Girls In Baggy Shorts

A couple of weeks ago, the Biola women’s basketball team had the “End of the year (season) team dinner.” Any “End of the year” type thing is often a time to reflect on, well, the year, and like most years, it went by fast. Things move at the speed of life, and if we don’t cherish the opportunities given to us when we become older, we’ll just end up bitter old people (and probably fat as well). So here’s me cherishing a rare opportunity I thought I would never have.

This past season I was given an opportunity to be an assistant coach of the Biola women’s basketball team. One of the assistant coaches had to drop out mid-season. The head coach of the team, Bethany Miller, and I have been good friends since our undergraduate days at Biola. I’m making us sound old, but we’re really not. I’ve watch Bethany since she was a college athlete who received the President’s Award (a scholarship that paid 90% of her Biola tuition), got married to my friend, Jared Miller, went to grad school, became a physical therapist, worked as an assistant coach to the girl’s team, and then got hired as the head coach (1st year) and the assistant athletic director at Biola University just last year. She’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met and loves the game of basketball. We’ve also been in the same Grace Group (home Bible study) for several years. So when she needed help with the team, I couldn’t possibly say, “no.”

Coaching Girls

I’ve always thought about coaching, but only after I started making six-figures as a financial planner. Also, I’ve never really thought about coaching girls. I mean, how in the world do I relate with girls? Especially girl athletes, since they’re cut from a different cloth sometimes. For example, I was talking to our starting center trying to motivate her for an important conference game. The opposing center had made All-Conference last year as a junior and will probably make it again this year as a senior. Our center played her well and is two years younger. I said, “Two years from now you have the potential to be even better than she is.” She stoically replied, “Yeah, I don’t really get up for that.” Well, never mind. Bethany later told me the same things that motivate guys don’t always motivate girls. “Okay then. It’s time for a different approach,” I thought. It was definitely a learning experience for me. My comfort was my knowledge of the game. Basketball will always be basketball and I love the sport at near idolatrous levels so, I was confident I would figure out ways to help the team.
As I was getting to know the girls on the team and their needs I was impressed with how mature they were. Of course there were moments of immaturity but they weren’t atypical of your average college student. If anything, they made me more settled with having a girl. I probably had a half dozen “I wonder if my daughter is going to be like that” moments each week while I was with the team. It was fun to think about. I certainly won’t “make” my daughter play basketball. However, considering that she’ll end up “daddy’s little girl,” I don’t see how she’s not going to play the best game in the world. Also, since I’m not allowing her to play soccer or any other sport in the Winter Olympics (e.g., figure skating, curling, etc.) she doesn’t have much of a choice anyway.
Beyond the X’s & O’s
What really helped me as a coach is the ability to step inside the player’s situation. I liked to ask myself the question, “If I were going through what they were going through, what would I need?” It’s often like looking at a younger version of yourself, having been at that life-stage knowing exactly how they are feeling and what needs to be said at a given moment. There were disappointing losses, emotional trials, and epic victories, often happening week to week. The challenge isn’t always the x(s) and o(s). Actually, that’s usually the easy part. You study film of your opponents, pick up their plays and player tendencies, and formulate a plan accordingly. The challenge is implementing the plan by getting different people with very different personalities and different perspectives on the same page in order to execute the plan. That’s no small task.
The hard work of seeing your players execute the game plan, which results in team success is well worth the labor.
Another component of coaching that doesn’t get mentioned enough is managing people. When an individual, or the entire team, is on the verge of losing confidence or their emotional psyche is about to be broken, you as a coach need to see that and prevent or know how to mend it back together. Empowering players by transferring the confidence from coach to player can’t be taught in classroom or read in a textbook. It makes human beings created in the image of God that much more fascinating to me.

Girls In Baggy Shorts (you know I had to work the title in somewhere)

Society seems to view basketball as a more “masculine” sport. Girls in baggy shorts and big bulky basketball shoes don’t seem “feminine.” Some of that is true. Yes, I’ve met girls who would rather spend time in the weight room instead of the beauty salons. But what’s harder? Always acting feminine (whatever that means) or being able to adapt to a given situation or context?
Attempting to play extremely hard on the basketball court and maintaining eloquence and grace off of the court is a much more daunting task than always remaining one or the other. These girls were able to pull that off. No, I don’t believe a girl has to lose some of her feminine instincts in order to excel at basketball. I fully expect my daughter to have an “assassin’s mentality,” seeking to destroy everyone on the basketball court while completely acting like a lady off of it.

The College Experience
College was an experience I’ll never forget. I never got a chance to play college basketball at a university, but I can only imagine doing so would’ve enhanced the college experience even further.
So then, as a coach, it was a complete delight to watch the girls grow as basketball players and how that overflows into their personal lives. I don’t know what prepares a person more for real world professionalism than athletics. As I’ve mentioned before, there are a million parallels between life and basketball. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. In achieving excellence, discipline, commitment, and sacrifice are not optional but pre-requisites. I believe the girls learned that lesson. Their teachability allowed it to happen, and those are the lessons that go well beyond the basketball court.

Here’s what five-time NBA champion Steve Kerr had to say about his college experience at Arizona:

I had no chance of making the NBA after my first season at Arizona, much less right out of high school. (The thought actually makes me laugh.) As a slow 6-foot-3 white guy, I was lucky to even stick around for one NBA season, much less 15. I had the "anti–Anthony Davis experience," spending five full years in college (redshirting one season with a knee injury) before entering the NBA at 22. And maybe this wouldn't be true for everyone, but for me, those five years at Arizona were the most important of my life. My teammates from those Wildcat teams remain my best friends to this day. Our loss in the Final Four during my senior year in 1988 remains the single most disappointing game of my life — but one that motivated me for the rest of my career. The collective value of the experiences we shared — every tough practice, every difficult loss, every euphoric win, even those times on the bus or the plane — created a bond between us that will live forever. And the education we received from our coach, Lute Olson, had an immeasurable effect on all of us. He was a teacher, father figure, and mentor; without his influence, the last 25 years of my life just wouldn't have turned out the same.

I have no doubt coach Miller has impacted the girls in this manner and that she’ll continue to do so for as long as she is the head coach. I feel extremely blessed to have been a small part of it.
I'll leave you with a clip.