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View Full Version : A must read from Coach Coale......



Salt City Sooner
11/21/2007, 07:02 PM
This is one GREAT piece.....


Hello season! I really wasn't thrown into the ocean as a child and told to swim or perish. Promise. I am, however, a sucker for opportunities disguised as challenges. So when the offers to open this season against the last two respective national champions rolled in, I couldn't wait to accept. I knew how young our team would be; I knew how good Maryland and Tennessee would be; I also knew that the best way for us to get where we want go was for us to play the folks who have been there. Or who are there.

Easy decision. We're 0-2.

Here's what I know as a result of this slightly less than stellar start, however -- Courtney Paris has a sister who's as hard to guard as she is, Danielle Robinson is not the least bit intimidated by Division I basketball, and our team can play with anyone in America when we play hard. We can also look silly when we don't. For all of our youth, we have been quite poised. I wouldn't say we've played clean yet, or even with much of an IQ. But we've had pretty good feel -- for the game and for each other.

Maryland punched us and we were dizzy for awhile, but we regained our footing and ultimately went down swinging. Our competition with them taught us that good teams don't let you get by with inattention. If you relax, if you hesitate, if you re-think, if you don't think, they will make you pay. I can't tell you how invaluable feeling that has already been.

We had three whole days to work on the laundry list of do betters we brought home from the Maryland game, while also trying to concoct a game plan to cage Candace Parker and thwart the Tennessee Lady Vols. We talked about timeouts, clock situations, defensive transition, and how to attack a sag. In three days we got a whole lot better, inside and out.

Going into the game with Tennessee, I knew our approach was every bit as important as our game plan. With a young team, the first thing you try to ensure is that the jersey doesn't beat you before the ball is even tossed up. A mere four minutes in on Thursday night, I knew our team had avoided that quicksand. Our effort was better, our eyes were not so wide and I thought I could see the beginning of a collectively set jaw -- a weapon just about as necessary as a jump shot when it comes to surviving and returning to this place called Tampa, the eventual April promised land. The game wound up being a dandy, not decided until we lost control of the ball with nine fragile seconds hanging on the clock. For forty minutes, Tennessee could never quite get away; we held on like the annoying little yapping dog that just will not be denied. While I certainly would have liked to see us make some free throws and be a little more sure with the ball, I gotta tell you, I loved the yapping dog. If that's a part of who we are, we have a chance.

I'm ok with 0-2, if we remember.

I remember where I was on September 11, 2001. I bet almost every person in America does. I was in Phoenix, Ariz., in a hotel room watching in horror on a television screen. I asked my 15-year-old son if he remembered his whereabouts. He said, "Mrs. Davis' classroom." She was his fourth grade teacher. None of us can forget.

In the days and weeks that followed, all of us felt compelled to do something. We sent gloves and boots to the NYC firefighters and emergency crews. We put flags on our cars. We wrote letters and had prayer sessions. Singers got together and sang. Dancers got together and danced. Athletes got together and played. And we all vowed collectively to never forget.

I remember, too, the first time I saw traveling soldiers in their fatigues in a public airport at the onslaught of the war in Iraq. We all stopped eating and talking on our cell phones and we stood and clapped. And most of us cried. We remembered.

Six years later, some fog has rolled in. On our way back from Tampa as I stood at the DFW airport food court waiting for my cheeseburger, three camouflaged travelers with desert looking duffle bags got in line behind me. I asked if they were coming or going and they answered "going" about the time the McDonald's lady thrust my sack toward me and barked, "Next!" I moved toward the straws, the soldiers began delivering their order and I walked off toward my gate. It bothered me enough that I only made it two gates before returning to the McDonalds counter to find them. I stammered something very `ineloquent `, like "Thank you. Good Luck. We keep you in our prayers." And then I scurried off with tears in my eyes and a lump the size of a softball in my throat.

I hate it that I almost forgot.

It takes discipline to really remember. To remember enough that you do something, that is.

Things of significance are so because they change our behavior. They heighten our senses. They awaken our bones. The most ordinary things look different afterword. We see how much they matter. What a travesty to lose the lesson by forgetting how it felt even if it was horrific. That's where the discipline comes in, because most of us would just rather not think about things that are hard to think about. We don't like feeling itchy on the inside.

While losing to Maryland and Tennessee was not horrific, it certainly wasn't any fun. I want our players to remember the sting. I want us to remember the void. I want us to remember how we'd have done anything to have three more seconds on the clock or one more trip to the line. Because remembering that will drive us to get it right. We won't forget what happened, but the danger lies in forgetting how it felt. Remembering THAT squashes reticence. Remembering THAT launches action.

If you don't like your free throw percentage, do something about it. If you don't like how many turnovers you had, do something to prevent it from next time. If you don't like the way it ended, do something so that it doesn't end that way again. Hurt enough, badly enough to act and keep acting.

And never forget how it felt.

http://www.soonersports.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/090907aaa.html

BoomerGirl34
11/21/2007, 11:17 PM
Coach Coale = greatness.

Curly Bill
11/21/2007, 11:37 PM
Yeah, that is really good. :)