Freshman Girls Basketball

Tonight I am thankful for freshman girls basketball.

Last winter, I resigned from coaching JV basketball after four seasons only to be asked four days into this season if I'd like a non contracted freshman position. Because I love to coach, I eagerly said yes. Now, those of you who have never had the chance to coach freshmen, it's a whole new world. They are young, innocent, and have little mental toughness. I knew our talent level was low, but I went in with high expectations as a good coach does, right?

Well, seven games into the season, we are winless. At our first practice, I thought, oh goodness, what was I thinking? We traveled, dribbled with our heads down, couldn't run a play, had horrible shooting form, couldn't break a press, and we didn't know how to actually push ourselves for an entire 32 minutes. It was a struggle to get them to focus in practice.

After our game last Tuesday at Mason, I knew I had to step up my coaching. If these freshman were going to get better, I had to push them to work harder!! Wednesday's practice, we had a positive team talk about working as hard as we can and giving 100%. "Be able to leave the court proud of how hard you worked, win or lose." Thursday's game was against Jackson High and the girls finally worked hard for a full 32 minutes!! We scored more points, broke Jackson's press, and dribbled with our heads up. Even though we lost by eight points, the girls were proud of themselves for working so hard and I as a coach was proud too.

Tonight against Coldwater, I thought our team worked very hard until the final few minutes when fatigue, freshman nerves and our lack of mental toughness took over. The score was close and we couldn't hang on for the win. We had players lose a little control and stop giving 100%. We tried a few different things to take the win, but were unsuccessful. At the end of the game, as much as I wanted to scream and go crazy for the lack of effort, I walked into a silent locker room full of tears. As we talked, I found they were disappointed in themselves for their lack of effort and mistakes in our four minutes of over time. They knew they could have done better. As a coach, I saw that our lesson of working hard was learned.

I do think this group of freshman have gotten much better at the fundamentals of basketball. Even if we don't win a game this season, I know these girls are growing mentally as athletes. I will be happy if at age 14, these young athletes learn one lesson this season, 'work hard and give 100%, win or lose'. For the next four weeks, I am going to enjoy these young girls, but continue to push them every day.

Today, I am thankful that I am lucky to be coaching freshman girls basketball.
(Pray for me...)