Remembering the Positives

Before the 2009 season started, I have to admit, I thought that this year the players would start to reap the benefits of their hard work. You hear it all the time in sports..."Oh, we're young" and "This is a rebuilding year", and I had hoped that those declarations would stop applying to the Stout team. However, I think I have learned some valuable lessons this year as a coach.

We are, indeed, a young team. Sixteen of our players are freshmen or sophomores, six are juniors and we have one lone senior. The juniors and senior we have are possibly past the "young" label, but when so much of our team are brand new faces who are trying to navigate our expectations and our systems for the first time, it takes some time to build.

Building takes patience and a deliberately positive approach. I admit that I was lacking a bit of both for some of this year. By nature, I am an incredibly competitive person with not as much patience as I like to tell myself I have. Any team who works as hard as this team does deserves a lucky bounce every once in a while, and too many times this year I have let myself get wrapped up in the frustrations of the last-minute losses. Nine games have been lost by one goal and five of those one-goal losses happened in overtime or in the last ten minutes of the game. This team deserves to be on the other end of some of those tight games.

This team continues to persevere. They have incredible chemistry and a willingness to keep going. Several players are continuing to improve, willing to learn and working tirelessly for that lucky bounce that is bound to come. They are connecting, they are defending, they are working and they are encouraging. Positive building is happening, despite what the record books might say.

We are not yet done with the 2009 season. We have three games in the span of four days this upcoming weekend, and I personally plan to take the approach of pointing out all the phenomenal things this group of women are doing. There are plenty of things to compliment, and even if this year has ended up being one of those "rebuilding" years, I want to make sure that we build with the best bricks we can.