A Sad Story: ‘Wait until Next Year’

In 1998, my high school program was invited to a JV tournament at one of the best programs in Illinois at that point: Sacred Heart-Griffin. I had a good group of freshmen and sophomores, so I figured we’d be competitive. We were. We went 4-1 that day and the SHG coach asked if we wanted to schedule a varsity match for 1999.

Tangential: Our 1998 team wasn’t good–two seniors with horrid attitudes, strong enough personalities that they made life miserable for everyone on the varsity (enabled partially because they played on a ‘-elite’ club team…woohoo. My opinion is that the SHG was aware of this and figured playing us would be a good early season tune-up to prepare for their tough CS-8 conference schedule. Me?? I figured we’d get whooped but that it is always good to get a foot in the door with your team to a tougher schedule–and I was pretty sure that we’d be good in 2-3 years.

Back to the JV: That wound up being a LONG Saturday. It wasn’t because a ton of matches went the limit. It was because SHG’s best JV player wound up with a serious injury (it turned out to be a knee ligament tear) which caused a delay while trainers/staff took care of everything. I can’t tell you anything more than our record–and that injury. I remember nothing else.

1999: We wound up heading over to SHG to open the season. I was skeptical how we’d do once we started playing teams, but it was absolutely obvious that we were a team–we had no dominant negative attitudes. Hell, we didn’t have a SINGLE negative attitude. It was a fun group to spend 90-120 minutes with at every practice.

So we do the two hour drive over to Springfield. We play F/S…get smeared. We play JV…get smeared (of course, this is because they were playing juniors and we had a mosh…with the most talented So/Jr not dressing JV–they were in our varsity lineup). I should note, too, here, that SHG was five times the size of our school. More kids and all of their kids played club.

So we go out and lose the first set 9-15 (sideout scoring). We played pretty well. SHG had two good hitters–one of whom was the kid injured in the JV tourney the year before. She’d been cleared for full activity right at the start of pre-season practice. My kids were frustrated–they thought they’d made a couple stupid mistakes that led to SHG runs…so they wanted to get back out on the court quick for the second set.

We start the second set on a quick run after giving up a point–we get up 5-1 on a bang-bang play and SHG’s coach calls timeout. My kids come over, excited…blah-blah-blah in the timeout and right back out to the court. SHG’s kids put their hands up to shout ‘team’, stepped towards the court. And then…

That kid who’d blown her knee out, rehabbed it to come back for her senior season? She took one step out of the huddle and destiny decided that one step was enough torque or force to pop the ligament again. She collapsed to the ground, her senior season done after 30 total points.

We beat them the last two sets–but I don’t remember the score. I spent most of the rest of the evening thinking (and obviously still do) about that kid–getting to play a single tournament as a junior, doing rehab and then playing less than one match as a senior…two years “lost” to surgeries.

I don’t remember her name. I don’t remember what she looks like, but she has stuck with me for 24 years. Tomorrow is promised to no one. Fate does weird things. I hope she overcame it all and that life has been good.

I knew the SHG JV coach–he said that the head coach spent the next month telling the team ‘if we had _____, we’d be better.” They had their only losing season ever that year. The head coach couldn’t get past the injury.

We went home and had a 95-degree day (no AC in the gym) but the girls unanimously wanted a full practice. The win made them see they had more than potential–and the girls who’d been at the ’98 JV tournament knew it was the same kid…they understood that all it took was a fluke or an injury to derail things and that they wanted to work hard to maximize their opportunity. We wound up 24-7 and won a regional…and then went 64-9 the two years after that.

As a coach, be thankful you can be in a gym. Be thankful you have young people who want to be there with you. Appreciate doing something you enjoy–and remember the children are there because they enjoy it as well. There’s time enough for work and seriousness later in life…it’s important to enjoy the ride–you never know when you’ll lose it.