A Time, A Team, A Season To Remember.

BASKETBALL COACHES do everything possible to prepare their teams for a maximum performance against each and every opponent. They break down film, make sure the players are in top shape, and work them long and hard on every facet of the game.

And yet there are always a few X factors -- psychological nuances -- that tend to be overlooked. Not necessarily a last-second shot or a motivational ploy, but something that may be a little closer to the heart.

I call them "teachable moments." The first of these overlooked moments is teaching young people how to handle a tough loss. It's easy to teach a kid how to win. It's far tougher to teach her how to lose.

I speak from experience. I was very fortunate to have my high school girls team win 39 games in a row. It started in the 1999-2000 season when we won our last 15 games in a row (including the state championship), then continued the next season when we won 24 in a row before losing the last game of the regular season.

My team was devastated and the tears flowed, as was inevitable. But it did not stop the girls from leaving the floor the same way they had done for the past 39 games. They shook hands with the winning team and left the court with their heads held high.

In the lockerroom afterward, I explained that winning was the easy part of basketball, and that it took a special kind of athlete to lose with pride and learn from the loss rather than fall apart.

They had a choice. They could use the loss as an excuse to lose again or they could learn from their mistake and be better prepared for the next opponent. And they could start right now by leaving the lockerroom with their heads up.

The second teachable moment that is often ignored by coaches is the last game of the season for the senior players. As the head coach of a small school in central Missouri over the past five years, I have sat through a losing season, parent confrontations, heartbreaking losses, and a state championship.

But the lowest point of my career involved none of those things. It was saying goodbye to the seniors who were a part of my life for four years.

Sure, no coach wants to think about the last game and most of us go into shock when it finally arrives. But I resolved to handle it another way. I would begin involving myself with my seniors, both on and off the court, early in the season.

Over the course of the year, we attended college games together as a team, ate pizza together as a team, and even saw a movie together as a team ("Remember the Titans").

During the regular season, the girls achieved a huge amount of success, including three tournament championships and a 39-game winning streak. Unfortunately, on the next to last week of the season, our All-State player suffered a torn ACL -- the same kind of injury she had suffered on her other knee during the summer.

We lost a game. We had to regroup as a team and press on. Two weeks and four games later, we lost the district championship game and finished the season 25-2.

Rather than dwell on what might have been, I reminded my super seniors of how much they had gained from playing basketball. Sure, they had lost a game they should have won, and maybe their season had ended sooner than they had expected. But I reminded them of what basketball had done for them.

By being a member of a team, they had learned how to work with others and learned the importance of sacrifice, commitment, self-discipline, motivation, success, and failure.

I thanked my five seniors for leading by example, for being leaders on and off the court, and for establishing a tradition for excellence for the future of our program.

As a basketball coach, we sometimes become obsessed with the thought that winning is the only thing and we forget the many valuable lessons that this game teaches our athletes and that will eventually make them more successful in life.

As we held hands for the last time last season and, for a few of us, maybe the last time ever, I thanked my seniors for all of their contributions, reminded my underclassmen that there is always a next year, and thanked every team member for teaching me to be a better coach and, more importantly, to be a better person.