“Dear Journal,

We faced Cincinnati next. We had a great game planned on defense to stop their two All-Americans. It worked beautifully and we would have won except we shot 26% from the field and I shot less than that personally. That was my last chance to ever beat Cincinnati so I will remain winless in my career at Dayton against them.

From this point on, I didn’t care about who we played, I just wanted to win a game. Wright State was next. This was one school that we definitely could not lose to. This was for bragging rights. No extra hype needed, it was already there. This was the first game I actually shot a good percentage. In fact, our whole team did, and we earned our second win on the season. Everyone was excited and happy because we finally won, I was just happy that I never lost to Wright State in my whole career.

We had three more games before Christmas break, Notre Dame and then two games at the Ohio State Classic. It was pretty clear that our team needed a break from each other and from our losing record, so we were determined to finish before the break strong. After our win against Wright State, I actually thought we could come in and surprise Notre Dame and get a win. Maybe I dream a little too much, but I actually thought we could beat them. I could almost taste it.

The game was underway before I knew it, and we were playing good defense but we couldn’t get a score on offense. We had open looks, open lay-ups and blew them all. Our defense started to slip and before I knew it, we were losing 26-0. We even had foul shots and couldn’t make them. I mean it was like our basket literally had a lid on it and we couldn’t even buy one. We finally scored but not one point came from a field goal, we scored like 11 points and they were all foul shots. After our first point, the Notre Dame crowd actually cheered for us. I don’t know if they were being sincere about it or just cheering as if to mock us. At any rate, we lost by like 30 or 40 or something like that. It was a slaughter.

In the locker room, Coach Jabir was furious. He was yelling and being sarcastic and went down the line at each person. He talked of changes and getting a whole new team if need be. Pretty much anything that could be said was said, and we all left the locker room not only embarrassed by the game, but wondering if our uniform would be there for us the next game. I personally, being a senior and having my fair share of getting ripped, figured that I would not be starting and figured my butt would be on the bench.

At half time, he singled me out and told me in front of everyone I had one half to prove to him that I wanted to be the leader of this team or I will find myself on the bench. I didn’t understand exactly what he meant, or what exactly he wanted me to do. So I came out the second half, talking more than I did the first, hustling or so I thought, and telling people what to do and where to go regardless if they wanted to listen or if they did listen. After about 3 minutes passed, he subbed me out. It was then that I figured I was done. I had obviously not led the way he wanted so I was done. The game wasn’t even over yet and I felt overwhelmed with emotion. Cyndi was telling me to relax and not to worry about it, but how could I not? He didn’t even say anything to me as I came out, so I didn’t know what to expect. He was so hard to read, especially when he didn’t speak at all. He did though, put me back in the game until it was over.

But anyways, back to afterwards, he was irate. After he went down the line, he spoke to me again. He said that since I couldn’t be a leader, he will be the leader from now on since we don’t have one on this team. He went on to say other things and I was kind of hurt because no one had ever said it to me in the way that he had said it before. I didn’t get it as bad as everyone else did but still, it was bad for me considering I had never had those things said to me before. I had always thought that I was being a leader but I guess I wasn’t. I was confused because I didn’t know what he wanted me to do. I didn’t know what things I was suppose to do because I thought I was doing them. I didn’t understand after that day what exactly it meant to be a leader because in my eyes I thought I was, but in reality I guess I wasn’t.

It was then I began my journey with Coach Jabir to become the leader that he thought I could be. He said it will be hard, and I will be frustrated and tearful, but if it was easy then everyone would be a leader. He told me he had faith in me and he knew that I could be great, and that was all I needed to hear.”

Stefanie