A climb to the mountain top: how one coach did it.

After reading several articles in Scholastic Coach, I began wondering whether there were any other coaches like myself out there in Disneyland.

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As a boy, I had dreamed of taking over the sorriest football team in the United States and turning them into national champions.

As a college athlete, I made a great team as a freshman and stayed around for three more years--without ever getting off the bench.

At the age of 38, after coaching about a dozen less than sensational teams, I am back at my high school as a teacher and the coach of the JV girls' basketball team.

Hardly a Hall of Fame dossier, but I consider myself a lucky and successful person--because I found out who I was and allowed it to change my perspective on coaching and the role I now play in it.

Growing up in Pickens, SC, I played out all of my dreams in the backyard of our country home--football, track, basketball, I was never the best athlete, but I tried to outwork the more gifted ones.

As a 7th and 8th grader, I went out for basketball and was cut both years. Finally, I made the JV team in the 10th grade.

After graduating from Pickens, I became a walk-on at the U. of South Carolina; and went on to make two nationally rated football teams. The downside: I rode the bench for four straight years!

But the experience gave me great insight into football coaching. We were worked very hard by a good coaching staff--whose practices could sometimes be mistaken for survival tests.

Over the next 10 years, I coached at various high schools and got married in 1993. Following a disastrous season as a high school coach, I joined the ranks of the unemployed as a football coach.

When I eventually returned to Pickens High School, it was as a teacher (and, later, as the assistant coach of the boys basketball team).

It hurt to be passed over as a football coach, but the hand of the Lord works in mysterious ways.

In 1997, my first daughter was born. I had always wanted a boy and our first child was a girl. But God knows what He is doing. My daughter has been a blessing. In 1999, God blessed us with another daughter.

This has changed me probably more than anything other than my faith in God. It was with my girls that I started looking back at the way I had treated students and athletes. I began asking myself: "Is this how I would want my girls to be treated? Isn't every athlete the star of some parent's eyes?"

Probably the biggest coaching job of my life arrived in 2000. The new varsity girls' basketball coach asked me to coach the JV team when he got the varsity girls' job. I was ready to turn it down, but the varsity coach appeared in person and persuaded me to take the job.

I know that JV girls' basketball doesn't rate very high on the profile list of "major" sports, but not at Pickens High School. My players have become very important.

To me, the sport they play (JV basketball) is the most important sport in the world. I have had to fight battles to get them the respect and recognition they deserve. No longer do other coaches say "You are just JV, you don't matter." The other coaches know I won't stand for that.

Coaches have to have the courage to defend his players and make them feel important. I have learned to stand my ground and stick up for my players. Seeing our kids be successful is very gratifying to me.

We are no longer the laughing stock of the conference. The last three years, we have finished third, first, and third, and have achieved just as much success off the court.

Through the years, I have had both good and bad experiences as an athlete, teacher, and coach. It has taken me 20 years to understand the reason why things happen. I am glad I can tell kids that I got cut from the basketball team ... right before I cut them. I know exactly how it feels.

I think it helps my team's chemistry when I inform them of my experiences as a rejected candidate, a starter, and a bench warmer. I have been all of these things.

I know what it is like to be part of a major college sport. I also know how it feels to be shunned by your peers both as a player and coach.

I can teach my players how to persevere. I know what it is like to have to earn respect, and I teach my players how to do it.

Looking back over the years, who would have ever thought I could get excited about a JV girls' basketball game. Not attaining the earlier goals I had set in life has helped me feel that God has other plans for me.

I have learned I can be a very positive influence in a person's life, no matter what the gender.

Female athletes appreciate what you do for them just as much or more than other athletes in high profile sports. To me, personally, they have been easier to coach than my former football athletes.

The players in our basketball program are also great role models for my daughters. The more these kids do for our program, the easier it will be for my daughters when they get to high school.

Whenever you are asked to coach a sport, keep in mind why you are being asked and whom you are coaching. As a former coach once told me, "Life got better when I figured out that coaching wasn't about myself."

The sport you coach may not be high profile and you may not be the head coach. But the influence you can have on your athletes will make them appreciate you for a lifetime.

No matter what the sport or who the athlete, give them your all in the climb to the coaching mountain top.

By Wes Hendricks, JV Girls Basketball Coach Pickens (SC) High School