoenix to be with loving husband Ed Schilling.
Ed just inked a 5 year deal to be the head coach for the Pepperdine mens basketball team. Both he and April eat up the game and share a deep passion both for the game and also for their adorable 3rd and 5th grade girls who likewise love the game of hoop as they love their parents.
Catch some family photos here on April's Instagram page
How’s April’s personality? She’s the opposite of me, she’s all focused like a surgeon’s laser. If you’ve read my writing enough, you know me, E-Woods, I come off as this chatterbox of crazy energy, ADHD with the music of my life turned all the way up on 10 like a Drake song.
But April is the most down to earth and accessible person you can ever meet. She’s like, “Let’s do this together people.” A no nonsense and not quite laid back approach that’s supremely effective. But she can meet anyone’s energy.
I feel blessed to know Klutch Sports Group trainers, Wasserman trainers, and other of the most elite trainers in the world whom I respect so much. April has so much in her bag like them.
It’s all about having this “We win mentality” and knowing how to bring out the best in a player, and in her case in the best players in the world.
April has so many accolades that I don’t even know where to start. She has been entered into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. I tell you no lies people, that usually takes other people their entire career to get into by the age 60 or older, but she did it by 40! Kudos!
April had a leading role as an all star guard for her Tennessee team in college. The team thrived off her energy. It was coached by the legendary Pat Summit, who so many consider to this day to be the best coach in women’s basketball history.
April transferred to play a bit for UC Santa Barbara, and before her career was over she led her teams to so many Final Four and Sweet Sixteen appearances it would make your head swirl. April played 3 years in the WNBA also.
She coached recently with the Dallas Wings besides coaching with the Indiana Fever and being its talent scout. April was an assistant coach for years for UC Santa Barbara. She was the head coach of the Nigerian National Team and helped recently train and run the Adidas All American Camp.
So many ultra elite entities have noticed her keen abilities and sought her out not only for her abilities, but for her personable way of communicating what she knows at the highest level.
She also owned and operated a training facility where dozens of hopeful WNBA prospects would come to her for refinement. She told me her common thread in all of this is always giving back to the game what was given to her.
Another thing to really know about April is that she connects to her spiritual self, is a Christian woman that believes in treating others right and being a part of a community of others that are moral. That’s so touching!
Right now I’m so impressed with seeing April work out of the esteemed Sports Academy and its basketball division doing 3 on 3 guided lessons for those who want to improve themselves.
She also offers 1 on 1 workouts for others as well, and the amazing part is how she keeps the pricing down. I think she wants to make it accessible for everyone she’s training at the academy.
I guess there isn’t anything April hasn’t done in basketball besides maybe playing or coaching in Ice Cube’s The Big 3. Lol.
April gets much respect from those in the W. Don’t take my word for it, feel these powerful and authentic words heard from the recent Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame ceremony.
Former San Antonio Spurs coach, and two-time Las Vegas Aces WNBA Champion team head coach Becky Hammon, “April has built up an elite body of work over the course of her basketball career, both as a player and coach. Her passion for young people and desire to teach the game is contagious!”
# wow, drop the mic time from one of very best in the biz!
April is so humble, can never seem to talk herself up, EVER! Let’s let her share her life philosophy, “I was raised on a farm by two great parents who loved me, and even though I didn’t come from much materially, I had so much in my childhood.
“My parents nurtured my goals. They helped me to believe in myself, because if I could DREAM IT, I COULD BE IT. That meant a lot to me. I remember making a poster at a young age that predicted I would be Ms Indiana Basketball in 1999. I was so proud to make that a reality.
“Others have put a lot into me so more and more over the last few years I want to work with younger youth to help them make their dreams come true. As I look back on my earlier years I remember life on a farm wasn’t so easy.
“So the choice between trying to have a pro career that could take me to different cities and all over the world is what I dreamed of and that vs. staying on the farm was a clear choice to me back then.
“I knew what I was striving for. There wasn’t even a WNBA going on when I was growing up. I’d just watch VHS tapes of Micheal Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson.
“Maybe that dates me, but look where the women’s game has come and advanced to since I was young. Look how much more the women’s game could grow even more if we all foster it and give it our all.
“At an early age I never took for granted the game would take me all over the world. But I’m so grateful it did, grateful for all those that put so much into me really. I’m trying to put right back into others what was given me.
“My husband Ed, the head men’s coach at Pepperdine, we have two daughters that love the game. We pour our heart into them like our parents loved us. That’s bigger than the game.
“Some years I stayed at home and helped the UCLA women while Ed had a coaching position. I do love just being with the girls. When I took the lead assistant coaching job with the Dallas Wings last year, it took juggling but pursuing such a great opportunity seemed right at the time.
“If you ask me to offer two words to describe basketball teams I coach I’ll say ‘Tough and Unselfish.’ I’ve stopped coaching at times to be there for our daughters, and have been a trainer of those aspiring to make the WNBA. But I always want to be close to the game at the highest level.
“I believe I have a God-given talent to help others but I do relish the time I enjoy with our two awesome girls. I put on my phone long ago that from the day a child is born they have 16,570 days till they get to be 18 years old and might leave you for college.
“I do want to achieve my career goals, to achieve them with my loving husband in a time and way for us to have the children to be taken care of as well. This has meant some start/stoppages along the way. I guess you could say we want it all.”
Now people are you all starting to all see how inspiring April is?
I believe she could open any door with the resume she has built. But you almost have to drag its contents out of her about all she’s done. You’d never know unless someone else told you. That’s the magic of what makes her so fantastically genuine.
April has graciously given her time to encourage so many to DREAM IT and BE IT. Like rising 9th grade phenom Zaire “Cherri” Baller who racked up 6 high major offers last week. April congratulated her, happy in the moment for Cherri as she is for so many others.
Look on April’s IG page and you’ll see how she conducts personality tests to help those at the Sports Academy get ahead in their lives.
That’s April, an Angel and a most eager down to earth person willing help any and all, not an elitist person who puts others in the rear view mirror.
April coached at a premier girls national prep school called Bella Vista Prep in Phoenix, think a power school on the order of an Etiwanda, Sierra Canyon, or Mater Dei girls teams which are usually the top ranked programs teams in the country.
There she coached a great women’s college basketball player, Jyah LoVett, and had kids from 8 different countries that would travel to play for her in Phoenix.
The very talented LoVett went on to be a Mountain West killer player last year and has now just transferred to Arizona State. Jyah speaks so highly of her former coach saying,”Coach April was pivotal for me in many ways and was the difference maker for me.”
I sense that April would be so well served as a D1 head coach to which she told me, “I definitely have the door open to that opportunity right now.”
Others say I have a gift to look in someone’s eye that I know well and predict their future to a point. An example is with one of college basketball’s all time best recruiters turned head coach that I’m very close to named Josh Pastner.
I met Josh in the early 2000’s when he was Lute Olson’s right hand man at Arizona. Josh told me he was cool on getting a head coaching job in 2005 but saw himself really going for it later on.
I told Josh, “Bro you’re going to get a great spot by the time you’re 32, it’s written in the stars J.” And as sure as the sun rises, Josh took over for John Calipari at Memphis, a very high profile hire indeed.
My point? The confidence I have in April is so eerily similar to what I had in Josh at the time. I feel in my bones that whatever she DREAMS, she will BE, including being a D1 head coach.
Given enough time, whatever she puts her mind to she will accomplish because of her unmatched work ethic, knowledge of the game, ability to work with others and so many factors I can’t list them all here people.
I’ve known 6,500 NBA, WNBA, college, prep, AAU coaches in the last 24 years, many of which I felt were pretty epic at times.
I feel lucky to know Kelly Graves of the University of Oregon who coached 6-4 Satou Sabally of the WNBA that absolutely killed it in college. If only you could hear the passion that Kelly spoke about the love he had of coaching and preparing Satou for the pros!
Satou was pure fire in college, a lotto pick indeed. Even Kobe sought her out at her locker room in her game at USC to sign her shoes personally. She had it like that E-Woods? Yup!
What am I getting to? Satou and April, they came together to work in unison to form their own signature on the league. Their union helped Satou be the most improved player in the WNBA in the year they worked together. Satou also got to be an All Star last year in 2023 for the Dallas Wings.
Hear Satou’s extremely glowing words on her former coach, “Coach April was able to remain calm and focused in intense game situations while providing excellent preparations and game adjustments. I have truly enjoyed her as a coach in the WNBA!”
Going into one reason why she took the offer for the Dallas Wings job, April told me, “That Dallas team was picked to finish 9th in the league. But I told myself, there’s no way Dallas is a 9th place team. There’s just so much talent there.
“If everyone bought in and played their part and came together, and if that team believed in each other with the pieces that were there, it had a chance to be special.
“And we were. We finished in the top 4 of the WNBA. It just took believing in ourselves, it’s always that way. Devising a plan, winning the room, creating positive energy, stepping forward. All can be done with proper planning.” April? Yes, she’s about vision. You have to love that about her. Truly.
Here’s another unbelievable quote heaped on April that comes from WNBA super star Arike Ogunbowale, 3-time All Star in the WNBA, “April is by far one of my favorite coaches in the league. She has an amazing IQ and knows how to relate well with players.
“She knows how to critique you and at the same time motivate you, which I found really helpful in the way she coached me and rest of my teammates.”
#how dope are those words?
There are few places on earth where basketball is loved and revered as much as where April grew up in Midwest Indiana. Basketball is the national sport there. April learned the game there, starting with a hoop mounted on the side of a barn door that got shot on til its iron went “bent assuredly.”
She might say “I didn’t come from from much but I had all needed.” It kind of makes you feel tingly, that sense of respect she has for the right values.
April feels passionate about her upbringing and had this to say this about Indiana hoops, “I didn’t realize it fully at the time but growing up in Indiana gave me such a great foundation.
“Playing in front of sold out crowds in the Spartan Bowl that seats 5,500 on Friday nights prepared me to play in front of sold out arenas like Thompson Boling at the University of Tennessee.”
April also has one of the brightest minds and is one of the best trainers I’ve ever encountered. I’ve floated the idea that she might hopefully want to train and be in the lab with the most transcendent young player I’ve ever come across in decades in the form of rising 9th grader Sydney Douglas of vaunted Etiwanda High.
https://www.instagram.com/sydney.bean13?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA
Then there’s rising 7th grader Rhyan Bell of Temecula:
https://www.instagram.com/rhyan.manaia.bell.allen?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA
I get energized off the charts trying to get a trainer like April to consider training Syd and Rhyan, and them vice versa to get in the lab with April! The best and brightest bubbling up together!
Special thanks go out to Asha Franklin for her podcast with April that helped me know even more - Where Your Feet Are on Apple iTunes
Yes, once upon a time in the 90s, April had a this DREAM to BE IT on her own terms, and she has started to make many of her of goals come true.
Look carefully and you’ll see that she’s a young energetic and fantastically talented HOF trainer/coach that has so much of her book yet to write in life and career that is already for the ages!
