Pepperdine might be a Christian university, but there\u2019s nothing quiet and churchlike about basketball games at Firestone Fieldhouse. Our fans know how to make some noise. I\u2019m the women\u2019s basketball coach, and after nine seasons, I still love the way the crowd gets my players\u2014already a competitive and motivated bunch\u2014even more fired up.<\/p>\n
I remember when I was their age and all I wanted was to be a top college player and then go on to the WNBA, the women\u2019s professional basketball league. Just because that didn\u2019t happen for me doesn\u2019t mean it won\u2019t happen for some of them. Actually, I did get to the WNBA in a way I had not anticipated at all.<\/p>\n
Still, what I think is most important and meaningful about basketball\u2014what I try to teach as a coach\u2014is how it prepares the player for life. Here\u2019s the advice I give my players, lessons I\u2019ve learned myself on and off the court.<\/p>\n
Deal with it.<\/strong> City number four was Washington, D.C. when I was at that awkward middle-school age, and painfully shy besides. Why did I have to go through the ordeal again of making new friends, fitting in at a new school and finding someplace to play ball?<\/p>\n One morning I plopped down at the breakfast table, feeling pretty darn sorry for myself. Dad came up behind my chair to fix my hair. I wish Mom were here to do my hair,<\/em> I thought.<\/p>\n Mom had left the house while I was still sleeping. She got up at 4:00 A.M. every morning to take a 5:00 A.M. bus across town to the school where she taught. Dad was in school himself\u2014a student in seminary\u2014and also the assistant pastor of a local congregation.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when it hit me. My parents never complained about how hard they worked. They just did what had to be done and my brothers and sisters and I benefited from all the sacrifices they made.<\/p>\n Mom made most of our clothes, staying up late at night sewing. She grew her own tomatoes, squash and greens so we would have fresh vegetables.<\/p>\n Today, if one of my players comes to me with explanations and excuses for why something didn\u2019t work, I say, \u201cLet\u2019s go back and do it right.\u201d Feeling sorry for yourself is a dead end. Life is full of challenges. Just deal with it.<\/p>\n Get open\u2026to possibilities.<\/strong> Dad wasn\u2019t crazy about that approach. He said it wasn\u2019t honest; so he insisted on revealing that I was a girl. It forced the League to change its rules and allow me to play. That was a kind of victory that fueled my pursuit of sports even more.<\/p>\n Then we moved to Los Angeles, and Dad\u2019s church, McCarty Memorial Christian Church, had a gym on the second floor. We lived only 20 steps away. By then I\u2019d gotten into basketball and anytime I wanted I could play.<\/p>\n Dad gave me a key to the gym because he was available just a few feet away. Nobody could beat me on that court. I knew every angle, every bounce the ball would take on the hardwood.<\/p>\n Dad brought in gang bangers to play, but they had to follow his rules: no gang clothes, no swearing and prayers before every game. It was amazing how they shaped up\u2014all for a chance to play basketball. It kept many a young man off the streets.<\/p>\n I was good, really good. I figured playing basketball was what God wanted me to do with my life, the way Mom was called to teach and Dad to preach. I got a full scholarship to U.C. Irvine, which I took as confirmation of my calling. Next stop after college? The WNBA.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t work out that way. I got hardly any playing time, and the coach told me I wasn\u2019t likely to get more. I was devastated. Basketball was my whole identity. My destiny, I thought. What was I supposed to do now? Who was I supposed to be?<\/p>\n I dropped out after freshman year, moved back in with my parents in L.A. and stopped playing ball. For a while I floundered, taking classes at community college, working as a paralegal. Mom\u2019s job at George Washington Preparatory High School kept her busy but not too busy to see how lost I was.<\/p>\n One day she sat me down and said, \u201cTomorrow, you\u2019re coming to my school and we\u2019re going to put you to work as a teacher\u2019s assistant.\u201d I didn\u2019t know about the job, but after all those mornings I\u2019d missed my mom growing up, I liked the idea of going to work with her.<\/p>\n My first day at the Prep, I was assigned to help an English teacher. She loved her subject and her enthusiasm rubbed off on her students. I saw them soaking up everything she said, and I thought, I want to inspire kids like that. I want to teach.<\/em> For the first time since I quit basketball, I felt really excited about something again.<\/p>\n Not long after that, the basketball coach, who\u2019d coached me in a summer league a few years earlier, said, \u201cWe\u2019ve got practice after school. Why don\u2019t you come to the gym and help me?\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s how basketball and teaching came together for me in a new role: assistant coach. It wasn\u2019t what I had planned, but it was what I was meant to do.<\/p>\n Believe in yourself.<\/strong> I didn\u2019t have to spell out why. The girl had a one-point-something GPA, which made her ineligible to play, and a spotty attendance record.<\/p>\n But I had this feeling that she came out for the team because deep down, she wanted help. And I\u2019d gotten into coaching to help inspire kids, right? If I wanted to get this girl to believe in herself I\u2019d have to take a leap of faith too.<\/p>\n So I made a deal with her. Three mornings a week, I would pick her up and bring her to school. I\u2019d arrange tutoring and study hall. If she brought her grades up to a 2.0, she could join the team on a probationary basis. \u201cI\u2019m making this commitment to you,\u201d I said. \u201cBut the hard work is up to you.\u201d<\/p>\n That left two days a week that she was on her own. At first she didn\u2019t always make it to school or finish her homework those days. It was hard for me not to step in, but I knew she needed to learn to take responsibility for herself. \u201cYou\u2019re wasting your time,\u201d one of her teachers told me.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d I said, praying that my confidence wasn\u2019t misplaced. And what I did see as the semester went on was the girl showing up at school more often, buckling down and hitting the books in study hall. I even caught her in the library occasionally. Progress, I learned, is a process.<\/p>\n Report card day came. She ran into my office and pointed to her 2.1 GPA. I don\u2019t know which one of us was more thrilled. I let her on the team.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re still on probation,\u201d I warned. \u201cKeep those grades up.\u201d Next semester, the girl made a 2.8 GPA. After that, never less than a 3.5. She didn\u2019t make it to the WNBA but she accomplished some thing that makes me even prouder: She went to college, then graduate school, and got her doctorate.<\/p>\n Be there.<\/strong> When I was an assistant at Stanford, a young forward named Nicole Powell was the best player on our team\u2014and one of the best in the country.<\/p>\n She was under enormous pressure to carry the team, and sometimes the demands of being an All-American got to her. On one occasion I saw her struggling during a practice before a really important game.<\/p>\n I walked over to the basket where she was shooting, not sure what to do to help her. Should I have her work on her perimeter shooting? Her ball-handling? Should I say anything?<\/p>\n No,<\/em> I thought, just be with her.<\/em> The way my mom would sit with me when I was down or Dad would pray in silence with a church member facing troubles.<\/p>\n Nicole grabbed a ball and hoisted a shot. Swish.<\/em> I rebounded the ball and tossed it back to her. She shot again. Swish.<\/em> I tossed the ball back again.<\/p>\n For two hours I threw her the ball, not saying a word. She didn\u2019t need me to hone her technique. She just needed to know that I was there for her, no matter what.<\/p>\n On and off the court, I\u2019ve seen how this is true. People don\u2019t always need us to say anything or fix anything. Sometimes just being with them is enough. It\u2019s like faith\u2014sometimes simply being aware of God\u2019s presence is all you really need.<\/p>\n No excuses.<\/strong> The other day I was complaining to her about all the work I had to do. On top of coaching and teaching, I had gone back to school to get a master\u2019s in psychology. I was working on a paper and couldn\u2019t make heads or tails of it.<\/p>\n \u201cMom, I keep staring at the computer and I still have no idea what to write,\u201d I moaned. \u201cI\u2019m ready to give up.\u201d<\/p>\n Mom didn\u2019t mince words. \u201cYou signed up for this course, right? You decided you wanted a master\u2019s in psychology, right? Have you prayed about it? Isn\u2019t this what you feel you need to do?\u201d<\/p>\n To every one of her questions I answered, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen you\u2019d better sit down and do it,\u201d she said, and hung up the phone. No excuses. Just deal with it. I sat down at my computer and finished the paper. Got an A. Lesson learned\u2026 again. But then the best lessons are the ones we end up learning again and again. Even when you\u2019re a coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pepperdine might be a Christian university, but there\u2019s nothing quiet and churchlike about basketball games at Firestone Fieldhouse. Our fans know how to make some noise. I\u2019m the women\u2019s basketball coach, and after nine seasons, I still love the way the crowd gets my players\u2014already a competitive and motivated bunch\u2014even more fired up. I remember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_bluesky_share_type":"","_mastodon_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[339],"tags":[265,58,197],"ppma_author":[1095],"class_list":["post-21526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-positive-thinking","tag-basketball","tag-guideposts","tag-motivational-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nWhen I was a kid, we moved around a lot\u2014five different cities by the time I was 13. My father was a pastor, and we went wherever he was called to lead a congregation.<\/p>\n
\nBaseball was the first sport I loved. Back before Title IX opened the way for girls in Little League, I played on an all-boys\u2019 team. With my hair tucked under my cap, I hoped nobody would notice, although my teammates would sometimes taunt our opponents, \u201cYou got robbed by a girl!\u201d<\/p>\n
\nEventually I took over as head coach of the girls\u2019 team at the Prep. One year a very talented freshman came to tryouts. I took her aside. \u201cYou definitely have the skills to play for us,\u201d I said. \u201cProblem is, I can\u2019t take you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nSometimes as a coach the best way to help is to say nothing, give no advice, just be there. After the Prep, I coached in the WNBA and then at the college level, which turns out to be the place I like best.<\/p>\n
\nEvery morning at 7:00 I call Mom. Ever since Dad died a couple of years ago, I\u2019ve felt the need to check on her. But then, she checks on me too. We talk about what we\u2019re doing, we pray together and always end by repeating the verse from Psalm 118, \u201cThis is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.\u201d<\/p>\n