One person’s TEAM is more than just another cliché when it comes to the Starkville Academy girls basketball team.
If you have been around coaches long enough, you probably have heard plenty of phrases and sayings they have used in an attempt to bring their squads together.
In the case of the 2011-12 Lady Volunteers, Together Everyone Achieves More seems an appropriate fit. Throughout their run to the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Class AAA, Division II title, the Class AAA crown, and the overall state title, the Lady Volunteers relied on chemistry and teamwork to complete a magical season.
Starkville Academy coach Glenn Schmidt agrees, but the veteran coach already had a motto — “All for one and one for all” — picked out for 2011-12. She hoped the collective idea behind that saying would stick with the players through a season filled with championship expectations and a marathon of ups and downs.
Starkville Academy completed that quest Saturday with a 50-39 victory against Madison-Ridgeland Academy in the overall state title game. The victory capped a season in which the Lady Volunteers (38-5) earned the first championships in the program’s history.
For its accomplishment, the Starkville Academy girls basketball team is The Dispatch’s Prep Player of the Week.
“That’s kind of what we meant by Together Everyone Achieves More,” Schmidt said. “We meant it more because when you say, ‘One for all and all for one,’ if I don’t have a good game today and you do, it’s still OK. If I get all-tournament and you don’t, it’s really still partly yours, too. We’re trying to say in our group that it doesn’t matter how it gets done as long as it gets done. We’re not going to worry about if somebody else does it, we’re going to pat them on the back.”
Schmidt, who has coached high school basketball for 23 years and college basketball for 11, said “All for one and one for all” has been the team’s motto for the past three seasons. T-shirts that had the No. 1 superimposed against the motto helped bring that point home and showed everyone how committed the Lady Volunteers were to that notion.
Multiple players had chances to shine in the team’s three titles. Anna Lea Little or Sallie Kate Richardson often led the team in scoring or rebounding, Anna Prestridge and Tiffany Huddleston provided unflappable leadership at the point, April Burney and Nora Kathryn Carroll added hustle and jack-of-all-trades assistance, and Julianne Jackson, Brittany Jacks, and Lauren Atwell delivered timely sparks off the bench.
“What is most impressive to me is how they won it,” Schmidt said. “It wasn’t easy. … I think that is what most significant about the ‘One for all and all for one’ is that it was different people along the way.’ ”
None of the players complained if they weren’t the one with the most points, rebounds, or assists. They even made mistakes, but the Lady Volunteers showed an uncanny knack for coming from behind or regrouping after an error, whether forced or unforced.
Prestridge, the team’s starting senior point guard, and Jackson, a senior forward who comes off the bench, said the team’s togetherness helped it play through those phases of the game.
“These are girls you enjoy being around, can have fun with, and you can go talk to and do stuff with. The fact you play on a team is extra special,” Jackson said. “You have friends you will always have, and you always will have those memories, but you also will have memories of when we went and did this or when we had a team breakfast.
“I think friendship is a big part of the team because you can have a team and not really know who you’re playing with. It will be like you’re just a team and we have to do well. If you have a friend, you have that extra bond where you’re teammates but we’re also really good friends, so we know a lot about each other and we know how each other works. I think all of that combined put together a three-time state championship team.”
Schmidt said the 2009-10 season was a valuable step in the maturation process. With only eight players, the Lady Volunteers needed to learn how to play together and to discover the strengths of each teammate. That process often proved challenging and led to numerous games to remember, including a loss to Jackson Prep that ended the team’s season.
The memory of that loss stuck with the Lady Volunteers –thanks to signs made by the school’s cheerleaders. But this team didn’t really need bulletin board material to play its best. Whether it was a motion offense or a pressure defense, the Lady Volunteers executed with precision, using an extra look or anticipating a pass to make a steal that they cashed in on the other end.
“They have been around leadership since their sophomore year,” Schmidt said. “All for one and one for all has been an underlying theme of what I have done for a long time. … What you try to do as a coach is you try to build a foundation as they grow through the system they recognize that although I may be the one who gets it all done bar none, I am not going to do that every game and I have to respect the one who gives me the ball.
“We coaches say, ‘All for one and one for all,’ but at some point in every game somebody is going to do something to change the game. Everybody else has to feed off that. Some of it is a little bit magic. Some of it happens inside people.”
Schmidt also praised an element that might go overlooked. She credited the parents and support systems for her players because she said what she tried to reinforce wouldn’t have been digested if someone at home didn’t encourage the players to listen to the coach.
“You’re coaching a family, you’re coaching a girl, but you’re also coaching her upbringing from the time she was born,” Schmidt said. “I have been in it long enough to know that when that is good, I am blessed.”
Prestridge and Jackson said the bond the Lady Volunteers had played a role in the encouragement everyone used to keep things positive. The players said the number of wins and titles always will be special, but they said the time they spent together will be the best memory.
“We have put so many hours into this, whether it is summer play, or practice, or all of the game we have played,” Prestridge said. “We were so close because we spent so much time together. I think we will remember all of the times we have played and all of the moments we have had together.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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