A Coach's Response to Post-Season Basketball

This weekend marked the end to a basketball season I wasn't sure I would ever have again.

The year ended with a tear-filled locker room, the sting of coming close but not quite close enough draped palpably like a wet blanket over all of us in our final moments together. But of course it did. Looking back, I remember now that this is how it ends every year. I've now coached basketball for 14 years, and each year has ended this way. For all but one team in each class of the state, this is how it must be.

Before the game I offered these words to the team: "No matter what happens tonight, you will remember this. You won't remember every game you've played, but this is a district game. Whatever happens, win or lose, you will remember this game and what you did in it." Looking back over those fourteen years, I say that out of experience. I do remember the district games. For each team.

I remember the ball screen at the top of the key giving us fits in the 4th quarter of one district game that would have likely propelled us into a state tournament. I remember the night a senior took a quick two with little time left when we needed three. Then there was the missed defensive assignment coupled with the missed shots in overtime from another senior in another year. There was the night that was the last ever post-season game for the school, the last one I'd coach in for this district that was merging with another, and I remember none of the school leaders who had been responsible for that decision bothering to be in attendance. And in all of them, sobbing seniors saying goodbye, both boys and girls, the reality of an end they could never truly feel come crashing down.

I've been furtively cursing the outcome under my breath at random times during the past day or two, spouting off stats, or pivotal officiating decisions, or the name of the opposing player who had been averaging 4 points a game and somehow scored 19. Relaxed one minute, engaged in a routine task; the next, I know (or perhaps my wife knows) a tone of exasperated incredulity takes hold.

It is a difficult pill investing that much time, energy, emotion, and not feeling the reward. Each entry into the post-season you fool yourself. It will end badly. Despite knowing that, you don't allow yourself to believe it through all the preparation. You painstakingly stare at stats and film, diagramming every scenario, refusing to get outworked. In the end, though, it will just not be enough.

Post-season basketball only works out well for one team. The rest are left to rot in a sea of regret and what-ifs. But lest I paint too grim a picture, lest I sound like a wounded victim questioning the sanity of it all, I move to this realization: much of life is that way as well. It will not always work out. In fact, often times it won't. If you dare to commit and risk big, you will be let down at some point. That's why it's a risk. That's why many simply don't.

And that's why in basketball, and whatever life pursuits in which you engage, if the end result is the ultimate, and the journey is only the immediate, you are on a futile path.

Of course the end result matters. We wouldn't be there, committed, working, if it didn't. But it can't be it. It can't even be most of it. It's got to be worth it knowing that it very well could end up unsuccessfully. I've gotten a lot of mileage in the classroom out of one of my favorite catch phrases: "Success feels good." I'm now thinking it needs a little modification: "The pursuit of success feels good." If it doesn't, if the chase isn't worth it regardless of the result, then it's probably the wrong success to be chasing.

The day after the game, after a couple of inches of snow covered my driveway, my friend, fellow coach, and occasional snow-blower fairy came over. There was nothing left to say we hadn't said. But we kept talking. It's hard to let go of it. It's hard to quit fighting, quit trying to find a way to eradicate the outcome. And it's hard because the journey was good. The pursuit calls. Eight months away from the next season, we're hungry for the work again.

It will end just as poorly. There will be disappointment. There will be tears. If I am lucky enough to be a part of it, another season, another journey, I will choke back my own emotion as I hug good-bye to tear-stained teenagers who I won't have the opportunity to journey with any more. The buzzer will sound, at some point, and somebody else will be high-fiving; I will watch but try not to, stewing in envy.

And I will remember it. Just like each one before it. But more importantly, I will remember those kids and those coaches and the days we spent together, pursuing a worthy goal, sharing a commitment, and smiling along the way. The end is ugly and hard, but only because the journey itself was colored with joy.