An Outside View: Teaching the Coach a Lesson

It’s the first week of March. You pick up the paper and turn to the sports section. You expect to read about basketball. After all, March Madness is upon us and there’s roundball action everywhere. On the high school level, regional tournament action is in full swing and several Sevier County teams still have their sights set on the state tournament in Murfreesboro. On the college scene, the regular season is in its final week and several state schools are vying for invitations to The Big Dance. And in the NBA, Kobe is finally making headlines again for what he is doing on the court rather in court. I won’t disappoint you. My column this week is indeed about basketball. But I’ll leave Brooke, Scooter, and Kobe to the other guys to write about. I want to tell you about some young players whose names you have probably never seen on these sports pages. Their names are Andrew Boling, Kyle Brewer, Jonathon Eimmerman, Adam Keller, Christopher Knowlton, Billy Maxey, and Joshua Pendegrass. They are third and fourth graders who played for the Seminoles, the Upward Basketball team that my son and I coached this season at Seymour First Baptist Church. Seven kids who taught their coach a thing or two about basketball and winning and losing. Upward Basketball is a nom-competitive league. It’s not about wins and losses. There are no champions and no trophies. The program’s goal is to equip kids with the tools they will need to cope with life beyond basketball. We spent the entire season stressing that winning wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered was trying our best, improving with each game, and learning to play as a team. I wanted to teach the kids to compete but more importantly wanted them to understand that winning isn’t everything. But third and fourth graders watch the scoreboard. You can see it in their eyes. They want to win. That is only natural. In practice, we stressed basic fundamentals and teamwork. The wins would take care of themselves I thought. When it came time to start the season, the coach didn’t know what to expect from these young guys. They showed promise and had a great attitude but how they would match up against the other teams remained to be seen. A lopsided loss in the season opener was a precursor of things to come. There was one loss followed by another and then another. The losses began to mount up and I could see the discouragement on their faces. Their coach is a pretty competitive fellow and he too wanted to win at least one game but he tried not to let on. After a week off, the Seminoles entered the final game of the season with a perfect 0-7 record. A quick glance at the schedule revealed that the undefeated Volunteers were next up. Three weeks earlier, the Volunteers had spanked the Seminoles by 20 points or so. It could get ugly again. Privately, I approached the league director about changing the schedule. I didn’t want to see my boys embarrassed. It didn’t work out so we had no choice. This column isn’t about those first seven losses. This story is about some young boys who came together to play one magical game. It was Upward Basketball’s version of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. It was Seabiscuit and Rocky. It was David versus Goliath. For 36 minutes, everything clicked and when the horn sounded the boys looked up with wonderment at the scoreboard. Seminoles 42, Volunteers 37. They danced at mid-court, raised their arms in victory, and slapped each other on the backs. Their smiles told the story. I tried to act like I wasn’t surprised but inside I was jumping for joy. Oh, it wasn’t that we won a basketball game. I suspect that these boys will continue to play basketball and there will be other wins. But I doubt that they will ever learn a bigger lesson about believing in the team and accomplishing the improbable. As for the coach who tried to protect his boys by asking that the schedule be changed, he too learned a lesson. And it was the very lesson that he had been trying to teach his players all season. He just needed a little refresher course and the Seminoles delivered.