Benefits of overnight travel can outweigh deterrents for both team and player My coach wants us to go to a tournament and stay in a hotel, but my mom says it’s a stupid idea. She says it’s just high school sports, and kids need to stay home and take care of their classwork. What do I tell her so she’ll let me go? A.G., Sunnyvale ometimes even moms get it wrong — and I think yours didn’t quite think this one through. If interscholastic sports are an important part of the process of going to high school, and one would think they are since schools sponsor them, then as with anything, they are worth doing right. And though going away for a tournament and staying in a motel with a bunch of other teenagers might not be conducive to getting a lot of homework done, or reading the thrilling “The Scarlet Letter” that English teachers somehow perceive as being of lasting value, it does have an impact on teams and team success. To begin with, travelling to a tournament definitely helps teammates forge bonds. There’s nothing like going on the road to make players realize that they have to be there for each other because no one else will be. My favorite story is a trip the Campolindo girls’ basketball team took to Windsor, Ariz., in the mid-’90s. Windsor is on the Navajo reservation, and the team was almost all Native American. We played the host team in the championship, and one of the moms asked me before the game what our chances were. I said “About 75 percent,” and she was shocked (I think we went on to the NorCal finals that year, or at least came close, so we were pretty good). I said, “Look, they’re going to foul our best players out, and they’re a solid team.” Sure enough, our top players get in foul trouble, and we’re down 13 in the fourth quarter — but the whistles stop and we come back to force it into overtime. At that point, another one of our stars fouled out and we lost. The crowd of 900 excited Native Americans were standing and screaming the whole time. After the game, fans came up to me and said things like “Windsor never loses here — because of the refs,” and “You deserved to win that game,” and other shows of support. Finally, an old Native American came up to me and put his arm on my shoulder. He looked at me and said “Now you know how Custer felt.” There’s certainly no question that our team got much closer after going through that kind of crucible, and even if the circumstances aren’t quite that dramatic, a road trip helps a group of people transform themselves into a team — and often forces kids to get to know each other better, and thus understand each other a little more. And if it’s important enough for schools to have teams, then it’s important for those teams to do the things necessary to be good teams — and traveling together clearly helps. But watch out for the arrows. ✪
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Behind the Clipboard
To begin with, travelling to a tournament definitely helps teammates forge bonds. There’s nothing like going on the road to make players realize that they have to be there for each other because no one else will be.
Clay Kallam
Clay Kallam is an assistant athletic director and girls varsity basketball coach at Bentley High in Lafayette. To submit a question for Behind the Clipboard, email Coach Kallam at clayk@fullcourt.com
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SportStars™
December 22, 2011
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