Position: guard

Number 3 for the Sacramento Monarchs
Graphics used by permission of the WNBA

What She Does

Chantel Tremitiere is the point guard for the Sacramento Monarchs. She ensures her teammates all get to "touch" the ball. Her role is to bring the ball down court, call a play with a hand signal and pass the ball to the team shooters. Tremitiere can control the pace of the game. She'll slow it down when it gets to frenzy pace or speed it up with fast breaks.

Tremitiere brings the ball down the court, pauses around mid court, pats her head with her hand or makes a fist with her hand, dribbles around a bit more and passes the ball off to the likes of Ruthie Bolton-Holifield, Pam McGee or Bridgette Gordon for them to shoot. These veteran teammates have strong personalities and each want the ball to shoot. Tremitiere handles the push and pull with finesse and strength. Her mental strength focuses the team on the play and she starts the play execution with a pass. Most of the time a score is the result. She's like a quarterback, yelling signals at the line and then saying "hike" as she passes the ball. Not only does she pay attention to her teammates on the court, but also has to get signals from the coaches on the sideline. In the fast paced games, she's the great communicator. Tremitiere is quick and agile both mentally and physically.

Sacramento Monarchs' coaches, Mary Murphy and Heidi VanDerveer were both point guards. Tremitiere says this first hand knowledge of the coaches makes her role for the Monarchs like heaven. They coaches know exactly what she's doing and can improve her game.

Reflections on the July 2 game against Utah Starzz

The Starzz beat Sacramento in OT 73 to 68. "Utah did a great job of rebounding...We thought we had them on the ropes....I wish my free throw would have gone down...but it didn't, 5 more minutes left. They out rebounded us again. Utah is a great rebounding team."

"They were playing a zone and really spreading it out. (Sacramento had to take more outside shots than normal.) We were just missing--that happens. We're playing Utah in 6 days and we're going to go up there and try to win one from them."

"We have a short season We're only going to get better every day."

"You always want to blame the refs but you can't. They refed a good game. We didn't lose because of the refs. It's pro ball--It's gonna be physical. It's all about getting in there and gritting your teeth and playing hard. Calls are made and not made-you just got to keep playing through it."

I asked Tremitiere if the coaches sometimes made bad calls in practice just to get you used to a bad call. Tremitiere replied, "Sometimes the coaches aren't practiced refs and we think they make bad calls."

On one play, Tremitiere was patting her head to call the play. The Starzz guard, Tammi Reiss, seemed to mock Tremitiere by also patting her own head. It turns out that Reiss was scouting the play. "I was trying to change the play--My teammates knew what I was saying." says Tremitiere.

She continues, "Utah's seen us 4 times. We're not going to surprise them with anything. The times we executed we were successful. Record doesn't matter. Utah came in here 1-3. You just got to play tough every night. Win the games other people don't think we're going to win. They killed us on the boards. We didn't rebound."

Collegiate Background

Tremitiere started every game for the Auburn Tigers in 1991. She averaged 4.1 points and 4.0 assists. After scoring 17 points against Stanford in the Championship game she was selected to the 1990 NCAA All-Tournament team. She earned a B.A. in Public Relations.

Professional Experience

Tremitiere coached at Auburn (91-92), Texas (92-93) and Umass(93-96). The coaching experience has strengthen her game. As the old saying goes, If you really want to learn something, try teaching it.

Personal Insights

Tremitiere never listen to all of "those" people who told her she was too small to play basketball. Those nay-sayers provided much motivation for her.

Tremitiere comes from a family with 15 kids, 12 adopted. This diverse background in family helped her develop a very out going and friendly personality.

"The only thing we're guaranteed of in life is a chance. And we become the person we are by what we do with that chance."

WNBA Biography on Chantel Tremitiere