RIMERSBURG - They are lined up, one by one, across the baseline, backs against the Union High School stage in the school's gymnasium.

Karen Davis is holding court at the end of an open gym. The players, some tall, some short, some extremely skilled, some extremely willing to learn, listen intently to each word she utters.

"From the first guy to the last guy, you are all important," Davis says, her booming voice belying her small stature. "A basketball team just isn't the starting five, it's everyone."

It's a typical speech from a basketball coach. But this particular coach is anything but typical.

She is Karen Davis, a standout point guard when she played on the very court she gave her speech upon, roaming from one end of the line of players to the other. She is the coach who won 203 games during a 10-year span as girls basketball coach and she is tackling her biggest challenge yet, trying to turn the boys basketball program around.

Davis explains her decision to come out of a one-year retirement from coaching succinctly.

"I could either step in and give it a shot," Davis said, "or be one of those people who sit on the sidelines and complain for the next nine years."

Davis is not one to sit by idle.

Since she was in the third grade, Davis and the basketball were very close friends.Davis, who was then Karen Burns, attended private schools until high school, where she played one season at Clarion-Limestone before her family moved to Rimersburg.Davis saw significant minutes as a sophomore at Union under coach Ed Jamison and as a junior flourished, setting the school's single-season assist record with 308 and single-game assist mark with 18.She helped standout Joyce Wensel score more than 800 points during the 1981-82 season."She was a floor general," said Jamison, who left the program in the hands of Davis in 1991. "She was a competitor and she loved the game. She was my point guard and she had many, many, many assists."Davis loved the fast-paced part of the game as a player. She preferred to push the ball up the court and make plays. It's a style she implemented as a coach.That made Jess Divins very happy.In 2000, during Divins' senior season, she broke Davis' career assists record."I didn't know I was getting close," Divins said. "When I got it, they stopped the game and coach Davis came out, gave me a hug and said, 'You little brat. You broke my record.'"Davis doesn't care about records. When asked how many assists she had at Union, she shrugs her shoulders."I have no idea," she said. "I never really worried about that. Some people can rattle off that stuff, but I can't."Davis, though, was aware of the talent she played with, in particular Wensel, who left the school within reach of 2,000 points."I had some good kids," Jamison said. "All along I knew I had a special player in Karen."Davis, though, did not take her skills to college. Instead, she married her husband Dana and launched a long march toward a head basketball coaching job.

Davis worked her way up through the coaching ranks slowly. It took her almost 10 years before she got her big chance.She served as Jamison's assistant for two years before he resigned and handed over a program steep in tradition to her at age 28.Union had suffered just one losing season in a 20-year span, and that was during a season shortened by a teachers' strike.That would seem like a lot of pressure.But not to Davis."I didn't know any better," she said. "Those first couple of years, we still had winning seasons, but it still wasn't where I wanted it to be."Davis, combining coaching methods from her previous mentors, also stood firm to the up-tempo kind of game she loved as a player.Her players bought into it."It fired us up," Divins said. "I think it made us energetic."Davis has a way of doing that by her mere presence - and booming voice.The constant yelling of instructions to her players has taken its toll on her vocal chords.Doctors have warned her to take it easy on her throat. They have suggested she hook herself up to an amplifier so she doesn't have to scream or use cards to get her point across.Davis has balked at all of those suggestions. That just isn't her, she said.She used to sing in a choir, now she speaks with a raspy voice.Her voice may be the thing that will someday end her coaching career."I can do this," she said, "as long as my voice holds out. If I can't holler, I don't think I can coach. That just isn't me. I'll walk away."But not just yet.

Davis had always kept the thought alive in the back of her mind.When she stepped down from the girls coaching job so she could watch two of her sons, Devin and Colton, play basketball for Union, she said she knew she would be back on the sidelines one day.She just never expected it to be so soon.Following a one-year layoff, an intriguing opportunity fell in her lap when Golden Knights' boys basketball coach Tom Minick resigned.Davis applied for the job and was hired. She is thought to be only the second woman to coach a boys team in Western Pennsylvania."I didn't and I wasn't going to step on anyone's toes," Davis said. "But if the opportunity came up to coach the boys team, I was going to take it."And take it she did.She sat down with Dana and sons Devin, Colton and Austin to discus her plans."If Devin and Colton would have been against it, I wouldn't have done it," she said.Davis had experience coaching one of her own. During her first year as the girls coach, she instructed adopted daughter Penny Sommerville.She was concerned about the dynamic of a woman coaching boys and her sons."Oh, gosh, how are they going to handle this woman thing?" Davis said crossed her mind when she took the job. "But these boys knew me. They had been to my house, they saw me yelling and hollering when I was coaching the girls."I think it helped I was only one year removed. If it would have been five or six, it would have been tougher."Union recorded a disappointing seven wins in her first season as coach, but the team saw marked improvement during the season.Playing in several summer leagues, the team is 11-2 after going 1-22 in similar games last season.Davis believes she can turn the program around.So does Divins."I was kind of surprised when I found out she took the boys job," Divins said. "But the first thing I thought was, 'Boy, their attitude is going to change.' She doesn't take stuff from anyone."But she was like a mother out there."That has always been Davis' coaching style.And it always will be."Like I always tell the kids, 'As long as I'm hollering at you, you're OK,'" Davis said. "When I stop, that just means I don't care. That's when you are in trouble."I knew the game, the Xs and Os, but that has never been my strong point. My strength is getting everything I can out of each player and making each one feel important."A basketball team just isn't the starting five after all - it's everyone."I stress that a lot," Davis said.