My last Champions

Heart will take a team farther than talent. At least it will at the middle school level. After James' group, I coached my most talented teams since the 1990-91seasons. My A team was big, strong, fast, and most importantly, smart. But they didn't have much heart. In two seasons, the only team that beat them was from Aurora Hills. A-Hills beat us every time they played us over the course of two seasons. In the championship game as seventh graders, Aurora Hills was leading by a score of 5-4 at the end of the first quarter.

In the huddle, I encouraged them to take advantage of all the mistakes the other team was making.

"They're real sloppy at handling the ball," I noted, "let's press them after we score."

They all looked down at the floor but said nothing.

"We can't, coach," Adam, my best player finally said, "if Nick gets hot, he'll bury us," referring to A-Hills best player.

Right then I knew we were beaten. Nick was a good player, but Adam was better and we had the better team. But Aurora Hills and Nick had more heart. We never did take the lead and they were city champs.

The next season, no matter what I did, benching the starters, cajoling, sweet-talking them, I could not convince them to put the press back on. I was extremely frustrated, but I kept my cool. Meanwhile, my B-Team was watching this struggle of wills, and asked me if they could press their opponents. I showed them how to run the press in practice. At first, they didn't quite understand how it worked. The first time we played Aurora Hills, they beat us by over20 points.

After that game, I had the B Team run the press in practice against the A Team. The A Team was more talented, but the B Team had more heart. I didn't like to let teams scrimmage much in practice because I preferred to work more on fundamental skills. But I wanted to make a point to my A Team, so I let them scrimmage against each other about two times a week. At first, the A Team dominated the B Team, but the tide eventually turned and the B Team won about half the time they scrimmaged each other.

When the post-season tournaments were played, the A Team lost in the opening round. They never even got the chance to suffer another humiliating defeat at the hands of Aurora Hills. But the B Team won its first two games, thanks to the full-court press. When we faced Aurora Hills in the championship game, we beat them by 25 points.

After the game, the A-Hills' coach came up to me and said, "Great job, coach. When I saw how you ran that press in the first quarter, I knew we were in trouble."

Several of the players from the A Team sat on the bench with us, and were very supportive. At the age of 47, thanks to Noelle, I was finally showing some signs of maturity. I accepted the congratulations from the players on the A Team, but did not rub in and say, "See, I told you the press still works!"

That year I learned from my B team that hard work and desire will take you farther than talent. I think Adam learned that lesson, too. Four years later he played on the team that won the 5A state high school championship.