Four years ago, Kevin Randolph, Michael Coughlan, Suzi Coughlan and Kevin Green sat down and hammered out a business plan for the Maryland Hurricanes.

It might sound strange for the manager and coaching staff of an AAU girls U-14 basketball team to approach their squad in such a serious manner. But after seeing the potential in the new-look Hurricanes (which had recently combined with another local AAU team, the Seminoles), the quartet thought a four-year plan was essential.

“We said, ‘Hey, we might need to approach this now as a business venture,’" said Randolph, the team’s manager and father of point guard Ayanna Randolph. “We’ve got to make sure we play the girls in front of the right coaches on the right platforms so the girls can be seen in front of the college scouts.”

Four years, countless hours of practice, thousands of miles driven up and down the East Coast and a missed Prom or two later, and seven members of the Hurricanes have signed letters of intent to play college basketball next season.

From left to right: Becky Cox, Brittany Coughlan, Katie Biggs, Ariana Guyton, Kandice Green, Bethany Hart, Danielle Parker, Destiny Jacobs, Ashley Davis, Ayanna Randolph, Atiya Brown.

“Our No. 1 priority was getting scholarships for the girls, if that’s what they wanted to do,” said Suzi Coughlan, Michael’s sister and an assistant coach with the Hurricanes. “We just had to have a plan and it worked out beautifully.”

The plan, according to Randolph, yielded approximately $832,000 in athletic scholarship support for the seven committed Hurricanes. Randolph reached the figure by calculating four years of tuition, room and board. That approximation doesn’t account for the monetary support each player will get for athletic gear and travel, or the inevitable tuition hikes.

St. Frances forward Kandice Green was the headliner of the group. Green (whose father Kevin Green was a Hurricanes assistant and the second-leading scorer in Loyola College history) inked with Seton Hall in the fall.

Other DI-bound Hurricanes include McDonogh point guard Becky Cox to George Mason, McDonogh center Destiny Jacobs to Stony Brook (N.Y.), Dulaney forward Danielle Parker to Delaware and Arundel point guard Ayanna Randolph to Furman.

Additionally, Glenelg guard Katie Biggs signed with Division II Shepherd University in West Virginia, while Atholton point guard Brittany Coughlan (Suzi’s daughter, Michael’s niece) inked with Berry College, a NAIA school in Georgia.

It’s likely that many of the girls on the team would’ve found the right college program no matter which team they played for. But thanks to Randolph’s impeccable coordination and planning, all seven girls ultimately found what they were looking for.

Step one of the business plan called for Randolph, the Coughlans and Green to get the girls and their parents to buy in. That meant convincing them that practice three days a week from March through August, including tournaments up and down the East Coast every other weekend, in addition to balancing schoolwork, was a good idea. Randolph sold the parents and players on the potential for earning college scholarships.

Once the commitment was made, step two of the business plan was ready to be implemented – Randolph had to make sure the girls were seen. When the Hurricanes were in the 14-and-under age bracket, the team still had to prove itself on the national level. That involved Randolph getting on the phone, reaching the tournament directors and others in charge of putting together brackets, and making sure the Hurricanes had a chance to compete against the elite teams.

Never was the intensity of the plan on better display than last summer. From July 5 through the 19th, the Hurricanes played in three tournaments. First was the Blue Chip tournament at Penn State. After that eight-game run, the Hurricanes drove from State College, Pa. back down to the Baltimore area for the night to wash clothes and get a somewhat decent night of sleep before hitting the road again the next morning for another tournament in New Jersey. The Hurricanes played five games, drove back down to Baltimore for another quick change before catching a plane to Tennessee to play in a Nike-sponsored tournament. In that 14-day stretch, the team played 18 games, and was seen by between 25-30 Division I coaches at almost every game, Randolph estimated.

“We were fortunate Kevin was a mastermind in terms of getting a hold of the right people, people who run these organizations and tournaments, because we played in the upper echelon in these tournaments,” Suzi Coughlan said. “I mean we played everybody. That’s where our kids got the most exposure.”

While Randolph dealt with the logistical concerns, he left all the coaching and skill development up to the Coughlan siblings and Green.

“Honestly, I know it’s probably cliché, but I personally would just focus on what was in front of us at the time,” said Hurricanes head coach Michael Coughlan. “I figured if the kids would get better and face really good competition and be in front of the right coaches, [the girls would get scholarships]. But I always focused on every practice and tournament. ... If we got better, everything else would take care of itself. But the big picture obviously in the back of our minds was college. That’s what we were pushing for. But I took more of a short-term approach to it.”

Since the goal of the business plan was to eventually earn college basketball scholarships, the original idea of Randolph, the Coughlans and Green called for equal parts basketball and academics. If a scholarship opportunity presented itself, the last thing Randolph wanted was a girl who couldn’t cut it academically. That was never a problem.

“We had a GPA of over a 3.25 for the entire team,” Randolph said. “We started doing it like the colleges do. It was all about the academic push. You had to be students first, athletes second. We really stressed academics. We got the girls in the mind frame of, ‘you take care of business in the classroom and we’ll get you to play in the right tournaments in front of the right people.’”

By September, Cox, Green, Jacobs, Parker and Randolph had all made their verbal commitments. Before national signing day in November, Biggs and Coughlan made their choices. Four years, hundreds of games and countless hours of practice later, and seven of the Hurricanes’ 11 players had made the business plan of Randolph, Green and the Coughlans a success.

Now it will be strange for the four staff members to move away from their four-year venture.

“We’re going to miss it,” Suzi Coughlan said. “We go to all these kids' games, we see all these kids play. ... The girls talk several times a week, follow each other in the paper. These kids have a genuine love for each other beyond the scope of basketball. That’s what we wanted to instill in these kids. They’re all awesome students, wonderful kids. Come May or June, it’s going to be a sad time. But it is a great story.”

Meet the seven Hurricanes

• Katie Biggs -- 5-foot-9 guard from Glenelg

Honors: Sun 1st team Howard County
College choice: Shepherd University
Others considered: McDaniel
Why Shepherd? “Well my final two were Shepherd and McDaniel and after visiting Shepherd, I fell in love with it and knew that’s where I wanted to go. I liked the program and I liked the coaches. I spent two nights with the team. It’s a good school and it met all my requirements. I didn’t want to go too far away.”
Role of the Hurricanes’ staff: “They were great. Our team manager was Mr. Randolph and he made sure we got in all the elite brackets so we were watched by the most colleges. They would talk to the different colleges and tell us what they were thinking. We would tell them what we were thinking. Then they’d contact the colleges and tell them if we were interested.”

• Brittany Coughlan -- 5-foot-7 point guard from Atholton

Honors: Sun 1st team Howard County
College choice: Berry College
Others considered: Mount St. Mary’s, Longwood
Why Berry? “Mainly the coaching staff and the team. They’re very welcoming. I really liked the area. They’re currently building a new gym and I’d be part of a brand new thing there and I was very excited about that.”
Role of the Hurricanes’ staff: “I mean as far as getting our team into the right tournaments, talking to any of the coaches, giving them a little background information, teaching me the fundamentals of the game; basically, they just tried to enable the process. It made it a little easier on me, going after the schools I was interested in and being able to talk to the coaches.”

• Becky Cox -- 5-foot-7 point guard from McDonogh

Honors: McDonald’s All-American nominee, Sun 1st team All-Met, 1st team Baltimore County
College choice: George Mason
Others considered: Loyola, Bucknell, Delaware
Why George Mason? “The location was a good thing. I really liked the coaches and the league they’re in. … I just think it’s good competition.”
Role of the Hurricanes’ staff: “Coach Coughlan talked to a lot of different coaches. He always put his information for the coaches to contact him whenever they needed. Mr. Kevin Randolph did a lot of things with making packets of information for the coaches to see, which was helpful. It was player profile packets of everyone on the team. I just felt like whatever choice I made, they would help me make the choice. I felt like they helped with the recruiting process a lot because they got my name out there with different coaches. And they put me in a good position on the court to show my skills.”

• Kandice Green -- 6-foot power forward/center from St. Frances

Honors: McDonald’s All-American nominee, Street & Smith's All-American honorable mention, Sun 1st team All-Met, 1st team Baltimore City
College choice: Seton Hall
Others considered: James Madison, Virginia Tech
Why Seton Hall? “That was the best fit because I loved the basketball atmosphere. It was a Big East school and the coaches remind me of my AAU coaches and my dad. I really like coach [Phyllis] Mangina and everyone was just really cool. I loved it."
Role of the Hurricanes’ staff: “They played a big role. They were the backbone. They really helped me out with my decision. They helped me think how I would fit in with the team. They were helping me out and helped me make my decision.”

• Destiny Jacobs -- 6-foot center from McDonogh

Honors: McDonald’s All-American nominee, Sun 2nd team Baltimore County
College choice: Stony Brook
Others considered: Hofstra, Johns Hopkins, Iona
Why Stony Brook? “I liked the team. I feel like I fit in with the girls, the coaches and just the overall environment is just a really good place to be.”
Role of the Hurricanes’ staff: “They helped a lot. They basically got me out to the coaches and all I had to do was just go out there and play.”

• Danielle Parker -- 6-foot-2, guard/forward from Dulaney

Honors: McDonald’s All-American nominee, Street & Smith's All-American honorable mention, Sun 1st team All-Met, 1st team Baltimore County
College choice: Delaware
Others considered: James Madison, Penn State, Virginia Commonwealth, Old Dominion
Why Delaware? “Its location and overall atmosphere, the coaches and the campus. It was really nice. I liked the campus immediately when I got there.”
Role of the Hurricanes’ staff: “They pretty much communicated with me what schools were out there and who was looking. They knew I didn’t want to go too far. Coach Michael Coughlan -- if any schools called and I didn’t like them, he told them they weren’t an option. The schools that did call and I liked, he’d have them communicate with me.”

• Ayanna Randolph -- 5-foot-7 point guard from Arundel

Honors: McDonald’s All-American nominee, Sun 2nd team Anne Arundel County
College choice: Furman
Others considered: American, George Mason, Hofstra, Princeton
Why Furman? “When I went down there the people were all friendly and I just loved being around all of them. The atmosphere, the team and everybody. I just felt at home as soon as I got down there.”
Role of the Hurricanes’ staff: “My dad (Kevin Randolph) was very helpful. He made sure that I was able to experience different opportunities and go to different colleges before I made my decision. He was just making sure he talked to other coaches and got to know people and make sure he could really entrust them with his daughter.”