Lorraine Harper is not only the mother of arguably the best player in San Antonio, CeCe, she is also a coach, administrator, team mom, event planner, and fundraiser for the SA Lady Rohawks. Mrs. Harper sent the following email:
Let me start by saying that I am an avid reader to your blog and just as others in the area, there are some things we all agree on, and disagree on. Nevertheless, one thing is for sure as you stated earlier, “the better the kids get, the messier this all becomes”. In saying that, I applaud what you are doing to help get San Antonio girls basketball out there for the world of coaches to see, for that has never been done before in this city. I personally know of a lot of college coaches that read your blog and often use it as a recruiting tool for SA. In the recent months, I have been told by several coaches and club directors that San Antonio’s talent is really growing in an area once under recruited. In saying this, I feel that it is the CeCe’s, Meighan’s(Simmons), and LenNique’s(Brown) that may be the household names when it comes to SA girls basketball, but it is every player in town that stands to gain from it. I use the three of them because for years there has always been comparisons amongst the three as to who is best? There is no right or wrong answer for any individual, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Now if you are speaking of San Antonio, San Antonio is beautiful and when I say that, I mean in the sense that the ugly duckling once considered not talent worthy is becoming the beautiful swan. I am not the typical writer/journalist.....but I am sure that you get my point. We in San Antonio need to come together and celebrate, NOT HATE! I for one was glad that you turned off the comments blog on your site for I thought that it was shedding some light on the girls basketball scene here that folks do not need to see. What they need to see and know, is that each and every club director, administrator, and parent is out there working to get our kids a good education for in the end, that is all that matters. I say that education is what matters for I was long following a young lady by the name of Tierra Rodgers (I am sure you are familiar with her being that she is a California kid). Tierra was a kid that had so much going for her and then all of a sudden was hit by double tragedies so young in her life that drastically changed her whole course. Although God blessed Tierra with so much basketball talent, he also took it away (read her story and know that god has a plan for each of us)
I use her as an example with all the hoopla about kids not getting a major DIV I school in comparison to a kid just wanting and wishing that they could have the opportunity to play again, whether it be a DIV II, III, NAIA, or JUCO. Tierra’s story should be one of inspiration to everyone not just basketball players in general, because it could all be taken from you in an instance. Just the other day, we had a kid visit a DIV III school (that won the DIV III Championship in 2007) and to see the look on this kid’s face just to be able to possibly have the opportunity to play in college was overwhelming. I point this out, for we all would love for our kid to go to the Duke’s, Kentucky’s, Tennessee’s, etc, but there are goals outside of basketball that we all have to be thankful for, and that is being healthy enough to even be able to continue playing this game we all love so dearly. In closing, lets all call this thing that is happening in San Antonio a blessing, not so much one is disguise for we all want the world to know that we stand behind our kids, and we stand united although we don’t always agree on the same things. Keep doing the positive things that you are doing and in the end, it will all work out. Lastly, we have no problem getting the word out to coaches about the growing talent in SA and every coach I talk to, I personally ensure that they know of the growing young talent such as the Recee’(Caldwell), McKenzie(Calvert), and Kyra’s(Lambert) of our city so that we can keep them hunting our grounds.
God Bless San Antonio
We are off the Lawrence for the late Night in the Phog this weekend, how exciting! If it were not for God enabling our daughter to continue playing this game after two knee surgeries, we feel strongly that we have prepared her for life after the ball stops bouncing. Lets All Give Thanks to God for Blessing our Kids with this talent and call it “God Gives and God Takes”.
