April 4……..a great day in my little sports world:

The Texas Rangers open up their 2016 season against the scroungy Seattle Mariners from the dreary northwest. Love baseball, love the Rangers, big hopes for them this season. And, I still haven’t forgiven Nelson Cruz for not catching that fly ball.

But, an even bigger game, in a different sport, will be going on in Indianapolis at about the same time: The Lady Chaps of Lubbock Christian University will take on the Alaska-Anchoage Seawolves (really cool name) for the DII Women’s Basketball National Championship.

What a cool and great deal for women’s basketball in Texas….I hope that it is getting the attention around the state that it is getting out here on The Plains.

Coach Steve Gomez is the head man at LCU, working his way into that position from the local high school coaching ranks. I am acquaintances with him on a professional level only, but know a few people that do know him pretty well. Obviously the guy can build a program and coach, but he is genuinely a great person as well. Coach Gomez is one of those guys that I can honestly say I’ve never heard a single person utter a negative word about. In fact, every single person I know, that knows him, goes out of their way to say great things about him.

Since this is a coaches blog, I want to talk about Coach Gomez as a coach. As a parent, I had the opportunity to send my daughter to literally any basketball camp I wanted. I was (and still am) a big fan of TABC, so I took her there while I was working it and then while I was running that camp. After Coach Gomez had been at LCU a couple of years, I had heard great things about him and what he did basketball-wise, so I sent my daughter to his basketball camp at LCU. The first time was when we lived in Goldthwaite, the second time after we moved up to Idalou.

I sat in the stands and watched and listened (both as a dad and as a coach) while he put the kids thru drills, talked to them about basketball and talked about things that were important in their lives as well. Man, I was glad (again, as both a dad and a coach) that I had brought my daughter to his camp.

Coach Gomez drilled the kids on fundamentals and talked about playing the game of basketball with great effort and passion. He didn’t stand on the side and watch, he coached. Watch his team play Monday and this is what you will see…..kids that are very well schooled and drilled in the fundamentals of the game and that understand how to play the game, both in terms of effort and in terms of intelligence. Combine those things with their incredible unselfishness and dedication to team…….well, you get a team that is undefeated and playing for aNational Championship.

The LCU Lady Chaps are a great example of how winning looks easy! But only because there has been an incredible amount of work, heart, and soul that has gone in to making it look that way and getting to this point. Pretty cool stuff…..best of luck to Coach Gomez and Coach Caleb Henson.