Getting a W

I feel like when you play a sport in college, people automatically assume that you want to coach when you graduate.  That was not the case with me.  I barely gave it a thought.  I got a job, started working, and revisited the gym once a year for our Lady Hawks Alumni Game.  I noticed a year or so ago that the further away I get from my playing days, the more I wanted to be back around the game.  I finally got that opportunity this year.

I have not talked about it much on here, but I have been helping my FSIL coach the girls high school basketball team in the town where we live.  Neither one of us has ever coached before but we played together at Huntingdon College, and between the two of us we have a decent amount of basketball knowledge.  Two heads are better than one, right?

This team has had a rough go of it the past few years.  They have won just a handful of games in the past 4 years, and they did not win a single game last season.  We came in with an open mind, knowing that we had our work cut out for us with a young team:  we have 2 seniors, 7 sophomores and a freshman. As young as they are, they seem eager to learn and do (almost) every thing we ask (they are high schoolers after all).

Our first few games were tough.  We lost our first game pretty bad.  The second we lost, but it was not a total blowout.  At halftime we were only down by 7, which the girls were thrilled about.  We realized that these girls were not even used to being in a ball game, never mind winning a game.  We lost our next two games, as well, and we could tell that it was starting to wear on the girls, especially the seniors.

We had a nice break last week where we did not have any games, which gave us a great opportunity to put some new things in and refine the things we were doing already, and Friday night it paid off.......we WON!  We actually won the game!  The girls were elated!  It was like a huge weight had been lifted off everyone's shoulders.  Later we realized that only one girl on the team had every won a varsity game, because none of the other girls were on the team the last time they won.

We didn't have long to celebrate because we had another game Saturday night.  Unfortunately we lost that one, but only by 4 points.  We played the entire 2nd quarter without 2 starters and a third in foul trouble.  If we'd made a couple of lay-ups and free throws we could have won it.  The girls were disappointed, but the good news is that we get that team again this year.  I have a good feeling that that game will have a different outcome.

Our girls know now what it takes to win and how great it feels to win, and we're going to keep moving forward!