Pounding the Rock

One of my coaching jobs was starting a girl’s basketball program at a local charter school. It was a challenge especially since we didn’t have any basketballs. The girls had to bring their own and only three of them had ever played before. We had only outdoor goals, so we played all our games at the other team’s gyms. We made it through the first year and learned a lot.

Things started to look up the second year. In summer we had a once a week voluntary practice at my church gym to help recruit players. That’s where I met a sixth grader named Josie. I knew I had something special the first time I saw her dribble. I couldn’t tell whether she was right or left handed, she was great with both. Besides being athletic she was a hard worker and a leader, a transformational player for our team. We added a few other good players and had a much better second season. 

The third season we joined the TCSAAL, the Texas Charter School Academic and Athletic League in the ninth and tenth grade division. We went through our conference season undefeated and were on to the playoffs. In the state semifinal game we traveled to Katy and won easily led by Josie. She set a school record scoring thirty points and assisted on most of the other baskets. We lost in the state finals, but considered the season a major success.

The following summer I got some sad news. Josie was transferring to another school. I was upset for days. How would we replace a player like her? Our other girls were good, but nobody could take her place. I kept thinking of how I was going to restructure the team with Josie gone. 

One night I was watching San Antonio Spurs playoff game. Coach “Pop”, Gregg Popovich, was talking to the team during a time out. Just before the team went back on the floor he told them “Keep pounding the rock.”

I didn’t know what he meant. The “rock” is a slang term for the basketball, but pounding it made no sense. Sometimes coaches say to pound the ball inside, meaning pass the ball to the interior of the court, but that wasn’t what they were doing. 

I did some checking and found out coach Pop was using “pound the rock” as the team mantra. Pop was referring to a quote from Jacob Riss. “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” He was telling his team to keep at it. Keep doing the things that will eventually pay off.

That fall before practices started we had a team gathering at my house. We ate, played games and socialized. Before the girls left I took them out into the yard. There was a three pound hammer and a limestone rock a foot in diameter and four inches thick. I told them the saying by Jacob Riss and that each girl would get three swings at the rock. They put on safety googles and each had their turns with nothing happening. Finally the last girl gave it a try and on her second blow the rock split in two. I said, “Get the message.”

They came to every practice with a resolve I hadn’t seen before in a team. I would give them harder and harder things to do every practice and they kept at it. I had “Pound the Rock” printed on a t-shirt I would wear at practice and would repeat the mantra many times. They had gained so much confidence that when the season started they believed in themselves and their teammates. They no longer waited for Josie to make the big play. They had to make the plays themselves and they did. No one player could replace Josie, but together they could through the confidence they gained by persevering. They had made their own transformation.

Coach Mac, our boys coach came to see them play. He said, “They are amazing. You can’t tell by watching them if they are way ahead, way behind or dead even. They are relentless.” They kept pounding the rock.

We breezed through the conference season and playoffs to a birth in the state semi-finals. There we played a team from Dallas that was much more talented. They had the fastest girl I had ever seen in person. We were ready for them and fought to a tie in regulation play. We ended up losing in overtime by 2 points to a team that easily won the championship game. After the game we stood on the court where we had literally left our blood, sweat and tears. It was a bitter loss, but I was so proud of what the girls had learned and the heart they showed. 

We had a meal at a local burger place and were joined by Josie and her dad. They came to watch the team. As I looked at the girls eating and talking I thought of our season and hoped they would continue to believe in themselves and pound the rock.

We received a trophy for winning the conference title that is kept in the school office. I have a precious trophy of my own. It’s the team picture from that season. I keep it in a place where I will see it several times each day. When looking at it I remember that Inch by Inch it’s a cinch, see that post, but only if you keep at it over and over again, pounding the rock. Also that the real prize is not an external trophy that collects dust in an office. It’s internal, how you feel about yourself and your teammates when you keep pounding the rock.

May you have enough today one moment at a time.