Winning Losers (continued)
by Rodney Taylor
We lost two more games. We did not lose these games, we were annihilated. Things were not looking any better when we played a team that had beaten us three times before. I told my team that it didn’t matter what they had done before. It only mattered what they would do now. We came out firing on all cylinders. We outscored them 13 to 3 in the first quarter. We had a 17-to-10-point lead at halftime. At halftime, I talked to my team in the locker room. I told them if you lead at halftime, you don’t get half a win. We had to put two halves together to get one win. We came out and outscored Mt. Lebanon 16 to 12 in the second half and won by 12 points. We finally had won. All of the losses did not matter. The losses made this win that much better. The boys were proud, and I was even more proud.
We lost our next game. I was mad, but I got over it. After that game, one of the parents stopped and thanked me. He told me that the coach before had simply quit because the team had not won any games. The kids were thankful for a great season, but I was thankful for such a great group of kids. We had only won a single game, but we had never given up; we had earned it.
At the banquet, I said I would be returning for another season and I did. The following season, I had 15 kids try out. Three kids did not try out from the previous season, but my mark had been made; I was able to get kids interested because I cared. Of the 15 kids who tried out, there were kids who I was told were problem children. I was told that these kids were “talented, but lacked discipline.” I said that I did not care what these kids had done before; I only care what they did now. One of these kids told me that a coach from our school said I would not be able to control these kids because I was 19. This angered me. I was going to prove that I could coach.
The first game of the year, we played the Jewish Community Center. I now had three black kids on my team. Needless to say, no racial epithets were shared this time around. As I stated, the year earlier the JCC had been the highest-scoring team. Not this year; we won by one point. The next game, we won by 29. We won six games in a row. We had the highest scoring offense. There was only one team that could beat us that year. That team was ourselves. We were 6-0 and we played Belle Vernon. We jumped on to a 14-6 lead and we got arrogant and ended up losing the game in the last minute. We won three more games and lost another game we had the lead in. We lost another game after that.
We still had a little less than half the season to go. One of my players, Taivon, spoke up after that loss and said that we were not going to lose another game for the rest of the year. Everyone agreed.
Taivon was one of the kids who was referred to as “talented, but lacking discipline.” Taivon would not address me as Coach Taylor. He always called me Coach Rod. It stuck and the other players started calling me Coach Rod. Taivon was the best player on the team and he had the best attitude. Normally, I would have the players vote for captain, but he just assumed the role and I did not stop him. Anytime we needed a word of encouragement, Taivon knew what to say. Anytime we needed a clutch basket, Taivon made it. Teachers, parents and coaches told me that T was trouble. They were wrong. I was told by his legal guardian that Taivon did not care about basketball until he played for me. That was truly a compliment. Taivon calls me to this day when he needs advice or just simply needs someone to talk to.
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