I write this with tongue in cheek, because at one point, I didn’t want to join the ranks with you.

I didn’t know much about women in sports at the time I began, and truly, I didn’t have a goal to stick around for very long. I rode the bench in my first days of playing, and I didn’t see a point to playing in high school or college, much less coaching. Of course, a growth spurt and some extra skills and drills will change many people’s minds about participation in athletics (*ahem* as it did mine), but I still viewed my future as enjoying the game on a day-by-day basis while I could play, without consideration for more down the road.

Cue a well-timed injury, and I was back on the bench, left to contribute to my team the only way I knew: coaching. I took more time to watch the game, and I had more emotional space to people-watch and remember, too. I recalled the mental freeze frames I’d kept of those who came before me, and I considered who I wanted to emulate.

Thankfully, you were on my list.

It’s a funny thing to realize, sitting here as a coach of young women, that I value my time with you even more in retrospect. We experienced a lot together – odd hours of practice and conditioning and travel, tight game situations, and all the transitions in the middle. I have many questions and there is so much I still don’t know, but I hold deep memories of what I saw from you.

• You gave me my first picture of women in sport. You were the model I had of a woman who knew her sport and earned respect from athletes, regardless of gender.
• I saw your self-respect that never wavered, even as you challenged others and took challenges yourself.
• I saw your heart for players, to see them grow into confident and capable young women who refused to make excuses for themselves.
• I saw your honesty in correcting my team and me and in affirming our character as people first.
• You made yourself a safe place for your players to go in a world often led (and, dare I say, misunderstood) by men.
• You knew how to play to our strengths with male coaches, reminding them that we need different approaches and priorities than guys do.

Now, I sit here on the bench as a coach, reminiscing and laughing with you as I pick up more experience from the sideline. Was it always so frustrating to try to teach us players something you knew would work, but we didn’t believe? Did you see yourself in us, working to achieve our best, even when we didn’t know what our best was? When you got home at night, did you wonder about how you interacted with players off the court as much as on the court?

There’s an element in all this that astounds me: you insisted that we could be women. In spite of all the pressure and off-handed comments we heard about our sport not being like the men’s sport of the same name, you refused to believe we had to be like men to play well. Sure, we participated in lifting programs and we ate more than our female peers and we wore sweat more often than makeup. We could participate in the habits and practices male athletes do, but in our own way. Time after time, you reminded us that our game was just that: ours, and it didn’t need to look like or be a man’s game if we were the ones who played it. You allowed us to be ourselves, our best selves, and that meant pushing us to places higher and different than we might’ve settled otherwise. What is more, you did this in a way that built us up and built us together.

I think that piece is the one I remember most: you valued relationships. You let us come early and stay late, whether to train or talk about feelings that, historically, sport told us to shut down. You reminded us players that we were whole people, needing the “team” aspect as much as the “sport” aspect of team sports. You faced us toward each other to handle conflict instead of speaking for us or fixing everything. You reminded me that my mind needed as much conditioning and rest as my body did, confirming that my state of mind required protection as much as the home court or field did. We could do a lot more than we thought, you reminded, but we wouldn’t get far if we didn’t take care of ourselves, inside and out. You nurtured us, helping us practice wholeness with grit, no matter what we encountered.

So, thank you. Thank you for showing us athletes that we can be women who rock gym shoes as well as heels, personal bests as well as solid grades. Thank you for reminding us that the people – the relationships, how we interact with our team or our opponent, and what we are willing to do for others – are more important than the wins and losses. You believed we could fight to win, and you led us well in that. When the losses came, you treated us with no less respect than if we had won, even if you also gave a kick in the pants!

Thank you for doing these things with humility, which makes it easier for us players to understand that it isn’t all about us when it’s our turn to give back. I admire you immensely, and I hope to have a positive impact on the young women I coach, the way you did on me and my teammates.

Truly, I want to be like you when I grow up.

Thank you, Coach. May God bless you as you’ve blessed me.