Each different week in The Coach’s Field, Timothy Thomas explores the assorted classes that may be realized from the world of sports activities.
The NCAA March Insanity Males’s and Ladies’s Match is formally underway. However even because the sports activities world celebrates Ladies’s Historical past Month and 50 years of Title IX, there’s a narrative seldom advised concerning the first and solely HBCU (Traditionally Black School or College) basketball program to play within the NCAA nationwide championships.
The story of the Cheyney College (then School) ladies’s basketball program, which was highlighted by Sports activities Illustrated‘s Ben Pickman in March 2022, is considered one of American lore. Their story incorporates all the heroic American qualities we’ve grown to like in sports activities tales: grit, perseverance, and dedication. But, Cheyney’s basketball saga isn’t—if ever—talked about. Now the time is due—albeit overdue—to have fun the 1982 Cheyney ladies’s workforce for its preternatural journey. Doing so can assist followers, athletes, and coaches higher cherish the inestimable worth of our journeys simply as a lot as the worth of our achievements.
It’s astonishing that C. Vivian Stringer amassed 251 wins as a head basketball coach for the Cheyney School Girl Wolves after volunteering her teaching providers. Cheyney School initially employed her in 1971 as an assistant professor. She taught well being, bodily training, and group and administration. “I by no means received paid,” Stringer advised Sports activities Illustrated. “I used to be simply grateful to have that chance.”
So long as we’re keen to persevere and belief in God’s course of, now we have greater than an opportunity.
The identical was true of the gamers she coached. None of them acquired athletic scholarships. They didn’t even have an ample locker room: they dressed for his or her video games of their dorm rooms moderately than Cheyney’s classroom, which was their makeshift locker room. They by no means stayed in inns as a result of value; as an alternative, they bused again to campus after their video games.
“We by no means felt sorry for us,” Stringer advised SI. “As a result of we didn’t have something, we feared nobody and I feel that was the best motivation on the earth.”
Probably the most vital take a look at of Cheyney’s resolve got here throughout their historic 1981-82 season when Stringer’s toddler, Nina, was identified with spinal meningitis. Assistant coaches Carlotta Schaffer and Ann Hill coated for Stringer, making certain that the Girl Wolves didn’t miss a beat when their head coach needed to be away for her daughter.
By means of all of it, Cheyney certified for the first-ever NCAA Ladies’s Basketball event because of their fast-paced offensive play. Because the workforce dominated their option to the Last 4, Coach Stringer traveled again to Philadelphia between video games to be together with her daughter.
When the Girl Wolves defeated Maryland College by a ten-point margin within the Last 4, solely two opponents stood of their manner of a championship. One was the Louisiana Tech Girl Techsters. The opposite was a bout of menstrual cramps that just about debilitated the Girl Wolves’ star participant, Yolanda Laney. Laney didn’t even assume she may get away from bed on the morning of the championship recreation, not to mention play. However, she did however. Regardless of the ache and setbacks, the Girl Wolves took an early lead within the contest, however ultimately fell to the Girl Techsters.
Because the Girl Wolves sat surprised within the locker room after their loss, Coach Stringer inspired them: “Maintain your heads up. We had been right here. No person else can say that.”
Instances have definitely modified. However the wrestle that molded the Girl Wolves right into a nationwide championship runner-up is a narrative that’s not like any earlier than it, nor will there ever be one other one prefer it in school basketball.
Too typically in sports activities we solely sit up for who would be the subsequent nice athlete or workforce to “wow” us. We don’t spend as a lot time remembering and reflecting on previous winners and losers. Every athlete and workforce has a journey that shapes who or what they’re at this time. After we neglect the reminiscence of these journeys, we dilute legacies.
The identical is true for our private and non secular lives. Take into account all that the Lord has introduced you thru. Take into account your personal tales of perseverance, wrestle, downfall, and redemption. The paths that God has sustained us on—even to at the present time—have molded us into jars of clay that comprise treasures past measure (2 Corinthians 4:7). Lecrae says it finest in his latest music “Journey” from the Church Garments 4 album: “If you going via, cling to God, let Him maintain you/It ain’t the vacation spot, it’s the journey that molds you.”
After many years and not using a workforce, Cheyney College revived the Girl Wolves for the 2022-23 season. And greater than 40 years later, the 1982 Cheyney workforce acquired a nomination to the 2023 James Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame. ESPN additionally debuted The Lone Wolves, an SC Featured documentary spotlighting Cheyney’s profitable season. “I feel this workforce confirmed what’s potential,” mentioned producer Temitayo Anjou. “Whatever the circumstances and what one could or could not have for those who’ve received devoted gamers who wish to compete, there’s at all times an opportunity.”
That’s probably the most vital takeaway for all of us, no matter whether or not our aggressive days are behind us or we’re simply struggling to dwell via day-after-day. So long as we’re keen to persevere and belief in God’s course of, now we have greater than an opportunity. We have now the reassurance of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and glory awaiting us.
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