Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I cried in a locker room. Here's why.
As sophomore tryouts ended in November, Coach Short and I sat down to determine final cuts. As freshmen the boys had only won about six games out of 25. We figured to keep most of that team's starters. But what about the rest? By most accounts that team was filled with great personalities, but struggled scoring the basketball.
The school's basketball program was fresh off of a state finals appearance. It had a promising crop of freshmen (who would go on to win more than 20 games). Would it be best for the program to move lots of them up to our team to advance their development?
In the end we took just two freshmen on, and broke camp with this roster.
Colin Olson - the football quarterback who played ball-hawking defense and enjoyed passing the ball and quietly coaching his teammates more than taking his own shot.
Christian Arjona - the baseball catcher who used his smarts to cut seams in the defense and always managed to get to the right spot on the court.
Kyle Sosa - the point guard and silent leader who set a season record for charges taken (and maybe for dives for loose balls), who played to exhaustion when he was sick or when we were short on back-ups, who guarded opponents like they were trying to break into his house.
Nick Lanman - who transferred in from Charleston but fit in with an easy joke and a smile like he'd lived here all his life, pushed himself and others in practice to be better with his big body, and never complained.
Grant Donath - the multi-sport talent who drove the lane to find open teammates, slipped into passing lanes for steals, and could dominate a game at either end of the court.
Parker Fields - the soft-spoken mound of rebound who was one who faithfully attended summer workouts and developed into a defensive rock who made several inspirational buckets in traffic down the stretch.
Zach Thompson - the fearless sharpshooting freshman with a 150-pound body who played like he was 225, inviting and absorbing punishment in the lane without changing expression, and a student of defense.
Jerry Patton - the fastest player and part of the life of the locker room, who terrorized defenders in practice and games with his offensive rebounding.
Brandon Nuckolls - the fun-loving powerhouse who, as our tallest post player, routinely matched up against opponents who loomed over him, but attacked them relentlessly and at times dominantly.
Tyler Seibring - the do-everything freshman and tallest player who was as likely to grab double-digit rebounds as he was to make four three-pointers, in no small part because he hung around after every practice for extra shooting and wore out the nets.
Ben Wylde - the unsung glue and blue-collar soul of the team who started every game, drew the toughest defensive assignment whether guard or post player, scored double-digit points or rebounds whenever the team needed it, and made steel-nerved shots in crunch time.
Alex Prus - the emblem of the Ironmen Way. He came to summer sessions, slapped more hands with more enthusiasm than a Catholic nun, coached encouragement from the sidelines as if he were paid to do it, and no matter how how much he played in games.
As part of those final cuts, Coach pulled the sophomores into a room and made it clear that it was likely several freshmen would join the team and play ahead of them over the course of the year, and that if they remained with the team it would be under those conditions.
Every one of them stayed.
What the team lacked in some mainstream basketball skills was generously filled with hustle, selflessness, encouragement, and energy. Sitting next to these guys on the bench was like participating in a yearlong cheerleading competition. The team we chose (or, to give fairest credit, Coach Short ultimately chose) put greater weight on honoring the program's newly minted Ironmen Way, our philosophy that "The secret of basketball is that it isn't about basketball." It's about toughness, practice, killing yourself defensively, ignoring personal statistics. It's about becoming better teammates, better friends, better family members, better men. They had no cliques. Went out socially. Welcomed the freshmen gladly into the fold like big brothers.
We struggled to a 1-2 opening tournament, losing leads to Normal West and Bloomington in the process.
Tyler broke out with six three-pointers against Urbana in a shootout win, and then we had our first convincing victory over Bradley-Bourbonnais. We were rolling.
Adversity struck when Grant went down with an ankle injury that sidelined him for several weeks. We came frustratingly close to overcoming the hole in our scoring and rebounding, losing our next seven. Six of those seven games were decided by either a single missed free throw, layup, or a 3-pointer being called a 2-pointer.
Following one of those bitter last-second losses at Mahomet leading into the Christmas break, we huddled mutely in the locker room as Coach Short gathered us in sitting closely. In his own inimitable way, he spent those seminal five minutes telling us how much he loved us, loved coming to practice with us. We broke the huddle not with the usual fist-bumps, but with grateful hugs.
The post-Christmas Rockton tournament was part of that stretch too. The Ironmen Way includes scheduling the toughest opponents to build the confidence and character of our team. We played three games in a single day in a cold dome, the first against a physically superior Rockford team that we lost to by a point, and the last against a fresh-legged Rockton team in front of their home fans.
We were 4-9. The schedule ahead was filled with big names like Moline, Danville, Champaign Central, Normal West, and O'Fallon. We went a six-week stretch without a home game.
During one of the long, cold bus rides from another loss, Coach looked me in the eye and said "If we want to have a chance of finishing above .500, we have to beat Eisenhower twice."
And though the bus rides were long and cold, they were also upbeat. The doldrums usually roll around in January even on a winning team, the middle of a five-month season. The symptoms of weakness like flagging energy, aches and pains, and grousing emerge. But nothing like that was here.
Our record was poor and laced with heartbreaking losses. And still, we were a winning team.
We beat an inferior opponent to close out the Rockton tournament, in which everyone played, and the starters cheered on their teammates for the entire fourth quarter.
We beat Eisenhower.
We beat Moline.
We beat Danville, on the strength of a brilliant 15-point second half run that eventually turned a 10-point deficit into a 20-point lead.
Watching video was getting to be a lot of fun for Coach and me, the way our offense flowed with sharp passing, our trademark defense suffocated opponents. It was like an Ironmen Way clinic. We were also starting to integrate a few more freshmen into the ranks who were making valuable contributions, which naturally diminished minutes of sophomores, who continued to root them on from the sidelines.
Champaign Central was to be the #1 seed in the year-end sophomore tournament, and they asserted themselves with a handy 15-point win over us at their place.
Normal West nipped us again on the road for the second time of the season.
Next came a mighty O'Fallon squad with a state-ranked program. We traveled 3 hours to their gym knowing that, in this part of the state, junior varsity meant exactly that - they played juniors on their team. And after they manhandled us for the first half, we stormed back magically... only to miss a game-winning fast break layup near the buzzer, give up two rebounds on free throws, and miss one of our own for another tantalizing yet sobering loss.
That day I found myself saying in the locker room that we had taken their best punch without flinching, and fought our way back. The way that men do. This is the reason that we coach.
As we neared the finish line at 8-12, it was decided to return the extra freshmen to their team, which went on to win the freshmen tournament. Grant spent several practices with the varsity. We lost Christian to an ankle injury. Coach and I occasionally found ourselves running the court so that we could have ten bodies in practice (so I guess we can say that everyone on the bench got playing time this year!).
We beat Eisenhower again, and likewise a struggling Mattoon team in its last season in our conference.
All that remained was the sophomore tournament spread over two Saturdays, with a road game at Bloomington in between.
It made complete sense what we were seeded seventh out of eight teams. We'd played five of the teams above us and lost them all, including twice to West.
Coach and I were determined to put the same all-out intensity into our preparation for these final weeks as the players had given so devotedly to the team through nearly fifty practices and twenty games. We scoured video of all the teams that we might play - Bloomington, Mahomet, West, Champaign Central. Went to each other's houses, e-mailed and texted ideas. Made notes of tendencies of every individual opposing player, their set plays, their offensive and defensive patterns. Typed up one-page scouting reports with strategies. At one in the morning. At five in the morning. Toughness matters.
Once you've given your very best, the rest is in God's hands. As part of that, this year the tournament happened to be at our gym. For all of our ups and downs, we were undefeated at home. I suppose you could say with a wink that part of the true selflessness of this team was that they made a lot of home fans happy all year long.
The scouting paid off handsomely against Mahomet. They had brought up four freshmen. Our thinking was "If we nearly beat O'Fallon with juniors, we can beat Mahomet with freshmen." And beat them we did, building an 11-point fourth quarter lead and shutting down their top two scorers. The #2 seed fell.
We had a week of practice to get ready for two different styles - the fast-paced man-to-man slash-and-pressure of Bloomington, and West's trapping zone and catalog of screen plays. We added some new offensive and defensive sets.
In our final non-tournament game, Bloomington drifted out to a 13-3 lead in the first half. We battled back to within 22-20 at half. And then teamwork handed us a smothering victory. Brandon and Parker held their 20-point 250-pound bruiser to zero shots. Zero! In total they had only four shots inside the paint in the second half. They grew increasingly desperate, launching threes and off-balance shots, unable to get rebounds. Meanwhile our offense found its rhythm. We gave up only 13 second half points to win handily.
In the midst of our celebration, Kyle wore a blank expression on his face, unable to remember what had just happened or whether we'd won or lost. He was taken to the emergency room and diagnosed with some concussion-like symptoms. Our point guard and rock was out for tomorrow's tournament finals.
I believe that everything happens for a divine reason, usually for a good reason, even when we can't understand why. In my heart, I believe that it was so that Alex, who had gone entire games without seeing action, could start against West. He did, and he scored, and we controlled the game from start to finish in reaching the championship game.
Champaign Central had an outstanding set of guards, the most athletic in the tournament. How would we counteract it with our guard-depleted roster? As it turns out, we didn't have to. Bloomington beat them in the semifinals. God works in mysterious ways. As fate also had it, Bloomington's big post player had to miss the championship game. Say what you want about the breaks. We spent a season strengthening our character against forces that would crumble a lesser team. Now it was their turn.
Bloomington edged out to another first quarter lead as the stands, normally thin for any sophomore game, began to fill. They hit some three pointers, we missed ours. And then we did what Ironmen do. Grant sliced into the lane for layups. Tyler grabbed rebounds and scored in the paint. Zach broke loose for ten points in the third quarter. Alex played a steadily against their pressure. Ben, Brandon and Parker sealed the lane off from shots and second shots - once-and-done.
We had three players in double figures. And with under a minute left, five substitutes came into the game as the crowd roared in ovation.
Fittingly, Colin held the ball patiently in his arms as the clock expired, and the underdog Ironmen "officially" become champions.
Family crowded the court as a dozen cameras captured our pose with the trophy under the basket.
The team poured into the locker room exuberantly. Coach Short mingled with some fans before entering the locker room. I stood on the court, recalling some of the many things I've shared above. Varsity Coach Witzig led off the post-game team locker room speech with words of congratulations. Then it was my turn.
As much as I like to think that I cried because of how happy my departed dad would have been to see us win, it might be more mortal and selfish than that. I'm just going to miss these guys. I'll give thanks to God the rest of my life for having had the chance to be a part of it. I've been on sports and professional teams for 30+ years before finding one as good as this. They'll go into the world, and fifty years from now, have a real chance to look back and see this as the greatest group of men they were ever among. And I told them so.
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