Providence’s Landrie Callahan doesn’t remember his name, but a team manager nicknamed “Beano” helped shape her game a long time ago.
When the 6-foot-2 senior guard/forward was growing up, she would attend Sandwich boys basketball practices run by her father, Brennan, who was the head coach.
Landrie was on the sidelines, learning the game from Beano.
“He would sit there and play (basketball) with me,” Landrie said. “I would do dribbling drills with him and shooting drills. He would help me out a lot.”
Callahan, the 2025-26 Daily Southtown Girls Basketball Player of the Year, also received a lot of help from her father and assistant coaches during breaks and after those practice sessions.
And it helped develop her love for the game.
“He would have me run plays,” Landrie said of her dad. “I would run up and down the sidelines while he was coaching. I’ve always loved the game and being around it.
“There’s nothing better than basketball.”
For Providence fans, there was nothing better this season than watching Callahan play.
The Pepperdine recruit averaged 20 points and nine rebounds and also had 59 blocked shots to help the Celtics (31-5) advance to a Class 3A supersectional.
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Her eye-popping numbers included a 38-point, 13-rebound performance in a 72-44 win over Hillcrest to win a Class 3A sectional title and a 30-point, 14-rebound showing in a 69-48 win over Lincoln-Way East to win the Sandburg Holiday Classic.
Adding in three years at Morris before transferring to Providence, Callahan scored 2,309 points in high school. Celtics coach Eileen Copenhaver noted those numbers speak for themselves.
But Copenhaver also confirmed there’s more to Callahan’s game than just raw statistics.
“She’s a powerhouse inside yet has excellent shooting guard skills,” Copenhaver said of Callahan. “We have really connected and she was receptive to our coaching staff — worked hard every day at practice, was an excellent teammate and brought good positive energy.”
Copenhaver pointed out that Callahan was able to handle some difficult situations with maturity, leadership and control and that should pay off when she plays on the Division I level.
“There will be growing pains as there are with most freshman,” Copenhaver said. “But she is tough, she is coachable, she is determined and she is good teammate that will only get better and make her team better. It will be fun to watch her excel at Pepperdine.”
Joining Callahan on varsity this season for the Celtics was her sister Layken, a junior forward who also transferred. She related that losing Landrie as a teammate for next winter will be tough.
“I will miss her,” Layken said of Landrie. “We played against each other and challenged each other and made each other better.”
The sisters come from a large basketball family including their father, Brennan, and mother Laney, nee Pellegrini, who was a Hall of Fame player at St. Francis in Joliet.
There’s also a group of aunts and uncles who were big-time players in Seneca.
According to Landrie’s scorecard, the head count is now 25 cousins who play basketball, including a 2-year-old who has a portable hoop and shoots free throws all over including on countertops.
“It’s the craziest thing ever, but that’s my family,” Landrie said. “You are always around the game of basketball and you love it.”
One of the attractions to Pepperdine for Landrie was the family atmosphere established by coach Katie Faulkner.
“When I visited there, she took me to breakfast with her two kids in her minivan,” Landrie said of Faulkner. “It really felt like home. And she reminds me a lot of my mom. They are almost identical.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.