The high school basketball season was approaching its end. There were just two semi-grueling weeks left in the season before the conference and district playoffs. As much as we love the sport, there was no denying that the grind of the season was wearing a little bit on me, my fellow coaches and the dozen or so daughters of small-town southern Idaho who made up our little band of hardwood warriors.
I could tell it was sometimes especially trying for the three freshman girls of my junior varsity team. The total number of girls on the combined JV and varsity teams was 14. With such a limited number of players, it was impractical to hold separate practices for each team. Thus, the JV girls, freshmen included, were blessed and cursed to practice each day with the upperclassmen. In many ways, it was a real benefit, as it greatly accelerated the development and skill levels of the younger girls. On the flip side, however, the freshmen – and even some of the sophomores – often found themselves gingerly trying to take a sip from the proverbial fire hose.
Although the prevailing mood of most practices was mostly intensely amiable, there was the pressure of living up to the standard placed on both teams as a result of their own excellence. The varsity team was undefeated and had held down the No. 1 ranking in the state for most of the season. The junior varsity team had a 35-1 record dating back to the previous season, with the full expectation of winning the conference title for the third consecutive year. As one might imagine, there was ample reason for good cheer, but there was also the ever-present burden on the girls to consistently and constantly be at their collective and personal bests. It was a mantle that this group of young women proudly and ably wore.
Probably not unlike most rural high school sports teams in the heartland, this team was a wonderful amalgamation of daughters of farmers and ranchers, schoolteachers and salesmen, consultants and truck drivers, bosses and day workers. Some came from broken homes. Some played alongside their sisters. The families of some of them were original settlers of our mountain valleys, while others were recent immigrants to the state. More than one had lost a parent. More than one was navigating her teen years through her parents’ divorce. Like those of us lucky enough to be their coaches, they were running and stumbling and feeling their way through life. Whatever the individual circumstances of each player and coach, for a few hours each day, and consequently for the rest of our lives, we were family.
One day, midway through practice, Coach Jones (Oakley High’s version of her own hero, Pat Summitt, of University of Tennessee fame) tossed me some small orange plastic cones and asked me to set them up for one of our daily drills. I set up several of the cones on one end of the court and trotted to the other end to replicate the pattern. As the drill got underway, something was clearly amiss. The girls started the drill with exact precision on the west end of the court, but as they ran down to the opposite end, the drill began to resemble a beginners’ line dancing class at a retirement home. It quickly became apparent that I, in a temporary state of directional dyslexia, had set up the cones in some sort of backward, upside-down, screwed-up pattern, thoroughly confusing the girls as they attempted to run through the drill with the speed and precision they knew Coach Jones demanded.
“C’mon! Why isn’t this set up right?” Coach Jones hollered from across the court. “It’s the same thing we do every day.”
Our captain ran a tight ship, and she planned each practice with exactness, down to the minute. Although we’d been friends for nearly three decades, and although her admonishment of my miscue was mostly unnoticed by everyone else present, at that moment I felt as though I’d just steered the Titanic into the Everest of icebergs. Logic and evidence told me otherwise – that nobody else really cared about or even noticed my mistake. Yet for the remainder of that practice, I felt like all eyes were on me, with everyone fully expecting me to somehow blunder myself into messing up practice again.
Since my minuscule disaster, I’ve been able to survive every subsequent practice without incident. My JV team went on to once again finish as Snake River Conference champions, with a 21-1 record in a season that culminated with a 33-point victory over our archrivals in the tournament championship game. The varsity season continues on with the impending district and state tournaments. If I don’t somehow screw it up, we’ll hopefully make a serious run at a state title.
Regardless of how the season ends, I’ll leave it with the familiar, annual bittersweet feelings that naturally come with the shared grief, sweat, tears, laughter and joy born of the seemingly countless hours of practice, 150-mile bus rides, blowouts and nailbiters played in raucous small-town gyms and worry for 14 daughters.
But this year, I’ll come away with something more, something that came from a lesson that was as grand as it was inconsequential. I’ll learn from my one little loss. Even though my little reprimand from Coach Jones was barely noticeable to anyone but me, it taught me that whatever I say or do, whether it be spoken or done in anger or affection, can have a lasting effect, for good or woe, to whomever it was directed. Hopefully my girls will remember only the good.
