It's easy to lose it

1-8-90

Perspective: It's easy to lose it

It was a pretty good week for Cobber sports. But the week's events caused a lapse in perspective that was regrettable.

It should have been almost impossible this past week for me to get out of whack with reality. But, still, I managed to do it with ease. And our Lady Cobber basketball team suffered the brunt of my stupidity.

Maybe it had something to do with the moon-phase. I certainly wasn't alone.

The Minnesota Vikings fans were chewing on the Central Division champions like they had committed high treason for losing to Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. A serious loss of perspective.

The NBA fans in the second-year expansion cities were turning ugly over the fact that their teams weren't winners yet. No grip on reality there.

And the Gopher basketball team's home win over Illinois was being interpreted as a sure ticket to the Final Four. The folks who were saying these things had just finished filing away their stories about how the Vikings were a lock for the Super Bowl.

In addition to these warning signs about the dangers of living in a dream world, there occurred events closer to home which should have served as examples of how to properly appreciate life's little successes.

When the Cobber men's basketball team broke their eight-game losing streak with a well-played win at St. Olaf they were positively ecstatic. This young team expressed innocent, uncluttered joy over earning a victory.

The Cobber hockey team pulled off a split over nationally-ranked St. Thomas in St. Paul. They had sense enough to appreciate that what they had accomplished was worth savoring.

And the Cobber wrestling team finished fifth in the eleven-team North Country Invitational. It was a good finish against tough competition and they wrestled well.

They were mature enough to realize that they could take some satisfaction in their performance. And they did.

While all these lessons on maintaining perspective were floating around, I lost mine.

The Lady Cobber basketball team spent the past week raising their record in the MIAC to 6-0. They beat their three opponents by margins of 17, 28, and 33 points respectively. This Lady Cobber crew is off to a 9-3 start and may well contend for both the MIAC title and NCAA post-season honors.

These young women are doing this despite the fact that there are 6 freshmen among the top 14 players, at least five of whom have played key roles. A sophomore transfer student has been a starter most of the year.

The Lady Cobbers have lost four former All-Americans to graduation in the past two years and have only one senior on the squad. For a team that is just getting to know each other's names they are playing pretty well.

Add to this the fact that, due to early-season injuries, two top recruits have only been in the lineup for a few weeks and one of the top three veterans on the team has been hobbled with a knee injury for a month.

This Lady Cobber team has worked hard for nearly three months to transform themselves from a collection of strangers into a good team. Anyone over the age of twelve should have been able to conclude that, all things considered, a 9-3 start and a 6-0 record in conference play isn't too bad. Right? Wrong.

After watching the Lady Cobbers win by 33 at Hamline on Monday night for their fourth straight win, and the second win on a long weekend road trip, their tyrannical assistant coach (me) ripped into them like they had just sold their mothers into slavery.

Sure, we won. But not with the artistic excellence we should be exhibiting. Stupid turnovers, Hamline shooters left open, the wrong type of pass being thrown on the break, being passive when we should be aggressive, being over-anxious when we should be patient. I used every coaching cliche I could think of, regardless of how contradictory one was from the other, as I careened through my cruel hysterical tirade.

There was nothing calculated about it. It was not some clever ploy. It was just childish ranting by a spoiled coach.

I had tried to teach them to be dazzling when they play this game and tonight I had failed. I was not going to let them take any satisfaction in a win which so clearly demonstrated that I was doing a poor job of teaching.

As the last hint of satisfaction over their victory drained from their faces I reached for the cruelest cut of all and delivered it with precision. "If you keep playing like that you'll never be as good as any of the past Lady Cobber teams. You are an insult to a proud tradition."

Duane Siverson, the head coach, stared at me with a look of controlled astonishment. This team has a right to seek its own role in Cobber basketball, playing against its own potential, not the ghosts of past Lady Cobber teams. I had violated that right.

As I walked out of the locker room the satisfaction in berating them for my failures quickly turned into a sense of foolishness.

Standing near the gym floor were the Hamline players, laughing and talking with parents and fans, obviously proud that they had played their best game of a so-far winless season.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@cord.edu . These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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