ABOUT CHICAGO FORCE GIRLS BASKETBALL girls aau basketball

Coach Geary has 11 years of experience in girls youth basketball and has coached multiple players who are currently playing Division 1 basketball. As the program director for Midwest Elite Middle School Teams (2018-2020), he has won three State IL AAU titles, seven USJN championships, and a 7th place finish in AAU Division 1 Nationals.  His daughter, Alyssa Geary, is currently a starter on the Providence Women’s Basketball team in the Big-East Conference.

Coach Strtizel has amassed over 300 Varsity Girls wins with an 803.2 winning percentage. Since taking over at Nazareth Academy in 2017,  he has guided the Varsity Girls Basketball program to the IHSA state tournament in 2018 and 2019.  In the past three years, Nazareth Girls Basketball ranks near the top in the Chicago area with 84 total wins. Prior to Nazareth, Coach Stritzel was the head varsity coach at Trinity High School in River Forest, IL for nine years (2005-2014), which was consistently ranked in the top 10 in girls high school basketball. Coach Stritzel has coached multiple Division 1 players, including DePaul’s Megan Podkowa, DePaul’s Lauren Prochaska and his own daughter, Annie Stritzel, who is a member of the Harvard WBB team.

Coach Smith is a former women’s basketball Big Ten Player of the Year and Kodak All-American from the University of Minnesota.  In 1994, Coach Smith was presented with the Wade Trophy honoring the best player in women's college basketball. She went on to play professional basketball in Spain and Sweden, spent a season in the American Basketball League with the Columbus Quest, and played stints with the Cleveland Rockers and Minnesota Lynx of the Women’s NBA.