Millionaire coach supports prep girls hoops team

This story is pretty awesome.

A USA Today feature profiles Coach Jim Justice who, over the past  25 years, has coached more than 1,000 games — from AAU teams to West Virginia’s Greenbrier East girls high school team, which he took over 10 years ago.

What makes the 58-year old coach different from most high school basketball coaches is the fact that for him, it’s much more than just a job. He’s a millionaire who owns coal mines, farms and the nearby Greenbrier Resort.

He’s a coach whose generosity directly benefits his players. He paid $300,000 to have a parquet floor installed in the Greenbrier East Gym. At every game, the players run through an inflatable tunnel to the court when they’re introduced, and a video screen flashes their pictures.

When two feet of snow threatened to postpone a game against Huntington Spring Valley in late December, Justice hired a contractor to plow the parking lot.

Jeff Bryant, principal at Greenbrier East, admits there might have been cynics when Justice took the job. After all, why would a wealthy businessman want to coach? And how would he have time?

“That’s so pitifully easy to explain,” Justice says. “I love the game.”

He says he thinks he makes $3,300 to coach but doesn’t  know for sure because he gives the money to his assistant coaches.”

“There’s a lot more to him than what’s in his pocket,” wrote Alexis Hornbuckle, a former Justice pupil, in an e-mail. “He has a great heart and is a very loving and forgiving man.”

Hornbuckle played on one of his AAU teams before leading South Charleston to victory vs. Greenbrier East in the 2004 championship game. She played on two NCAA championship teams at Tennessee and now is with the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock.

For those who believe that wealth transcends dollars, Justice is an example of someone who has gotten way more back from life than he’s been able to give.
Video

Role of a Sub

A player who shows envy or jealousy toward the starting team is often judged to have a poor attitude. In truth, envy and jealousy are natural feelings. It’s how a player handles her feelings that determines whether she is team-oriented.

Not wanting to sit on the bench is perfectly acceptable. If you’re a player who has given everything you’ve got, and it’s not good enough to be a starter, you can either quit the team and take on another challenging project, or accept the role of being a substitute, knowing you will have opportunities to contribute to your team’s success.

A substitute must learn to take satisfaction in performing steadily and reliably each time she steps on the floor including 100% effort in practice. A team can only be as good as the players they practice against. If the starters practiced against a group that was not giving it their best shot, they’d have a tough time improving. But if they have to scratch and fight every day to beat the subs, they’ll improve easily.

How a substitute handles feelings of jealousy or disappointment determines her attitude and her team spirit. A substitute should never:

Start or listen to gossip that alienates the team against another team member

Sulk or act disinterested while on the bench

Put a damper on everyone’s spirits after a game because she didn’t play, or

Grumble about having to practice with the weaker players.

The role of the substitute is difficult to master, but its rewards are worth the effort.

Auriemma to be named U.S. Women’s Basketball Coach

The NCAA championships are over, the WNBA Draft is done and just when you thought there might be a lull in women’s basketball comes major breaking news.

UConn’s Geno Auriemma, 55, will be named coach of the U.S women’s basketball team through the 2012 Olympics. The university has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday in Storrs.

Auriemma just won his sixth national title at UConn as the Huskies finished off an unbeaten season (39-0) by defeating Louisville in the NCAA women’s final last week. He will serve as head coach through the Summer Games in London.

According to the Hartford Courant:

Auriemma is the first active college coach to head an Olympic team since Tara VanDerveer in 1996. Auriemma became eligible to coach the Olympic team after the USA Basketball executive committee approved a rule change last month. In the past, the Olympic head coaches were required to have WNBA coaching experience. Now the coach must only have five years experience as either an assistant or head coach at any level at the time of the selection.

The U.S., which has won four straight Olympic gold medals, will first have a chance to qualify for the London games at the FIBA World Championships in 2010 in the Czech Republic. The winner of that tournament will receive an automatic berth to the 2012 Games

Olympians Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi, former UConn players who also won national titles playing for Auriemma, are likely to be on the U.S. roster.

Being a big UConn fan, this news is huge. There’s no doubt Auriemma is an amazing coach and will serve the U.S. team well.

Surely pundits will have a lot to say about the news in the coming days and months so we’ll keep you posted.

Summitt reaches new heights: 1,000 wins

Pat Summitt now has 1,000 victories, an unprecedented height even she finds dizzying.

“It’s a hard number to even comprehend,” the Tennessee coach said.

Summitt, 56,  became the first Division I basketball coach—men’s or women’s—to win 1,000 career games Thursday night as her 12th-ranked Lady Vols beat Georgia 73-43. It was their second chance in four days at giving their coach her latest and one of her greatest milestones.

Summitt’s grand achievement took place in front of 16,058 adoring fans.

En route to the milestone, Summitt has made a remarkable journey. Her Tennessee teams have won eight NCAA titles, made 16 NCAA Final Four appearances and captured 27 Southeastern Conference regular season and tournament championships. She has coached 12 Olympians, 19 All-Americans, 71 All-SEC performers, 43 players who have gone on to the professional ranks, as well as numerous members of U.S. National Teams. Amazingly, every Lady Vol women’s basketball player since 1976 has played in at least one Final Four during her career at Tennessee.

Wow. That’s some resume. So why does her male counterpart at Tennessee, who’s won nary a single NCAA championship, make almost twice as much money as she does?

C. Vivian Stringer becomes third women’s coach with 800 wins

PISCATAWAY, N.J. Feb. 28, 2008 – C. Vivian Stringer has joined one of college basketball’s most elite clubs.

The Hall of Famer became the third women’s basketball coach to win 800 games, joining Pat Summitt and Jody Conradt, with No. 4 Rutgers’ 60-46 victory over DePaul on Wednesday night.

Everyone at the game was given signs marking the 800th victory, but the Scarlet Knights couldn’t start celebrating until the final minute. With 30 seconds left, fans gave Stringer a standing ovation and chanted her initials CVS. When the clock reached zero, senior Essence Carson threw her coach the game ball.

The following day, U.S. Senators Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced a Senate Resolution to honor Stringer.

Football fever for India`s only female coach

Not only can Anita Sarkar bend it like David Beckham, she’s coaching an all-male football team in Kolkata to do the same.Sarkar, who is in her 40s, is the only woman coach registered with the Indian Football Association. She started playing football in clubs in 1975, representing the state of West Bengal in various tournaments, before turning coach in 1996.

“My aim is to produce excellent players for the country,” said Sarkar who lives and breathes football and who was trained in coaching at England’s renowned Football Association.

In addition to coaching the Mirzapur Union Club, Sarkar recently set up a football camp in Kolkata to train up to 50 boys to play the beautiful game.

Many Indians have compared Sarkar’s story to hit Bollywood movie ‘Chak De India’, which features superstar Shahrukh Khan as the coach of a women’s hockey team.

Read Central Chronicle story

Varsity Girl – Lettering in a Sport

Do you know what it means to “letter” in soccer or swimming?

The varsity letter for most schools is awarded for both talent and effort. It is designed to be a valued award for hard work, dedication, and ability.

The achievement of a varsity letter is not a right, but rather the result of a personal responsibility to act and behave all season in a “Varsity Manner,” meaning, an above average commitment to the team, the sport, to hard work and to improvement.
To earn a varsity letter in a particular sport, an athlete must fulfull certain requirements which may include some or all of the following:

1. Finish the season in good standing with the coaches.
2. Maintain a “varsity attitude” throughout the season. A varsity attitude is demonstrated by an above-average commitment to the team’s goals, to the sport and to one’s individual improvement.
3. Finish the season with a 2.0 GPA.
4. Don’t quit. Quitting for any reason prior to the end of the season will generally disqualify an athlete from a letter.
5. Play at least 50% of the time for team sports or score points in the league championship or state meets for individual sports.

Rules vary from school to school but generally a letter can be earned by anyone from any grade level and an athlete can purchase a Letter Jacket after earning her first varsity letter. Some schools require a certain number of hours of community service or attendance at extracurricular events.

Some elite athletes are multiple letter(wo)men (e.g. if someone is a three year lettermen in both soccer and basketball, she played sufficient time on both the varsity soccer and basetball teams for three years). For the eligibility requirements of your particular school check with your athletic department.

Pretty Tough Trivia

Did you know that the birth of the varsity letter is attributed to Harvard? In 1865, the Harvard baseball team added an old English ‘H’ embroidered on their gray flannel shirts. The football team started to use the ‘H’ in 1875. It is not known when the letterman sweater came to high schools but there are examples seen in photos taken around 1910.