1980 GWA Girls BB

From 6-13-14

Every new year brings athletic teams and fans hopes for a great season. All the teams start out undefeated, but very few stay that way very long. Things have changed in High School sports as some coaches have found it's easier to recruit, than to develop their own talent. In my 50 year career the dream was to win every game, but your head was usually smarter than your heart. We had some teams so strong that we could have sent the other team the final score before the game started. We also had some teams that when one of our players dribbled, I was afraid he would miss the floor. My 3rd year of coaching we had one of those great teams that won 29 straight and we were close to perfection. But that 1961 Newton county team lost in the state semi- finals.I'll tell that story another day. Then in 1965 we were coming off a State Championship season and had most of our team back. We had won 69 out of our last 70 games, we were on a 42 game winning streak, but once again fate dealt us a loss in the State Semi-finals (another long story for another day). Then in 1980 we knew we had a great George Walton Academy girls team that had it all. This is the story for today. This was one of those years where both of our teams were outstanding, but we knew in our boys league there was a team in our way that had an unbeaten string that eventually became the second longest winning streak in HS history. We had worked with this group of girls for several years in developing their skills. We had it all, this was to be the team that had a chance for perfection, I just had to be careful and not mess it up. We had fantastic parental support, we fed our team so often I was afraid that they wouldn't be able to jump. Everything was done to make them feel special. We had a starting line-up loaded with one of the most fundamentally sound and intelligent group of players that I had ever coached. We had 3 lighting-fast players that could play on any part of the court. Pat Bowick was a young lady that could make moves that I had never seen a girl player make. Kim McCullers was such a scorer that some nights she could score from the parking lot. Then there was Sandra Kitchens, one of my favorites because when she had the ball, I knew something exciting was about to happen for our team. Sandra was one of the most fundamentally sound players that I ever coached. On the inside we had our enforcers in Sheri Capes, whose Dad played and Mom cheered for the first team I coached over 20 years before and a very strong Shelly Van Brocklin, daughter of the famous Coach Norm Van Brocklin. We always put our players in a fine hotel for the state tournament so that we could try and control meetings, meals, and avoid any distraction that might handicap our efforts that had gone into this very special opportunity. Many times you can be sabotaged by things you can't control, such as jealous teammates or friends, grades, outside activities. etc. You realize you are close to something you'll never forget. The players think they are just having fun, but the coach knows the results are going to be there the rest of their life. We rolled into the State semi-finals with a 28 game winning streak, but facing a tough South Georgia team that had a reputation for chewing up the nice girls from up North. They had a girl that had a vicious reputation and I knew from scouting that she could destroy our girls by herself. We spent half the day showing lighting quick McCullers how she was to come off Van Brocklins' screen and a collision had better occur. I must have said it 10 times, "Shelly if you don't knock her butt off, you won't be on the floor tonight". That night when the girl ran into the screen that Shelly set, the outcome was settled. Some players enjoy hitting others, but don't think it is as much fun when they get hit. Finally, reaching a place in a career never reached before, negatives can be recalled.I remembered when our best player saw her boyfriend with another girl and cried all through our semi-final game and the utter humiliating meeting when the old woman coach said to me, "Sonny boy you had a pretty good team." I still remembered the terrible loss to our cross town rivals when I played in the HS finals, but the most recent was the night before when our twin sons lost to the team that was on the way to the 2nd longest winning streak in HS history. I had to leave the floor two times during our finals warm- ups as I knew that would be the last time I would ever coach our sons, Bill and Bob, who had brought so much pleasure to our lives. I realized our boys would be hurting with long faces, so I moved our girls team to a different hotel to create a happier environment. That night we lost to a team that we know we were better than. It was one of the most perfect games I had ever seen with neither team making mistakes. In the last minute of play we lost in a heartbreaking 48 to 46 score. Sometimes a player or coach doesn't realize how much a season means until it is gone. I would gladly work another year, without pay, to play that game over.