02/20/2012 0 Comments Contact Our News Editors

Let's start out with all of the things stacked against Lisa Sullivan.

She is the only female coach of a boys varsity high school basketball team in Delaware. She coaches at a school with little winning tradition. She coaches a roster filled with transfers from other schools. She coaches with a strict, disciplinarian style that has forced her to remove many of the best players from the team in the past.

And she hasn't been able to walk in 15 years.

Despite all that, the Mount Pleasant Green Knights are 13-6 this season, almost a lock to qualify for the state tournament for the first time since 1999.

"She knows what she's doing, and she doesn't take any guff from the kids," assistant coach Tom Distefano said. "She's compassionate. She does anything she can to help the kids go to college. It's tremendous, the amount of time she puts in."

Nobody knows Mount Pleasant better than Sullivan, a 1984 graduate. She fiercely defends the school, located in Penny Hill, just northeast of Wilmington.