Lady Griz Orientation :: Macy Donarski

This is the Wisconsin I grew up in. This is the Wisconsin I remember.

Winters with snowfalls that measured in the feet, temperatures that were more often below zero than above. Summers? Well, that just meant the arrival of mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds. It all messed with a kid's need to hoop.

Every so often, our dad would get the key to the gym at our hometown's elementary school. It's all we would talk about for days beforehand, his boys and the boys in the neighborhood. We all went. It was a revered pilgrimage.

We'd arrive on the big day, the lights would be turned on and it was the greatest thing a basketball-loving kid could ask for, a gym we all knew well from school but this time it was ours, all ours. A ball, a hoop, an imagination. Nothing else was required.

Then it would be time to go home and time to figure out how to make it work at the big parking lot down the street, the one with the lone pole and hoop in one corner. No court markings, just cracks in the pavement. We made it work because it's all we had. I've loved gyms ever since.

This is the Wisconsin I grew up in, the Wisconsin I remember. Turns out I was in the wrong era and the wrong location. I needed to live near Dave and Pam Donarski.

I didn't but all these Lady Griz Orientation stories are nothing but twists of fate, right? And that's life, just butterfly effect after butterfly effect and one day a guy's playing pickup basketball at Cardinal Stritch in Milwaukee, a girl steps in to take a charge, there are words exchanged and here we are.

They've been together ever since, Dave and Pam have. He tried a behind-the-back dribble, she beat him to the spot, called him on it. He told her how ridiculous it was to make that sort of call in a pick-up game. "That's when the love started, right there," he said.

They have two girls with a last name well known around the world of women's college basketball. Lexi scored 1,251 points in just three seasons at Iowa State. She was the Big 12 Freshman of the Year in 2020-21, first-team All-Big 12 and the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year in 2021-22.

She's now in her first year at North Carolina with two seasons to play as a Tar Heel. Macy is in her first year at Montana.

Dave coached them both at Aquinas High School in La Crosse for seven years, three with just Lexi, one when they were both on the team as senior and freshman, three with just Macy.

Over those seven seasons, with a Donarski at point guard, the Blugolds went 178-11, won two state titles, missed the chance at another because of COVID, and three times finished runner-up.

You might think Dave called it good after Aquinas lost 64-51 to Laconia in the Wisconsin Division 4 state championship game in March, his final game coaching one of his daughters. Nope.

He was an assistant coach for the boys' team at Aquinas for years before ever getting the girls' job. He'd show up to practice, his girls in tow. "The girls would come and do little workouts as young, young girls with our guys. They became like big brothers to both of them," Dave says.

"That's become a really big family. That's the reason I want to keep coaching. I just feel like I can make a positive impact. A lot of parts of your life, you're not able to do that. This is one that's kind of in my wheelhouse. I love hoops and I'm super competitive. It makes it a heck of a lot of fun."

It's time to get some things squared away. The family home isn't in La Crosse. It's in nearby Onalaska, a few miles up the Mississippi River. And that's the last time we'll mention the O-word.

Visit Iowa State's athletics website, North Carolina's, Montana's. The hometown is always listed as La Crosse for the Donarskis. You ask Macy if she wants it to read that other word and you get the same look you would if you had asked her to denounce her Catholicism. "That's my girl," says Dave.

It was a while back, early middle school, when Lexi was playing basketball in the other city, that she revealed to someone that she would be going to Aquinas for high school. It didn't go over well. Yada, yada, yada: "We've won 16 straight against them, so it's gone well," Dave says.

And to think, he's not the fiery one in the marriage. That's Pam, the one who did the dirty work while he coached. "I liked it because she'd say things during games that I was thinking but I'd lay off the refs as best I could," he says.

She took 11 years off from the working world after the girls were born, then returned to teaching mathematics at Aquinas. Now she's the school's athletic director, the person the girls' basketball coach reports to. The boss. "That's how it always is. Now there is a title on it," says Macy.

"If I don't win a state championship this year, I might get fired. I need to find a way," Dave adds.

He never dreamed he'd have a basketball court in his home, half court, maple floor. A friend had one, a place he used to go to get his hoops fix. One day he brought Pam. Game over. She told him, let's sell the house and build something with the same thing.

So, they did, driving out to Wisconsin Amish country to get the wood for the basketball court, only to find out a barn-build was in progress. Come back another time. They did, with truck and trailer, only to be told, not done yet. Finally, all the wood was cut, 1,500 square feet.

Kids have been making their way to the Donarski home ever since. And I'm jealous. Kickball, volleyball, softball and, of course, basketball. Not to mention the pool in the backyard. "Little bit of a carnival," says Dave.

"Pam is smart. We would call in brainwashing. The kids would come over and do 45 minutes of volleyball, 45 minutes of basketball, skill-related stuff, then they'd get their ice cream, then they'd go swim for two hours. It was all part of the process."

Time passed. The skills part picked up. Make 5,000 shots in a summer, then 10,000, then 15,000, Pam charting it all, with built-in rewards. One thousand makes? Nice! Let's go race go-karts!

"Before you know it, there are 75 kids in the area doing the same thing, guys and girls," says Dave. "At our place, in their backyard, at different gyms."

The family would go for evening walks, the girls dribbling their basketballs. Kids would see them coming, look for them at the usual time, grab their own basketballs and join, Dave calling out different dribbling drills, the group sounding like an approaching herd of buffalo with their bouncing balls.

This is no Todd Marinovich story, no cautionary tale, of the Donarski girls ever being pushed or forced to do anything. They got their shot at the piano, at the violin, at every sport that was available. If they liked something, they were encouraged to pursue it.

It always came back to basketball. It was in their blood. "They would want to stay up later than they should because they wanted to shoot their free throws or work on their ball-handling," says Dave. "It sounds insane but all they wanted to do was get better."

Really. "Before school, at like 6:30 a.m., my sister and I would get up and do 10 minutes of ball-handling before we got ready for the day," Macy says. "A constant thing we looked forward to was going into the gym and getting some ball-handling in. That's all I knew."

Macy was playing in second or third grade. She hit a bank shot to win a game. The way she reacted told her dad all he needed to know. This sport was her thing. "That was pretty special. Her wanting to work on stuff just ramped up another level. What also helped was to have a successful older sister," he says.

Ah, yes, Lexi, who was doing her own thing, first in line, committing to Iowa State after her eighth-grade year, earning all-state honors in volleyball, winning state championships in basketball, becoming a state champion on the track.

Does a younger sister follow that path or go her own way, maybe take up the clarinet?

Answer: After Lexi was at Iowa State and it was only Macy at Aquinas, the chants would start when the Blugolds went on the road. You're not Lexi, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap. You're not Lexi, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.

"It never bothered her. She found it funny. Then she'd go out and make a play. It fueled her fire," her dad says.

"It motivated me more than put pressure on me," she says. "Lexi is a great example of putting in hard work and it paying off. As a younger sister, I was able to see that firsthand. It really motivated me to stay in the gym and keep getting better."

From Pam came Lexi. "Very intense. Things are black and white," says Dave, whose youngest is more like him. "Macy is more of a goof with a sense of humor, but off-the-charts competitive.

"Played through a broken nose, played through dislocated fingers, concussions, broken collarbones. Both kids are crazy like that, faith-filled, good kids who have their priorities in order, better than mom and dad at times."

Lexi is the volleyball career leader at Aquinas in kills, Macy in assists. Lexi is the basketball career leader at the school in scoring, Macy in assists and steals, second in scoring. Both competed at the state track and field meet.

All part of a girl's education, to compete in multiple sports, for love of competition, for love of school. "I liked it because you're not always the captain, the leader. You have to take on different roles through that. That's life, right? You have to be able to handle all of it," says Dave.

The lessons from Pam were always there: You're always going to give it everything you have. Anything less than that is not good enough. And you're going to be a good teammate.

"They would give it all they had, then come home and get a couple shots up so they stayed in the groove," says Dave.

"Both are incredibly competitive in anything we're doing. Pool, shuffleboard. It's funny and it's sad, because they can't turn it off. We've had many of those times when it's, okay, we have to stop. This isn't fun anymore."

He coached the girls' team at Aquinas before either of the girls aged into the team. When Lexi arrived, it began the Blugolds' incredible seven-year run of success.

"They have really good basketball minds, truthfully better than mine. They ran those teams better than I ran those teams," Dave says. "They really understood situations, how to create for others, how to create for themselves.

"We were never pressed in seven years because those kids would just run through them. They made life really easy for me. Stuff other people had to spend time on, we didn't have to spend any time on. It was an incredible luxury. That's what I'll have to replace."

The girls' one year together at Aquinas, 2019-20, was canceled just short of championship glory when COVID arrived. Macy's teams finished second when she was a sophomore and senior, her junior year ending at sectionals with a loss to the eventual state champions.

That was the game she played in a mask, after going face to head in practice, breaking her nose, undergoing emergency plastic surgery, playing two days later.

"She just finds ways to win all over the place," says Montana coach Brian Holsinger. "She is a warrior and a winner. As a coach, how do you not want that? You're going to see her make an impact on our team just because she does so many things that lead to winning."

Ah, Montana. Of course, that wasn't initially the plan. Donarski first committed to Saint Louis and coach Lisa Stone, whose ties to Wisconsin go back to her birth.

She was a hall-of-fame coach at Wisconsin-Eau Claire, later coached Wisconsin for eight years, leading the Badgers to 128 wins. They haven't been the same since she was let go in 2011.

And now Stone was at Saint Louis, and the school had a five-year master's program in occupational therapy, which appealed to Donarski, as did playing in the Big East and being a seven-hour drive from home.

Her mind was mostly made up when Holsinger got the Montana job in April 2021. Still, she visited that fall. Loved it, the coaches, everything about it. Thus, the tears when she turned down the Lady Griz to become a Billiken.

Holsinger didn't know much about Macy at the time he got the job, but he knew about Lexi, how he had seen her battle for years on the Under Armour summer circuit with someone Holsinger was recruiting to Oregon State when he was there, Sasha Goforth.

"We knew about the Donarski name, so that created some intrigue," Holsinger says.

But a commitment is a commitment. That is until Saint Louis cut ties with Stone in March 2022. "To be honest, I probably chickened out a little bit on going so far from home at a young age," Donarski says.

"With my family being so close, it was 100 percent a distance thing. The coaching change prompted me to reconsider. It was a really easy decision from there, really fortunate on the timing of all of it. I think I was meant to be here, so I'm really grateful that I am."

They made Holsinger work for it, asked him to make one final home visit that April, sit through dinner not knowing if he was going to leave joyous or disappointed. Until Macy walked out with dessert, a cookie cake that said COMMITTED.

"This is a really unique program," she says. "The way we do things here is very different from what I hear from friends or past teammates experiencing. The culture is really special and what they've established in their three years."

Dave and Pam had never had to turn one of their girls over to another coach until it came time for college. They were always their coaches, even when Macy was playing for Wisconsin Flight Elite.

From April to July, on the road to Oshkosh, on the other side of the state, two and a half hours away, dad driving, daughter sleeping. Basketball, basketball, basketball, Dave an assistant coach, Macy playing. Drive back home. Get up on Sunday and do it again.

Why not stay over somewhere? "I've gotten old. I'd rather sleep in my own bed. I'd love to say it was a really fun time to connect with the kids, but they would sleep all the way there. I'd get an hour on the way home, then they'd fall asleep. Maybe I'm boring," Dave says.

Donarski and her teammates won the prestigious 2022 Nike EYBL Run 4 Roses. "That allowed me to see some of the top competition in the nation," Macy says of playing travel ball. "It helped me improve and allowed me to experience a lot of cool events with my teammates."

It was just different for the Donarskis, then, turning their girls over to a new coach in a faraway land. That had always been their job, basketball rarely being played without them watching, coaching or hearing it being played on the other side of the house.

Turning them over to any program, to any coach, was going to be a new experience, a leap of faith, but there was always something about Montana, from the day Holsinger got the job, from the first time he and his staff reached out to the family.

"Macy loves these kids and the coaching staff is so transparent," Dave says. "Everything they've promised her has come to fruition.

"That's why Montana is super special to us. We have no connection out here. This is 19 hours from our house. To send a kid out here, we had to have some trust and confidence in those guys. They have done more than that. She has a huge family out here."

Now, for the first time since the 2015-16 season, he'll enter a season without either Lexi or Macy on his team at Aquinas. With time comes perspective, with perspective comes appreciation.

"I appreciate it a heck of a lot more than when I was going through it. I felt a lot of pressure to not favor my own kids. I was incredibly tough on both of them. Some of that helped and some of that probably wasn't the greatest use of being a dad," he says.

"We won a lot of games together. That builds a chemistry as a family. Looking back, those are the fondest memories I have."

The upcoming season will be a chance to put his program's foundation to the test, because everyone will be gunning for Aquinas, now that the Blugolds don't have a Donaraki at the point, only on the bench. (And in the stands, though the AD may need to tone it down a bit in her new position.)

"I think the culture is really good. We'll have a chance to test just how good that is," he says. "I know I won't be able to relive (the last seven seasons) because the girls are gone and on their own but I feel like I can give back to those kids who are still in the program and care so much about it.

"It's our life. That's why I can't give up coaching. I just love it. I feel rewarded with it and I like I'm giving these kids something special."

Their gym, too. So special. They all are. He figures 50 to 75 kids in the La Crosse and (don't say it) area have the key code to their garage, by which they can access the gym, get their shots up, work on their game. They don't know how good they have it.

University of Montana Athletics

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