By Wayne G. Brumm
SYF Nike Coach
ORLANDO — We are in Orlando, anxiously awaiting the start of the Nike Super Showcase. Our performance in the Peach Jam earned us the No. 2 seed in the 32-team Gold Division. Boo Williams is the top seed, meaning we would not see them until the championship game should both teams win all their games.
I am beginning to wonder if I will ever coach a team this talented and mentally strong again. This team of SYF Players is very talented! They refuse to lose. The game is important to them; it is not just something they do.
A journalist asked me after the Peach Jam championship game if it is important to win games in the summer, since the main objective seems to be to showcase the players to college coaches. I had the reporter look at our bench. Every one of our 14 players (we brought along several youngsters to let them feel the experience) was sitting on the bench with his head down, obviously dejected about getting beat.
It was not an act. They were not content just to be in the championship game; instead, they were feeling the loss from head to toe.
I quickly informed the reporter that winning these games are very important, not for me or SYF, but for the development of these young men. Winning is a habit. Winners expect to win, and win, and win, and win. There is not an alternative.
Please don���?�t confuse this with winning is the only thing. I do not subscribe to that philosophy. Successful people in all walks of life are accustomed and programmed to win. They are defeated at times like all of us, but they deal with defeat much differently than the average person. They learn from it, they dissect it, and they despise it.
Losing is also a habit — a habit that should not be nurtured, but treated like second-hand smoke. Our society has turned into one of expecting a gold medal for just participating. This will hurt us eventually as other countries (China and India, specifically) produce well-educated winners.
I don���?�t mean to digress, but we at SYF take this opportunity of coaching basketball as an opportunity of teaching life���?�s lessons through the game of basketball. For example, our loss to Boo Williams in the Peach Jam championship was not fair (27 free attempts for them, compared with our two), but life is not fair. Another lesson that we are constantly preaching is that giving your best is sometimes not good enough. This is a lesson our society needs to latch onto if we are going to continue being the economic superpower.
I do know this: The SYF Players in 2005 are winners. Their record against top national competition this spring and summer is 32-5. They have taken first or second in every tournament they have entered (the only exception was the recent Hoosier Shootout, where seven of our players were not present due to the Nike All-American Camp). Every player has continued to get better, and they have developed winning as a habit, both individually and as a team.
I do not know if all of them will end up earning scholarship offers, but they will compete successfully in the game of life.
The Showcase and AAU Nationals run back-to-back. If we win all of our games, our schedule beginning July 25 will involve two games a day for seven straight days, followed by two days of single games. This will be an endurance test, a survival of the fittest. And if some of our young players continue to gain confidence, we will be prepared for this.
We have eight juniors-to-be playing on this senior-to-be team, and three of them start. Next year should be another strong year for SYF. However, we have a nine-day marathon staring us in the face. I want this team to end the season on a high note. They are special individuals and comprise a special team. They deserve to go out on a high note. Better yet, they expect to go out on a high note. Winners do that!
Catch you on the rebound.
Wayne
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