"When it came down to game time, I had already made that shot". That is a quote from the great Mr. Clutch, Jerry West. This quote was given to me in a phone conversation with UCF assistant coach,
Courtney Locke. Coach Locke went on to offer advice and comments about her life and girls basketball. Some interesting tidbits follow:
- Imagination- Girls need to spend more alone time in the gym using there imagination. They need to be Micheal Jordan or Candice Parker in their minds as they make and take shots. They also need to spend more time playing 1 vs 1 with rules such as limited dribbling. Coach Locke reminisced of the days past when a kid with a ball and an imagination worked on their games. She talked about this being before the time of social network sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
- No Offers in Texas- Even though Coach Locke is from San Marcos, she did not have ANY offers from Texas schools. She took the old road and sent tape to universities. One of the tapes she sent landed in the hands of C.Vivian Stringer. Coach Stringer liked what she saw and called numerous Big 12 schools with a question; why was Courtney Locke not being recruited by these schools? The answer was that these schools felt that she was a step too slow. In typical style from the elite developer that she is, Coach Stringer replied that she "could work with that". Locke went on the play four years at Rutgers before joining the UTSA coaching staff.
- Austin Lady Knights/Elite- Coach Locke went on to describe her days with the Lady Knights as wonderful. She described Coach Martin and Gregg as "good people". They had the best interest of the kids in mind. Coach Locke learned and benefited from playing with this club. She later was fortunate enough to recruit both the daughters of the club coaches, Amber Gregg and Ciara Martin to UTSA.( Both these girls are remarkable young women as well as good ball players. I got to know Amber this summer at the UTSA camp and she is truly bright, passionate about the game and her charisma is infectious). Coach Locke helped return the love by helping Evansville recruit Ciara's younger sister, Kaylan.
- A Four who can hit the trailing 3- Coach Locke went on to advise me to continue developing young bigs to play away from the basket in addition to post up games. She spoke of the new aged 4 that can hit the 3, take defenders off of the dribble and defend. She went on to call these type of players "Hard to Guard".
