Second chance

Gene Steinmeyer

I got a call from my wife, Michele, about a month ago, informing me one of my former Doane College players was on the Northwest campus. My former player had a daughter that was visiting campus and talking to the Bearcat softball coaches.

The player’s name was Lynne. She was a point guard for me at the college in Crete, Nebraska. Lynne first came to Doane College in 1986. I was just starting to build the program and had a great recruiting class. The problem was all the players were freshmen or sophomores.

During Lynne’s freshman year, we had a miserable record. I think our record was 10-21, but the potential was there. We had beaten Washburn, the top nationally ranked NCAA Division II team, in a game at Doane, only to be beaten by the University of Nebraska-Kearney by 40 points two nights later. It was like Forest Gump’s box of chocolates; I never knew what I would get.

Worse than the losses was the attitude of the players. As a coach, you can feel it when you don’t have the respect of your players. Most of the young players had come from very successful high school programs. They had never experienced the failure 21 losses bring to a team.

Thankfully, I had a very loyal assistant coach, Karen. She suffered with me and felt the same disrespect from the players. Her husband was a college football coach. Just before our first game of the year, Karen found out she was pregnant with their first child. I would only have Karen on my staff for one year.

After the final 21st loss of the season, Karen and I sat down to talk about the future. Even though Karen would not be back as a coach, I trusted her opinion. I had a super-state point guard coming in the next season. Put her with all the talent on my present team, and the future looked bright. Both Karen and I knew we had to get the players on campus pointed in the right direction.

There were rumors some of our best players were considering transferring to other colleges. Those players felt like they were jumping off a sinking ship. I certainly wasn’t going to beg them to stay, but I had to do something that proved to the team things would be different.

Karen and I decided the “bad apples” had to go. Two players stood out. Both were talented and both were very poor teammates. They were negative and constantly stirring up drama on the team. They weren’t the only ones, but in Karen and my opinions, they were the leaders of the trouble.

One of those players was Lynne. The other was a sophomore. I called them into my office and told them they were dismissed from the team. Of course, both argued they weren’t the main problem, but I was firm in my decision. The sophomore transferred but Lynne decided to stay at Doane.

The dismissals had the affect Karen and I had hoped would occur. None of the talented freshmen left school and the super-state player came to Doane full of confidence. The super-state player was a point guard, which was Lynne’s position.

When Lynne returned to school that fall, she stopped by my office. She looked like she had worked very hard over the summer to be in great physical condition. She pleaded with me to reinstate her to the team. I thought I had seen the last of Lynne, but now I had to make another tough decision.

I guess it was the guts it took Lynne to ask back on the team or maybe it was how hard she had worked during the summer. Whatever changed my mind, I did decide to put her back on the roster, but with big restrictions. I told her she would be on the last five of a roster that included 25 players.

The bottom of those 25 players weren’t even close to college talent. They were just giving basketball a shot, something most private schools encourage. I told her she wouldn’t move up the depth chart until regular practices started. Even then, I would only promote her slowly. If any sign of that bad attitude returned, Lynne would never see a Doane uniform.

Lynne did exactly what I asked. She never complained and played with new intensity, even though she was paired with some very poor players. I made it as tough as I could on Lynne. By the time we tipped the season off in November, Lynne was backing up our super-state freshman at point guard.

Lynne played all four years for me at Doane College. She never started a varsity game after her freshman year. Don’t let that fool you. Lynne was as valuable as any player on those teams. Doane College won 24 games that next year and even made the Sweet 16 in the NAIA National Tournament before Lynne graduated.

I took Lynne, her husband and daughter to lunch that day about a month ago. She asked me to tell her daughter the whole story. For once, I didn’t embellish any facts. Lynne confirmed it. It was too good a story and her daughter looked impressed with her mother’s actions.

Lynne was very unique. I coached college basketball for 28 years. Never in that time did a player ask to be reinstated. In truth, I never dismissed for bad attitudes again. Players were dismissed for violating drug rules, poor grades, or mental health reasons, but never for just being an attitude problem.

Maybe I should have given a few more players the boot. I guess Lynne taught me never to give up on a player too early. I think I learned a bigger lesson than Lynne.