The Habit of Winning

Winning is not a sometime thing. You don't win once in a while. You don't do things right once in awhile. You do them right all the time.

Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. There is no room for second place. There is only one place in our game and that is first place. It is and always has been an athletes zeal to be first in anything that they do, and to win, and to win, and to win. 

Every time and athlete goes out to play, she's got to play from the ground up. She must play from the soles of her feet right up to the top of their head. Every inch of her has to play. Some ladies play with their heads. That's okay- you've got to be smart to be number one in any business, but more important, you've got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you are lucky enough to find a lady with a good head on her shoulders and a lot of heart, she's never going to come off the court second. 

Running a basketball team is no different from running any other kind of organization- an army, a political party, a business. The problems are the same. The objective is to win. To beat the other competitors. To beat the other team. Maybe that sounds cruel and hard. I don't think so. 

It is a reality of life that women are competitive and the most competitive games draws competitive women. That's why they are there to compete. I firmly believe that in their way women are more competitive than men are. They know the rules and the objective when they get in the game. The objective being to win. I have never known a woman worth her salt who, in the long run, deep down in her heart did not appreciate the grind, and the discipline necessary to be competitive in the game. There is something in good women that really yearns for a needs discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

I don't say these things because I believe in the brute nature of women, or that woman must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any woman's finest hour, her greatest fulfillment to all she holds dear, is the moment when she has worked her heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted by the side of the court of battle- VICTORIOUS. 

"Winner gets tired during the game. Champions get tired after."

- Coach Parham

Advice He bestowed upon me upon entering adulthood and officiating me as a permanent member of the Ankara Lady Trojans Varsity Basketball Team.

I don't think He knows just how accurate this is in my life right at this moment.