When it comes to basketball for Christ the King’s standout point guard, Josie Pinnock, it's a family game. Whether it is a professional overseas career from her father, a 34-year coaching career from her mother or a competition between her siblings. Each part of the family is involved in the game.

Basketball has also been a sport Pinnock has seen quite the individual success as she received her first Division I offer when she was in seventh grade. Now as a sophomore coming off a CHSAA City Championship, the Royals conductor has garnered even more attention racking up a number of college offers.

Pinnock has earned offers from Memphis, William & Mary, Wagner, Manhattan, Stony Brook, and Iona. Pinnock said as she enters her junior season it will start to become crunch time on deciding where she’ll spend her collegiate career, but for now she is focused on her development.

“I got my first offer when I was in seventh grade, and it felt really good. I was happy. My mom was happy. My dad was happy,” Pinnock said. “It has made me want to work harder because it's never enough. I could really care less right now about the offers because I just have to keep working and keep getting better. It's never enough.”

The mindset and the work ethic is something that has been instilled in her from the beginning from her mother, Joann Arbitello-Pinnock, who has coached a number of Division I athletes including two McDonald’s All-Americans.

Pinnock said her mother continuously reminded her to be thankful for the early offers, but not to be satisfied with it and to stay in the gym. It’s a sentiment that her coaches at Christ the King, Joe DeLuca and Bob Mackey, have also preached.

“We work a lot in the offseason. We run. We shoot. I feel like coach Joe and coach Mackey really helped to develop my game,” Pinnock said. “We’re constantly practicing and doing stuff like being in the weight room, doing conditioning on the hill or just working on shooting every day at 6 a.m. I feel like they really helped me develop my game.”

This season Pinnock improved her ball security, defense, and ability to score, however, the next step in her development will be improving her jump shot and conditioning.

Arbitello-Pinnock said as a mother watching the development of her daughter as well as her other children has been inspiring and a reflection of the values that are fostered at home. She said the ability to strive through adversity to reach the goals they’ve created for themselves is a major life lesson.

She added perhaps one of the best parts about it all is that the game has never been pushed onto her children. They each fell in love with the game for themselves and now are always working together, training to steadily become better.

“Even though it is a basketball family, the three of them could have chosen to do something else. They chose it. It was their choice,” Arbitello-Pinnock said. “As a mom, as a coach it makes you feel good to walk into the gym sometimes and there's the three of them with the cones out and they're pushing each other to work harder. That's the most fulfilling for me. Me and my husband are just amazed by their dedication to the game and how they push each other and the competitiveness in them.”

Arbitello-Pinnock believes her daughter’s intangibles are the most impressive thing about her.

“She's done an amazing job being a great teammate. Josie really has matured in such a way that her teammates love her, her coaches love her and other opponents, even though she's doing what she does out on the court, have much respect for her,” her mother said. “That's the intangibles sometimes that players don't find important, but she's definitely mastered.”