The Coach

I don't know if anyone has truly lived until they have coached 8th and 9th grade girls basketball. 

During the first term of the 2012 school year, I was asked to lead the boys basketball teams.  With visions of being the next Phil Jackson or Bobby Knight (without the chair-throwing tirades) I stepped out onto the cement, eyes brimming with excitement at the fifty boys that longed to throw the ball through the hoop.  I, of course, felt like I could motivate the young men - they could look up to me (a few of them peered down); like Gene Hackman in the movie Hoosiers, I would take these country boys to the big city and make champions of them, raise them above all expectations.

And then I found out that most of them could not even dribble the ball.  Some of them had come to basketball simply to avoid the general aggressiveness and violence of rugby.  After the first practice, I surveyed the fifty young men at my basketball disposal, and inwardly shook my head.  Fifteen were sitting along the fence, in the shade, chewing fingernails, shaking their heads sideways a la Bieber to keep the hair out of their faces.  Because sports are mandatory at the school, you have to choose something but, unfortunately for some of the boys, the Zumba class was full.

So, they came to me, awkward and, in some cases, almost completely immobile.  All of the visions of national championship glory (which of course there is none) came melting down around my head and the stark reality hit me:  Basketball is not really a sport that is taken very seriously in the Lockyer Valley, is it?

Don't get me wrong, there are a few good players on the team - we could pull together a starting five that wasn't tooooooo bad.  The point guard, not a bad dribbler, fancied himself a future Kobe Bryant, except he couldn't dribble with his left hand and had never made a shot farther than six feet out (that's not entirely true; most of the boys at recess practice half-court shots.  Just the kind of shot that comes in handy in most basketball games).  One boy, who is at least 6'5 and still growing, could be a pretty good player as soon as he figures out how all of his limbs work together for the good of the whole body.  I laughed with him one time as he gathered in a rebound and was so intent on keeping the ball away from other players, high above his head, that he forgot his feet were moving as she shuffled ten feet across the court.  The other players looked like gnats trying to swoop in and swat the ball out of his big hands.

Coaching the boys - it was fun.  By the end of the term we had established some basic rules for the game, the boys wanted to play, sitting on the bench was difficult for them, we won a few games and learned how to be a team.  No Mike Kzkryencsefski (I know that's not how it's spelled but you know who I'm talking about if you follow basketball) am I, but I could have done worse.

But girls basketball...

How do you motivate a pre-teen girl to exercise or even sweat (gasp! is such a thing possible?).  My first (and only) day of training with the girls was an opportunity to make me smile.  As I gathered the girls around me, perhaps like a hen with chicks, each of them unsuccessfully attempting to hold a basketball in their hands or under their arms, I asked how many of them had ever played basketball before.  They all looked around at each other then one girl raised her hand and said, "My brother and I played in the back yard once." 

I definitely have my work cut out for me.  Eleven girls on the team, ten of whom have an understanding that a basketball is round, and that's about it.  Many of the girls have played an Australian sport called netball which is similar to basketball in the fact that you must put a ball through a hoop ten feet in the air, but completely different in that there is no dribbling of the ball, no backboard, and if someone is shooting you must stand three feet away from them. 

The transition to basketball proves difficult for them.

I try to show them some basic skills.  Dribbling the ball is for the most part outside their skillset even when no one is guarding them.  One of the girls came back to me so excited, jumping up and down, giggling and shouting at the top of her voice, "I DRIBBLED THE BALL ALL THE WAY TO THE OTHER END OF THE COURT.  I ONLY STOPPED TWICE!"

This is not even the funniest thing:  during layup drills, we had to stop intermittently for some team congratulation time when any one of the girls would actually make a basket.  As one girl would awkwardly toss up a two handed pass/shot/backboard shatterer and it would go in, the girls would clap wildly and cheer, "We made one!  We made one!"  At least we've got good team spirit, how 'bout you?

We survived practice.  Not that it makes too much difference, but Australian basketball players should be better than American players because they have to factor in windspeed and humidity when shooting.  All of our games are outdoors played on cement or asphalt courts many of which are not kept in the best condition.  One of the boys games I had to clear a dead rat from underneath our basket before the game began.

So, the girls basketball team road the bus to Toowoomba the other day.  It's about a forty-five minute ride up the mountain range.  The girls sat at the back of the bus surrounded by the rugby team, the boys volleyball team and futsol team (don't worry, I'd never heard of it either, but it's like indoor soccer).  Because there were only nine girls on the traveling team and they were surrounded by pubescent boys, I guess it's safe to say they weren't focusing on the upcoming game. 

We departed the bus in a flurry of hair tossing, giggling and sly over the shoulder looks.  I knew that it would be a long afternoon.  Trekking across the grass to the sun drenched, exposed basketball courts, one of the girls asked me, "Coach, do you think we are going to win today?"  Staring straight ahead I said, "Nope."  Taken aback, I think she was trying to decide if I was serious.  We kept walking, she behind me at this point and I turned around and said, "I don't think we're going to win; I know we're going to win!"  The young girl gave out a 'woohoo' and waited for the other girls to catch up to her.  At that point I thought to myself, when exactly is lying to a child a sin?

The other team, dressed in their brilliant red school uniforms - all twenty of them, took the court.  The 'coach' from the other team approached me wondering 'how we were going to do this.' 

"Well, I was thinking we could play seven at a time, you know, get more of the girls playing..."  She kind of let the statement trail off as if hoping I would not know the rules for basketball which include a maximum of five players per team on the court at a time.  Holy Moses. 

"I think," I said while placing my referee's whistle over my head, "That we'll just stick with the rules Mr. Naismith had planned when he invented the game of basketball and go with five at a time."  I didn't really say that, but my words had the same tone.  "Do you mind if I do the refereeing?" I asked.

"No, no, you go ahead.  I don't even know the rules anyway."  You think?

So we began and my girls, I call them 'my' now because that's the way coaches feel when you become a team, my girls were winning at half-time.  Energized by my incredible coaching/reffing skills, we scored six whole baskets in the first half to lead by two points at the break.  I thought to myself, Can we really win this game?  Can I be a present day Nostradamus by predicting this win?

You know when you say or think things and then recover with a retort to yourself, I shouldn't have said/thought that.  Now I'm going to jinx it, well...

For the second half, I don't think we dribbled the ball down the entire length of the court.  We didn't even attempt a shot.  The only time the girls got excited was when the other team dribbled the ball off their own leg out of bounds.  My girls played netball defense meaning they stood three feet away from the shooter, behind her, waiting for the eleven attempts to be over so that the excitement of us taking the ball out of bounds could begin again. 

The other team scored thirty-two consecutive points dealing us a 50-18 defeat.  I knew we were really in for it when, at three-quarter time, our girls were exhausted.  The other team had twenty girls playing rotating them out at quarters; my nine just couldn't keep up even when they were playing netball defense.  The reality of our loss hit me when one of the girls tugged on my sleeve during the fourth quarter while I was refereeing and said, "Coach, coach, I hurt my ankle."  She hadn't even been on the court at the time.  I looked down at her ankle.  No swelling, no bruising, nothing... 

"I think you're going to be okay," I said.  She looked at me with pouting eyes and then it hit me - I have no idea how to motivate this girl to push through the 'pain.' 

"Coach, I need a bandage." 

"Fine," I said.  "There's the medical kit; wrap it up if you need."  She limped over to the medical bag, rummaged through it, and proceeded to put the ancient wrap around her ankle making sure everyone else on the team could see how she was struggling with her 'injury.'  As she finished up, I felt a tug at my sleeve. 

"Coach, I hurt my ankle."  I don't know how I kept my eyes from rolling.  "I need a bandage."

"I don't see a bruise," I said.

"I think the damage is internal."

I motioned with my head to the medical bag and asked the rest of the team, "Is there anyone that can play basketball?"  A few raised their hands but one girl with long brown hair and milky brown eyes said, "Coach, I can't play anymore."

For heaven's sake.  "Did you hurt your ankle, too?" I asked.

"No coach, it's my knee.  Look," she pointed to her left knee.  "I've got a splinter."

This is going to be a really fun year.  I'm serious when I say that.  As much as they might frustrate my minimal basketball sensibilities, I love the fact that they are willing to just be young ladies trying to do something different.  They are all distinct, like snowflakes on a glacier, each one needing something different than all the rest and it is up to me to figure out what motivates these girls.  And one day, when they make a basket, or get a rebound or even make it all the way down the court dribbling the whole time without stopping, they will turn to me to rejoice.

and then I realize again, you've never truly lived until you help someone else - especially kids.