Article by RIck Reilly of Sports Illustrated

This is one of my favorite articles by Rick Reilly, the fabulous columnist for Sports Illustrated. It reminds me of the many, many games I have coached (with both boys and girls).

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Out of Touch with My Feminine Side

You think it's hard coaching in the Final Four? You think it's tough handling 280-pound seniors, freshmen with agents, athletic directors with pockets full of pink slips? Please. Try coaching seventh-grade girls. After working with boys for 11 years, I helped coach my daughter Rae's school basketball team this winter. I learned something about seventh-grade girls: They're usually in the bathroom.

In one tight spot I was looking around madly for my best defensive guard to send in. "Where is she?" I yelled. "In the bathroom, crying," our little guard in the blue rectangular glasses said. "Her friends kicked her out of their group today." Worse, when one girl ran to the bathroom crying, three others automatically followed to console her, followed by three others to console them, followed by three others who didn't really want to go but were sucked in by seventh-grade-girl gravitational pull. This would always leave just me and the girl in the blue rectangular glasses, who would slurp on her Dum-Dum and shrug.

Students at Rae's small school are required to go out for at least one sport a year, and 11 girls came out for basketball. But you never had the idea the game was more important in their lives than, say, Chap Stick. For instance we had a forward who never stopped adjusting her butterfly hair clips, even during our full-court press. Before the opening tip-off of our first game, she came back from the center-court captains' meeting and announced, "O.K., the ref said whoever wins the tip thingy gets to go toward that basket." Well, that would be an interesting rule.

Another difference between boys and girls: Girls have many questions. Our team meetings were sometimes longer than our practices. Apparently girls use team meetings as a chance to process feelings, whereas boys use team meetings as a chance to give each other wedgies. During our first meeting we had long, emotional deliberations over what our huddle cheer would be and whether we should wear matching bracelets. Then one of our best dribblers stood up, took a deep breath and said, "I have an announcement. I am not going to bring the ball up this year, because last year Sherry got yelled at by everybody because she didn't pass them the ball, and I don't want to get yelled at." As if! During one game our best rebounder slammed the ball down and stomped off the court. "Everybody's yelling my name, and I'm sick of it!" she said, and ran to the bathroom -- followed by the mandatory nine other girls. I looked at the little guard in the blue rectangular glasses, who popped her Dum-Dum out of her mouth and said, "Don't worry, Coach. She's having her period."

You think Red Auerbach ever had to deal with this stuff? Coaching girls was fun. It was rewarding. It was awkward. When they came off the court, it was difficult to know how to give them their "good job" pat. On the.... Nope. On the.... Nope. I always ended up just tapping them lightly on the top of the head. But not so I messed up their butterfly hair clips.

One thing about our team: We were always polite. One time my tallest and gentlest player tried to block a shot and accidentally hit the shooter on top of the head. Our player covered her mouth in horror with both hands, enabling the other girl to drop in a layup. "I thought I hurt her!" our player explained. I believe that started my facial tic.We lost worse than Michael Dukakis. We got creamed our first eight games, losing one 23-2 and another 19-1. Yet the girls were over it the second the games ended. (Quite often, in fact, they were over it in the third quarter.) Afterward they headed to the one place they loved to be together -- the bathroom.

Finally, in our ninth game, all heaven broke loose. For the first time we hit the cutter for a layup. Our shooting guard hit three running 15-footers. We hadn't even hit a 15-foot pass to that point. We came from behind and won 16-15 in a shootout, capped by the little guard in the blue rectangular glasses setting the most beautiful pick to free up the player who made the winning layup. In all my years of coaching, I never felt more giddy than after that win. In the delirious celebration, I grabbed the shoulders of the little girl in the blue rectangular glasses and yelled, "That was the greatest pick I've ever seen!" And she screamed, "What's a pick?"

Sports Illustrated, Issue date: April 8, 2002

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