The 5A Girls Basketball Championship between Springfield and Willamette may be over, but it won’t soon be forgotten…unfortunately.
I didn’t just fall off the Turnip Truck, nor am I lacking the “competitive bone.” I remember the Four Corners offense and understand the value of strategy, but what and how things played-out over 32 not-so-hard played minutes Saturday evening left me and many others shaking their heads, and a team full of teenage girls to forever wonder, “What if?”
By now you’ve seen or heard about Springfield’s 16-7 victory over Willamette. You may have heard of the 4 total points scored in the first half, all of which were tallied in the second quarter. You possibly heard of the 3 total assists, and 5 field goals made. And you likely saw the picture of Willamette’s Brittany Glassow standing at mid-court with the ball tucked under her arm, as all 8 minutes of the second quarter wound down. But what you haven’t heard is an apology from Willamette coach Paul Brothers for taking from his players a moment they’ll never forget, while simultaneously breaching one of competitive sports’ golden rules: Always give it your best.
I understand that Willamette had succumbed to Springfield and their stand-out, Mercedes Russell, twice already this year. I also understand that the odds of winning a third game against that same Springfield team were likely slim. But what I don’t and never will understand is the mindset that suggests quitting as the best option. And that’s what Coach Brothers instructed his team to do last Saturday night.
“They’d beaten us and they beat everybody else in our league, so we had to try to do something different,” Brothers said. “Obviously, they’re the best team. They beat us three times this year, so more power to them.”
No coach, they beat you twice, the third time you beat yourself.
If you want to slow down the game, then slow down the game. If you want to speed up the game, you welcome to do that as well, but to do what Willamette coach Paul Brothers instructed his team to do last Saturday in Mathew Knight Arena wasn’t playing the game at all; it was folding your hand before the flop, saying, “no mas,” and taking a third strike. And that’s not good enough coach, not for a group of kids who’d earned the right to roll the dice.
If losing was inevitable, why not go down swinging? History’s full of winners who weren’t predicted to do so. Villanova shot nearly 80% from the floor in the 1985 NCAA Championship Game en route to one of college basketball’s greatest upsets. Few, if any had predicted the Wildcats victory over heavily favored Georgetown, but they played the game and won. The Los Angeles Dodgers entered the 1988 World Series as heavy underdogs to the juggernaut Oakland A’s and did so seemingly without their best player (Kirk Gibson), but the Dodgers defeated the A’s in five games and were ignited by Kirk Gibson’s only at bat in that season’s World Series: A nearly unbelievable ninth inning home run which won Game 1 and got the team to believe. The 2002 New England Patriots were surprise participants in that year’s Super Bowl, but behind the guidance of a second-year unknown quarterback by the name of Tom Brady, hung with the favorite St. Louis Rams and won on a last second field goal. Nick Faldo won the 1998 Masters in spite of trailing the world’s #1 player – Greg Norman – by 6 shots entering the final round. How about the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team, have you heard of them?
No one was asking you to reinvent the wheel, create Facebook or solve Global Warming Coach, so why try? Inspire your kids through confidence in their ability, hard work and the belief that miracles happen, then roll the ball out and see where that confidence gets you. There’s no shame in losing a game amidst your best effort, and it’s that effort which allows you to sleep after the heart-wrenching defeat in a title game you’ve fought so hard to get to. I wonder how much sleep the Willamette’s girls’ basketball team got late Saturday night?
Looking at that picture of Brittany Glassow holding the ball at mid-court speaks a thousand words. She’s rubbing her eye, her teammates and the opposition stand idle with their arms folded or on their hips, and the crowd behind the basket are standing with their arms in the air as if to say collectively, “huh?” No one liked what they were seeing and even fewer understood why they were seeing it.
Is Coach Brothers a bad coach? Obviously not, after-all he did guide his team to the State Championship Game. Did he spend the better part of Friday night sitting in a dark room twisting his mustache concocting a plot to undermine his team and those who play on it? Of course not, but he did in my opinion have a significant err in judgment regarding his team, perspective surrounding their game, and the lessons to be learned through sport; a mistake which unfortunately, cannot be undone.
Yes, games are played to win, but they’re also played to teach valuable lessons applied later in the game we call life. Did Willamette have a big-boy sized challenge set before them Saturday night? All things point to that being the case, but challenges are meant to be met head-on, not circumvented via noncompetitive means. A lesson unfortunately learned by a certain high school basketball team late last Saturday night, and one unfortunately forgotten by that same high school basketball team’s coach.
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