Encouragment In Tahlequah
My Dad's sermon this past Sunday was on "Encouragment" and it reminded me of a personal story that I'll share.
My first year as a head coach I inherited a team that had won 6 games the previous season and we were not supposed to be very good. To everyone's surprise we got off to a very good start, in fact, we had equaled the previous season's win total (6) just 9 games into the season (6-3). Moreover, we continued to win games and be competitive even as the difficult conference season began. Then we traveled to Tahlequah, Oklahoma. We were playing Northeastern Oklahoma State University coached by Larry Gipson. Larry was twice my age as I was the youngest head coach in NCAA Division II at the time (27 years old!!!). Larry is known as one of the top coaches in the country as he had been a head coach at the highest level in college (NCAA Division I) and won both a Junior College National Championship and an NCAA Division II National Champioship. It was one of the most miserable and humiliating nights of my life as his team completly dominated mine and we ended up losing by 40 points. I'm sitting in the locker room after the game, a young coach, wondering if the sun would come up the next day and wondering if my team would ever win a game (or even score a basket) the rest of the season. And then a someone peeked into my locker room and it was Coach Gipson. He asked if he could speak with me for a minute. He went on to say that what he was doing was "out of character" and that he had never approached another coach in his locker room after a game. He said, "Your doing a great job, your team plays harder than any other team we have faced all year and your going to be hard to beat...your a bright young coach, keep your head up." I can't begin to tell you how much that meant to me. He did not have to do that...what a class act. I was choking back tears as I turned and walked off after thanking him and shaking his hand. As we both walked in seperate directions down the hall he turned and said, "coach", and I said "yes" and he said "we played above ourselves tonight, were not 40 points better... have a safe trip back to Abilene."
I vowed that day that if I was still coaching at his age I would go out of my way to encourage every young coach that I played against. And if I ever coach again...I plan on keeping that vow.
My first year as a head coach I inherited a team that had won 6 games the previous season and we were not supposed to be very good. To everyone's surprise we got off to a very good start, in fact, we had equaled the previous season's win total (6) just 9 games into the season (6-3). Moreover, we continued to win games and be competitive even as the difficult conference season began. Then we traveled to Tahlequah, Oklahoma. We were playing Northeastern Oklahoma State University coached by Larry Gipson. Larry was twice my age as I was the youngest head coach in NCAA Division II at the time (27 years old!!!). Larry is known as one of the top coaches in the country as he had been a head coach at the highest level in college (NCAA Division I) and won both a Junior College National Championship and an NCAA Division II National Champioship. It was one of the most miserable and humiliating nights of my life as his team completly dominated mine and we ended up losing by 40 points. I'm sitting in the locker room after the game, a young coach, wondering if the sun would come up the next day and wondering if my team would ever win a game (or even score a basket) the rest of the season. And then a someone peeked into my locker room and it was Coach Gipson. He asked if he could speak with me for a minute. He went on to say that what he was doing was "out of character" and that he had never approached another coach in his locker room after a game. He said, "Your doing a great job, your team plays harder than any other team we have faced all year and your going to be hard to beat...your a bright young coach, keep your head up." I can't begin to tell you how much that meant to me. He did not have to do that...what a class act. I was choking back tears as I turned and walked off after thanking him and shaking his hand. As we both walked in seperate directions down the hall he turned and said, "coach", and I said "yes" and he said "we played above ourselves tonight, were not 40 points better... have a safe trip back to Abilene."
I vowed that day that if I was still coaching at his age I would go out of my way to encourage every young coach that I played against. And if I ever coach again...I plan on keeping that vow.
3 Comments:
What a great story! Is watching the tournament igniting "coaching fever"?
My underdog team this year is SIU-Carbondale. At least IL still has a team to root for!
That's good stuff, friend. NSU is near my ole stomping grounds. I've been on campus there many times for random games and tourneys and such.
Wish I had actually made it out to a game to see you coach in TX. Of course, I just wish we had known each other then!
It was only 39 points remember!
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