Westside seniors Tom Stegman and Christian Hagan have both helped lead a team to a championship game as players before, with the Westside varsity football team, among others. But over the past few months, the two have contributed in bringing a team to a championship in a different way: as coaches.

Sunday, March 2, the Mary Our Queen Middle School seventh grade boys basketball team competed in its league championship, with Stegman on the sideline calling plays (as Hagan was unable to make the game due to a schedule conflict). In the game, the team got down by 10 early, before battling back and cutting the lead to as little as three in the fourth quarter. The team went on to lose the game 51-46 to Christ the King Middle School.

During both the season and championship game, the team’s leading scorer was Stegman’s brother Joe.

“[My brother was] the best player, but I was probably hardest on him,” Stegman said. “[Harder] than I should have been. Christian Hagan actually did a good job, because my little brother gets rattled, and he scores like 30 a game, 20 a game, and he gets rattled if things aren’t going his way, and Christian did a good job of calming him down, because I just would yell at Joe and Christian would be the guy that calmed him down and got him back in his place.”

For Stegman, who invited Hagan to join him in coaching the team as Stegman had been a part of the team for three years, the season was about more than just winning, though, despite his competitive nature (which he said made figuring out equal playing time for his players one of the most difficult parts of the job).

“It was just cool to see the other side of — cause I’ve always played basketball and I’ve gotten coached — the coaching… drawing up those game winning plays…,” Stegman said.

In his time as a coach, Stegman realized the difficulties of coaching.

“I have a lot more respect for [my coaches] now,” Stegman said. “It’s really time consuming and it’s a lot of hard work — sending out emails, scheduling practices, scheduling games, going to tournaments. It was just a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. You have to keep control of your players and you want to be a good coach and win ball games.”

Stegman and Hagan will both have another chance at making it to a championship during the spring sports season. Stegman is a member of the Westside golf team while Hagan is a varsity baseball player.