I got into the radio business because I wanted to broadcast big games like the one the Warsaw girls basketball team will play Saturday night in Indianapolis.
I listened to announcers who made me feel like I was at the game, even when I wasn’t. I have spent my life trying to do the same for others.
Along the way, I have experienced several ‘side benefits’ over 34 years.
One of those is watching young people “get it”. Even more, I love it when an entire group of young people get it at the same time.
I have seen that in the last 14 months in the Lady Tigers.
If you are a parent or grandparent, or even an aunt or uncle, you know how hard it is to watch kids struggle.
The Lady Tigers struggled last season. They finished 14-8 against a schedule that was much harder than the year before when this young team burst onto the big-girl basketball stage.
But there was a moment in the middle of that season that I can point to as “the moment of truth” for the girls and the team that started them down the path to what will happen tomorrow night.
Warsaw was 8-4 in late December of 2023, and things just weren’t clicking.
There were a lot of reasons why they were having such a hard time.
Part of it was the attention they received during the season before when they collective wowed us with their skill as freshmen and sophomores.
Part of it was a quest for recognition.
Part of it was the fact that they were young and didn’t know any better.
All understandable things.
They went to play a Huntington North team that was struggling too, and they lost in what felt like the low point of the season—but it wasn’t.
The next week, they played in a tournament at Center Grove. They lost to a very average Brownsburg team in the semifinal and then were blown out by Jeffersonville in the consolation game—a game they were never in and didn’t really look like they were into playing.
Maybe it was the long bus ride home giving them time to think. Maybe it was the days off they got during the holidays.
Either way, they figured out they couldn’t keep going the way they were going and achieve anything worthwhile.
And they took the steps necessary to change their path.
The payoff was immediate, as the Lady Tigers won their last six games of the regular season. Even though they lost in their sectional game against rival Northridge, the vibes the team is sending out made it clear that a corner had been turned.
Since that pair of losses at Center Grove, Warsaw has lost two games—the Northridge game and a regular season game last month at Homestead.
The difference between “the before and after pictures” of this group of girls was remarkable.
I could see in their faces that they were taking a different approach to playing basketball together, and working through life together.
I saw joy--the kind of joy that comes from the heart and goes well beyond the boundaries of any basketball court or the walls of any locker room.
I saw the beginning of people beginning to love each other.
And that’s where this season started.
From there, Warsaw won their first 18 games. They did it with speed and power, with skill in every aspect of the game. They are good rebounders even though they aren’t very tall. They are relentless in their quest to separate opponents from the basketball and quickly move the ball up the floor and scoring in less than seven seconds.
And they’re good at that.
Only a true team could do that.
They are the best collection of outside shooters that Warsaw has ever seen. They have topped the school’s 3-pointer record each of their three years of varsity basketball.
How?
They have experienced the joy of “understanding”.
They get it now. And nothing that happened before that moment matters anymore.
They have found something that will be valuable to them long after the echoes of Saturday night in the fieldhouse have dissipated.
Someday it will make them better people, better moms, better leaders and better employees.
And we can all understand the impact of that.