“Dear Journal,

After my first loss of the season, I didn’t have time to mourn because we no sooner got back and a day later, we had yet another game. Losing affects people differently, but this loss bothered me a lot. I hate to lose; did I mention that already? I would rather get hurt and win then be healthy and lose.

Well the next few weeks went by in a blur. It went so fast and we had games every two days. We lost our next one, and the next one, and the next after that, and the next one after that. I was without words. I had no idea that my last season would turn out this way. I mean, I figured we would take our lumps in the non-conference season but not this many. We were 1-6 before I knew it.

For a few games, I found myself going through the motions. I thought I was playing hard, but I wasn’t. I was in the worst shooting slump a player could be in. I remember having shooting slumps for a couple games every year, but for six games in a row, that is very unlikely for me. But, it was happening. I didn’t know how to react because it had never happened to me, let alone in my senior season. I let a couple games slip by because I wasn’t focused and I let my shooting take me out of my rhythm and keep me from doing the other things that I do well.

Coach was getting on me really bad, too. We had a freshman point guard that he was trying to train for next year’s team and the fact that I was playing terrible didn’t help any. I wasn’t scoring and for a few games I saw myself on the bench at key points in the game while our freshman guard took the minutes. I definitely didn’t take it out on her and treat her differently because she was in the game at the end and I wasn’t, I had only myself to blame for that. Actually, she and I got along real well. I think I was more in disbelief that Coach Jabir would rather have had an inexperienced freshman in the game versus an experienced senior that has been there so many times that she couldn’t remember. I felt as if more and more that he was trying to move me out and move her in my place. He never said anything to me about it either, no explanation or anything. It was like he didn’t even care because he was planning for the future. He didn’t owe me anything, so why should he stick with a depleted senior, when he could use this year to teach his ways to his new soon to be point guard. For the first time, I realized that he wasn’t Jaci. He wasn’t going to stick with me through my mistakes and wait for me to play out of whatever it was I had fallen into.

Our next game against Toledo, the first half I played terrible, going through the motions and he got tired of watching it. The second half, he started our freshman instead of me at point. I wasn’t shocked because I figured he would be stupid not to. She was playing good and I wasn’t. Something had to be done to wake me up. And wake me up it did. I was subbed into the game at the 16:00 minute mark. I was on a mission, a mission to force myself to get my game back and my starting position. That half was the best half I had played all year.

I hustled on defense and took things over on offense. Unfortunately, we were down by too much to come back, but I finally got the part of my game back, that fire that it had lacked.

The next day, after film, Coach pulled me aside. He basically told me I had been playing like crap and the second half against Toledo he saw something that he has been waiting for from me—leadership. He went on to say that he doesn’t expect anything less than that the rest of the year. He told me that if I ever play anything less than that, then I will find myself on the bench for the rest of the season. He wasn’t going to tell me again. I had no more room to slack or take time off, or my season was over, he didn’t care that I was a senior or about anything that I had done in my career there. It was pretty clear after that day that I was like a cat, only that cats have nine lives, and I had used all mine up.”

Stefanie