It's not every day that local-born celebrities come back to town — let alone to their old schools — but Wednesday the students of St. Anne School in Lancaster were treated to exactly that.

Katie Hayek, a star of the upcoming film "The Mighty Macs" and a former St. Anne student, visited the school to promote her new film and the positive values it depicts. Alongside her was Theresa Shank Grentz, athlete and acclaimed women's basketball coach, on whom Hayek's character is based.

Two hundred and fifteen K-8 students assembled in St. Anne's gymnasium for a preview of the film and a Q&A with their visitors. Hayek and Grentz discussed making the film, their own personal stories and the importance of perseverance.

The film, which will be released on Oct. 21, recounts the story of Immaculata College's historic 1972 win in the nation's first-ever National Women's College Basketball Championship. It follows head coach Cathy Rush (played by Carla Gugino) as she leads the tiny all-girls college in Chester County from hopeless underdogs to three-time national champs.

Coincidentally, the film itself faced similar odds. Production was completed more than four years ago, and when its director took the film to festivals, the collapsing economy unraveled many of its prospects. Major studios expressed interest in providing distribution, but their involvement often stipulated tinkering that would have distorted the director's vision.

He shrugged them off, foregoing legitimate offers as he searched for a backer without such compromising costs. That backer eventually arrived in the form of Sony Pictures, who believed in the project enough to increase its original release-size of 250 theaters to 1,000 nationwide.

Now, on the other side of painstaking perseverance, "The Mighty Macs" will appear as it was meant to be seen.

At the St. Anne assembly, Grentz and Hayek championed this lesson and spoke of how their own stories relate.

Grentz, who played on all three of Immaculata's women's national championship squads, went on to a decorated coaching career of her own. She served as head coach at St. Joseph's University, Rutgers, the University of Illinois and eventually the U.S. Olympic team. She entered the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001, and at the time of her retirement was the 10th-winningest Division 1 women's basketball coach of all time.

Hayek, who played varsity basketball for Lancaster Catholic High School and then played at the University of Miami, experienced a setback to her Hollywood ambitions when she was diagnosed with lymphoma. She was auditioning for "The Mighty Macs" when doctors discovered the cancer, and on the same day she received both her role in the film and chemotherapy schedule.

Today the cancer is all clear, and Hayek hopes "The Mighty Macs" will propel her career to new heights. She spent the last four years at the grindstone in Los Angeles, but "The Mighty Macs" will be her résumé's brightest star.

"Everyone should stick to their guns," she told the students at St. Anne. "Know what you want to do, and dream big."

jpianka@lnpnews.com