First Colonial basketball squad has tested leader

By Paul Eldert

VIRGINIA BEACH

Once featured on a reality television show, Sarah Bollmann is now starring as a "team mom" for the First Colonial girls basketball team.

Bollmann, the youngest of 11 children, is the only senior on a Patriots team with no juniors, eight sophomores and three freshmen.

"It's been interesting going from the youngest of 11 kids, being the complete bottom of the pile, to being the only senior on a basketball team and being pretty much the main leader," said Bollmann, whose family was a finalist on the ABC reality show "My Life is a Sitcom" in 2003.

"Throughout this season it has been an eye-opening experience, but I've loved every second of it."

Bollmann also played volleyball for First Colonial - earning team MVP honors this past season.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that she's a natural leader - her mother, Cheri, is a life coach and her father, Dave, is a retired Navy SEAL.

The couple had four children of their own - Kelly, David, Stacie and Sarah - before adopting seven children in August of 2000.

A family full of musicians, the Bollmanns performed on "Oprah" and "Good Morning America," and were finalists on the reality show "My Life is a Sitcom."

Families competed to earn a chance to star in a sitcom pilot based on their lives.

Bollmann vaguely recalls her TV appearances as a 7-year-old.

"I remember losing the competition from 'My Life is a Sitcom' and being really disappointed because I'm not a good loser," Bollmann said. "I don't like to lose very much."

That competitive spirit got an early start when she grew up competing against her older siblings in a variety of sports.

"I've never had it in my heart to lose or to ever give up and that's what I've learned from being the youngest is to never ever give up," Bollmann said.

Bollmann transferred to First Colonial from Greenbrier Christian Academy before her sophomore year.

Since then, she has become one of the top 3-point shooters in South Hampton Roads and enters today's Beach District tournament averaging nearly 14 points a game.

"Kids just look up to her and they see her as somebody who has been here for four years and the other kids haven't been through all this," First Colonial coach Larry Bowman said. "They lean on her a lot."

When Bollmann arrived at First Colonial, she says the program was "very shaky," and "definitely in a rebuilding (mode) for a couple of seasons."

Two years after a two-win finish, the Patriots (13-9) this season placed fourth in the Beach District and are battling for an Eastern Region berth.

"I've seen the team go from complete craziness to an actual team that knows what we're doing and wants to play," Bollmann said.

"My goal was to leave the FC basketball program solid, and I feel like that has been accomplished because when I'm leaving, we still have a solid team."

Paul Eldert, 757-446-2366, paul.eldert@pilotonline.com