Arundel girls basketball coach Lee Rogers earned his 400th career win last week, putting him in seventh place on the all-time list of the winningest girls basketball coaches in the Baltimore metro area. He ranks third among active coaches behind North Harford’s Lin James and Southern’s Linda Kilpatrick.

Rogers, a North Carolina native who played high school basketball, coached the Arundel boys for five years before he took over the girls program and guided it to nine state tournament appearances and three state championships.

I asked Rogers to reflect on his career as the No. 5 Wildcats get set to open their regional playoff action tonight when they host Broadneck at 7 p.m.

Q: Do you remember the first girls game you coached?

A: That year we were 6-16. That’s all I remember. My AD, he said you’ve got to get better or stop coaching. I remembered that and we laugh about it now, but he had a point, so ... I went to Indiana and I spent a week at Bobby Knight’s camp and I spent a week at Carolina when Dean Smith was coaching and then I spent at week at Morgan Wootten’s. I just went to camps and clinics and we came up with different things that we got from coaches and we just applied it to what we have now. We came up with a system that’s been pretty good for us.

Q: What has been the highlight through the years?

A: I guess winning the first state championship (1996). The first year we went, we lost to Western, and then we found out what they had done about preparing and we implemented those things about getting the kids to do better in the off season. Western had the All-American Chanel Wright who went down to Carolina. That was a learning point and a step in the right direction for us and the next year we went back and we won.

Q: Who are some of the key kids you’ve had on the team?

A: The first year with Mary Pat Fannon and Sarah Kruchoff, then Donna Parker, who helped turn our program around. Then we had Meagan Rollins, Sherice Proctor, Jill Marano, Chavonne Hammond. She was our first D-I recruit, Chavonne Hammond. She went to Vanderbilt and she got drafted by the WNBA. Alex Maguire. Anastasia Baker. Shaunte Edmonds. We’ve had a lot of kids who’ve come through here and have been fortunate to help us have a program that’s been successful. I call it being blessed with kids who’ve wanted to play basketball, who’ve allowed us to coach them and accepted the way we do things and moved on to do better things at the next level.

Q: What first made you think about coaching?

A: I started coaching in junior high school, boys when we used to have junior high school basketball. As people get bigger, you get smaller and it’s hard to keep playing (laughs). I was coaching in junior high school and I continued to do it when I got in high school.

Q: What’s the most rewarding thing about coaching?

A: Seeing the kids progress each day, each month, each year. They improve throughout the season. Of course this is the longest season, but the things they do, they get better. And then watching them in the off season. You’re trying to apply the things you ask them to do in the off season. We do weight training and they do AAU and summer leagues.

Q: What has been the biggest change since you started coaching the girls?

A: Parental involvement. And the kids are different. When I played, you played ball. It was totally different as far as injuries. You wanted to play all the time. I know when I played, you didn’t want coaches to know you were hurt. You wanted to play as much as possible if you were a starter or the first one off the bench. The kids’ attitudes have totally changed about that stuff. The safety of the kid is first, but sometimes the kids, I think, misconstrue injury and being hurt. How tough the kids are. I think sometimes kids think you owe them something.

Q: What did it mean to you to hit 400?

A: It’s a milestone, but I didn’t know it until it was mentioned in the paper. I don’t keep up with that kind of stuff. It’s not that important. It’s just that the girls are successful. It’s about how do we get better, but the expectation of the girls is to win all the time. It’s a habit and some things you get used to doing, but it’s not easy each year. You have a target on your back and we always have had a target since we’ve gotten to be successful.

Q: How long do you think you’re going to keep coaching?

A: As long as I have a passion for it. My goal is I want to go out on my terms and not when the parents try to drive you out -- and that can happen,