The Warriors concluded our season on a low note losing our last game and three out of our last six to end the season with a record of 19 wins and 9 losses. We didn’t quite meet some of our goals and had a year filled with some great highs and some low lows; but overall our season was a success. There were some setbacks, personality conflicts, administrative challenges, trips by some key players to the “hole” and all the rests – oh! Not to mention attitude problems and a “J-Cat” or two; none the less a winning a season is a good season. The games were competitive for the most part and all the games were enjoyed by many. We as a group of men were challenged in many ways and some times at the same time which was cause for a few gray hairs that I didn’t start the season with. I trust that we all grew from our shared experiences. As a coach I learned some things to do next season and some things not to do; but that’s kind of how life works anyway, so it’s all good! We are all hopefully better for having completed the journey. The coaching staff contracted with each other at the beginning of the season to ‘build men’, and we believe that we accomplished that goal, at least in part by at least improving the quality of man that some of the team members are, only God knows! The greatest challenge was taking guys who had decent ‘street ball’, games who never played organized sports and teaching them the game. The season was highlighted by our leading scorer and offensive dynamo Shaun “SP” Payton at 22.5 points per game. However, the Most Valuable Player went to Adrian “Onion” AKA “Bell Pepper” Hay, averaging a double double and, more importantly showed the most consistent growth over the course of the season, good job!
We had a wealth of support from the outside community, which included one Division I school, William Jessup University, one Division II school Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 2 men’s league teams and 2 church league teams. They were all very supportive and generous with their time and resources. We received the donations of sports equipment uniforms, basketballs, headbands, wristbands, knee and ankle braces. We also were given some very good quality team and individual photos and at the end of the season received our customary annual donation and this year’s are considerably better in quality than last years. These blessings came to us from Bill Eppling and Big Don of Prison Sports Ministries, Steve Irwin SQ Sports Ministry’s General Manager, Shaun Hurley of Imagio Dei an East Bay men’s league team and Justin from the Golden State Warriors marketing department who donated the Warriors practice uniforms from this year’s training camp and has committed the new ones from this season.
There are some home team haters and home team supporters who are looking forward to next season as much as we are. This season will not start until mid April. Strength and conditioning camp will begin the week of March 9th through the 20th Try-outs will commence on March 23rd and first cuts on the 27th. and final cuts on April 3rd. There will be scrimmages on April 4th and 11th, with the season opener on April 18th. This season will be 7 weeks shorter than last year and total 29 games, consistent with a college season, and concluding the last week of daylight savings, October 31, 2009.
