Women’s Basketball Hall-Of-Famer Explains What It Takes To Be A Champion
Women’s Basketball Hall-Of-Famer Explains What It Takes To Be A Champion
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Women’s Basketball Hall-Of-Famer Explains What It Takes To Be A ChampionWINONA LAKE – Women’s Basketball Hall-of-Famer and 16-season WNBA player Tamika Catchings says it takes five things to be a champion.
Focus on the goal. Surround yourself by impact people. Bring all your skills to the table. Don’t let adversity stop you. And enjoy the ride!
Catchings was the keynote speaker Wednesday at Combined Community Services’ first Love Thy Neighbor luncheon, sponsored by Parkview Warsaw. The purpose of the event, held at Christ’s Covenant Church in Winona Lake, was not only to make people aware of what CCS does, but also to help raise funds.
She said she was 3 years old when her parents learned she had a hearing disability, just like her older brother. At that age, she didn’t know what that meant, other than she got “these big brown box hearing aides.” Even with that, she was still able to be free and do what she wanted.
Her father had played in the NBA for 11 years – from the Milwaukee Bucks to the Philadelphia ’76s and Los Angeles Clippers. Because of that they moved around a lot, and even to Italy when Catchings was in the first grade.
“Why do I remember that I was in the first grade? Because I honestly feel like that was the last time that I didn’t realize that I was different than everybody else,” she said.
After her father finished playing basketball in Italy, they moved to Abilene, Texas, where her grandmother lived.
“Every single day that I would go to school that we lived in Abilene, I would get made fun of for the way that I looked, for the way that I talked, for the hearing aide that I had to wear. And I remember every day just begging God, asking, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” she said.
Every day, she’d go to school, only to have tears streaming down her face on the way home. She’d beg her mom not to have to go back to school, but her mom told her she wouldn’t let her give up.
One day Catchings decided to get rid of her hearing aides. When she and her mom couldn’t find them, her mom told her that she’d have to learn to live without hearing aides because they couldn’t afford replacements.
“But the hearing aides that my mom and my dad had provided for me, these things that in one year had made me learn they made me not like everyone else. But these things that they provided me, allowed me the opportunity to hear, allowed me the opportunity to advance and allowed me the opportunity to somewhat fit in,” she said.
She also learned there were things she’d have to learn to do without the hearing aides - like read lips.
“So that’s the beginning,” she said.
She then talked about the five things that it takes to be a champion.
First, focus on the goal. In the seventh grade, Catchings decided she wanted to be the first female in the NBA, because the WNBA didn’t exist yet. When she told her parents, they responded by telling her, “If anyone can do it, you can.” In the eighth grade, she discovered University of Tennessee women’s basketball, where she ended up in college. During her freshman year at Tennessee, under coach Pat Summitt, the WNBA came about and Catchings had a new goal. Catchings played for the Indiana Fever WNBA team for 16 seasons.
Secondly, surround yourself by impact people.
“Everybody always asks, what is the most memorable thing about Pat (Summit)? Honestly, it had nothing to do with basketball. If anything, it was about the way she carried herself, the humbleness, her faith, her character and all the things you think of,” Catchings said. “She wanted us to be great on the basketball court, she wanted us to be great in the classroom, she wanted us to be great in the community. But the number one thing she wanted, was for us to be great people. Impact. Surround yourself with impact people.”
Catchings rededicated herself to the Lord at the University of Tennessee.
Third, bring all your skills to the table.
Everyone always asks Catchings what was her favorite year – was it when her Olympic team won the Gold Medal or the Fever won the WNBA championship?
“But my favorite year was 2015. We did not win, but ... we won a few games, lost a few games, won a few games, lost a few games,” she said. She ended up in Target in the kids’ section and wondered how her team could play better. She found a puzzle, texted her team to be in the locker room a half hour before practice and put pieces in 12 Ziplock bags, giving each player a bag. Teammates came in at exactly 9:30 a.m., and she told them they were going to do a puzzle together.
Eight players got down on the floor to do the puzzle, while four stayed in their seats. Because only eight got down on the floor, the puzzle was incomplete. Some of the eight players encouraged the other four to get down on the floor and the puzzle got finished.
“So what does this mean? So what it means is, when I got back up I said, ‘Look. With four people sitting in their chairs and eight people down, we can’t complete the puzzle.’ Let’s look at this room. Bring your skills to the table. Every single person in this room has something they do extremely well,” Catchings told those at the luncheon. “... Our challenge is to figure out what our skill set is and what we can bring to the table to help those around us because my fourth thing is, don’t let adversity stop you.”
She thanked Angie Oler for sharing her story earlier at the luncheon about how CCS gave her a hand-up after her husband left her and their two daughters. Oler is now set to graduate with an associate’s degree while her oldest daughter is finishing college and her youngest is completing high school.
The fifth is to enjoy the ride.
“God has been so good, and when I look at my life ... God has been so good and He continues to bless and bless and bless,” Catchings said. “If you would have told me at 3 years old that I would be doing what I’m doing now, I would have laughed at you.”
Because of her hearing disability and her speech impediment “and because I was so afraid of being different, I chose not to speak. I chose not to stand out. I chose to be invisible.”
In college, Summit sat Catchings down and told her that her story one day would impact thousands, maybe millions, of people.
While she didn’t used to talk to people, now she travels around talking to people about her faith and many other things “because God is so good,” she said. “Enjoy the ride and if nothing else, when you think about being a champion, it’s not just being a champion, it’s a champion for Christ. Because when you focus on your goal, you focus on Him. When you have impact people, you have Him in your life. When you bring the pieces to the table, He has blessed each and every one of us with different pieces, that’s why we are all made different. Don’t let adversity stop you, read the Bible. And, of course, when you enjoy the ride, you think about the blessings and the things He was able to do and the things that He is allowing us to do. We are never alone. We always have God.”
CCS was formed in 1984, according to Executive Director Randy Polston, after a group of pastors came together to put all of their efforts to help people in one location. “We are faith-based first and foremost,” he said. It provides people with food, clothing, utility assistance, as well as programs to help teach self-sufficiency. Learn more at ccsgives.com.
