I have argued for years that high school basketball is the last bastion of basketball where it is still a game.  Though corrupted at times, for the most part high school basketball is a very pure thing – high school kids growing up with their buddies, forming very special relationships over the years, and then the culmination of all the work by doing their best (though often not good enough, per se) to try to accomplish something magnificent – the ultimate goal which is of course your state championship.

Last year, myself and my team were fortunate enough, blessed enough, and good enough to win the Texas 5-A state championship.  We came back with a bullseye big as Texas (I know it’s kinda corny, but I do love Texas) on our chest, having graduated three players totaling 19’ 9”, 38 ppg, 23 rpg, and all our senior leadership…and we gave it hell.

I am a firm subscriber to the “fake it till you make it” mindset.  “Why can’t I win a state championship?”, “Why can’t I date the prettiest girl in the room?”, etc.  Well, I believe also that your team takes on your personality and your actions (spoken or not…) and I felt we could repeat.  So, I worked from Day #1 to sell them on the fact that we could repeat and win back-to-back state championships.  I asked them, “Why can’t we win it twice?  Nobody gave us a chance to win the first one, so the heck with them anyway.”  We put it on our tee shirts, our posters, our written goals.  Our whole mindset was “Back 2 Back.”

Now, between you and me and the whole Internet, we had several holes in our team, but we went after it hard (like I said, we took everybody’s best punch this season, and still finished 26-8 and 3 rounds into the playoffs) and gave it hell and one very memorable moment is what I believe is one of this teams biggest victories:

· Bigger than overcoming self doubt
· Bigger than overcoming being more of a marked man than ever
· Bigger than learning to have faith (which is, by definition, “belief without proof”) in teammates that, quite
    frankly, didn’t deserve it at times…
· Bigger than any of the media attention lavished upon us…

We lost with class

With 3.5 seconds left and us down 5 points I called timeout and said some of the hardest words of my life…”Guys, we aren’t going to win this game.  This hurts me as much, if not more than you, but we aren’t going to win this game.  And you know what, the whole world is watching.  Two thousand people are watching with their own eyes.  This is being televised.  The whole state, our fans and our enemies, are watching.  And you know what, we are going to lose with class.  You know why?  Because your parents raised you right.  And you don’t want to embarrass yourself, your family, or your basketball team by doing anything you would regret later.”

Well, that’s all well and good, but what made me cry tears of pride as I watched it was that my guys, with tears in their eyes and their poor teenage hearts broken, did what I asked (and their parents expected) and acted like the grown men that makes their parents and myself so proud.  To have class under pressure, to have dignity in the hardest of times, those are the defining moments of life.

I feel the greatest victories aren’t on the scoreboard.  The state championship rings, the trophies, the TV appearances and all are nice, but they are ephemeral.  The victory is in the journey.  Measure yourself not by the product but the pureness of the process…

Though it sounds corny, it’s about what you have in the worst of times!!

As I write this article, I am crying tears of pride of how much class my guys had under the greatest of pressure and makes me think of the Man in the Arena speech given by FDR:

It is not the critic that counts.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust, sweat, and blood.
Who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, fails while daring greatly.
So that he shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

My mother, Karen Inman (bless her heart for dealing with me and my father Ken) is the author of almost all the “Inmanisms” that my players so love to rag me about.  Well one of my favorites is “Love people and use things.  Don’t love things and use people.”  That phrase has always stayed near my heart and as I watched my guys “walk the line” (basketball vernacular for shaking hands after the game) with their hearts broken my heart swelled with pride.

I never know the effect I have on my players, but I know one thing.  I pray that I had 1% the effect on you that you had on me.  If I did, then all the effort was worth it.  I love you guys more, not less than ever, and remember one thing…

You are my heroes and you guys are all that is right with high school sports!!!