Winners and Losers

Chemistry is the buzz word in today’s wide world of sports competition. We used to speak of morale or esprit de corps, but today it is chemistry we seek. Retired University of Connecticut men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun called it "the vapor that just sort of hangs over a team."

Team chemistry results when the ingredients (player personality’s) mix well. With an audience always in search of the next version of the legendary 1970 New York Knicks, an iconic five who have become the measuring stick for team chemistry. When mixed well, a combustible calibration of cohesiveness sets off a chain reaction that causes varied personalities to come together in pursuit of a common goal.

Championship teams need to blend the following characteristics of chemistry: A star, a team tool box, the team brain, the team firster, the comic, the maverick and a General. The Red Bud 6 - Diann, Kim, Paula, Deb, Cindy, Meg, Sandy - checked off all the boxes.

Winners hitch a ride with a star, a catalyst who defines purpose through excellence, the one with the Moxy to lead an ordinary bunch to do extraordinary things. A humble coach on the floor who will not fall into the trap of a “me firster” – one who refuses to lose (Diann). Losers grope for a personality.

Winners find a glue guy, the team toolbox, the one who pulls the group - often in the throes of adversity – together, a fox hole buddy. They are the critical cog, the one who plays with reckless abandon but can perform well within the crucible of the big game (Kim). Losers point fingers.

Winners analyze and adapt. They are the brains of the team, the ones able to think on the run with belief not only in the system, but in teammates and coaches, keeping the membership pulling for each other by modeling accountability. (Paula). Losers are swollen by panic and prone to choke.

Winners respect their elders, the team firster, falling in line until it is their turn to shine. They show the confidence beget by talent but avoid the locker room tribulations that often surface on teams with no pecking order (Deb). Losers exasperate class warfare tensions with an itchy attitude, always in need of a scratch.

Winners know how to laugh, the somewhat fallacious comic. The best concoction to cure a noxious team culture is a happy player, the one who is comfortable in their own skin and knows how to bring levity through a sunny disposition when the drag begins to settle, never one to take themselves too seriously (Cindy). Losers pout and mope, pulling down those around them.

Winners think outside the norm, the maverick. They expand the circle of their group’s possibilities, always wanting to know why. They keep the ideas flowing and guard against complacency by questioning the status quo (Meg). Losers fear the unknown.

Winners need a coach, the General. Vision, passion, patience; they get those under their tutelage to share in their commitment. They confront shifting problems with a variety of styles, always staying current, always maintaining distance, but both in and under control (Sandy). They inspire and prod. Losers are led by “sponsors.”

In the fall of 1974, Red Bud volleyball coach Sandy Griffin salivated over the cohesiveness of her roster. She knew she had all the pieces: six girls with size, volleyball skills, athleticism and a gung-ho attitude. They loved being in each other’s company. They loved volleyball. They loved practice. They loved being in the gym. Star player Diann Schrader says if they could have moved their beds into the gym, they would have slept there.

They – The Red Bud 6 - are all doing well, thank you. Paula still cocks her head with that slight tilt, in self-deprecation, and she is still easily approachable, just the way her teammates remember her. Diann still giggles in her timeless way, and Deb still stares to the far away. They are as alive today as they were the magical winter of 1975, as infallible now as then. Professional sports have only superstars – no heroes - and superstars will inevitably let us down. Small town high school heroes do not. Like Peter Pan, at least in our mind’s eye, they never grow old. The Red Bud 6 prospered in the atmosphere of opportunity launched by Title IX. And the town fell in love with them. And so, they were honored in their time as no other team in Red Bud has been, before or since, with a fire engine ride to the biggest party this little town had ever seen.