Lady Privateers Come Together at Team Retreat
Amanda McCarthy (October 31, 2009)
This past weekend, the Lady Privateers traveled to a resort in Alabama
for some quality team bonding. The events of the retreat mirrored the
unexpected character and camaraderie of our incredibly talented team.
Just as the team has the Unexpected Seven freshmen, the team encountered a number of surprises on the retreat. The first surprise was that the bus we took to Alabama was having difficulties with its shocks, so at certain points in the trip when the bus went over bumps a few of the Lady Privateers were air born! The next unexpected event was talent show skits.
The team's talent on the basketball court was undoubtedly surpassed during the talent show; however, for a few of us we should certainly just stick to basketball. The highlight of the show was our guest performance from Hannah Montana! She was “Noddin' her head like YEAH! Movin' her hips like YEAH!” and absolutely strutting in her heels!
The Lady Privateers rapping skills were put to the test with an exercise where each big sister little sister group had to come up with a rap for our team. The raps from each group truly revealed the expectations and feelings of the team.
“The Privateers are back and we're ready to play; no one in the Sun Belt will be in our way. We got Gorsh in the paint holding down the five, don't sleep on Bones and Cee tearing up the inside, we got B.Helm handling the rock, dish it off to Kat count the three point shot. Coach Champ be ready your team has arrived. GO BIG BLUE WHAT YOU GONNA DO!!”
The "Amazing Race Challenge" revealed the camaraderie of our close knit team, which I feel will prove to be one of the most important aspects of this year's team character. The team was divided into three groups, point guards, shooting guards, and posts. Each group was given a clue and had to solve a riddle to receive the next clue. We repeated this pattern until finally all the groups were united to solve the last clue. Each girl was attached to a part of the long rope signifying team unity. We had to stay connected and unified while we solved the last challenge which was to find all the team names in our Conference that were hidden around the pool area and rightfully place them in the East or West. Being connected as one means above all else, THERE MUST BE COMMUNICATION! Once we completed this last task, we were met with one final challenge and that was to retrieve a trophy that was dangling by a rope, under a waterfall, over the pool which was six feet deep, all while we were still connected to this rope. Some girls didn't want to get wet, so the one's that didn't mind kindly went to the end of the rope that was going in the water, while the other ones stayed back. This is the kind of selflessness we have on our team. We successfully retrieved the trophy, which proudly sits in our locker room reminding us of our team unity, unselfishness, and hard work.
What the Lady Privateers took away from the retreat…
We all learned something new about each other off the basketball court, whether it was who can swim and who can't, who's a good detective and who's not, or who likes what football team and why. But, the point is we all came to realize that our relationship off the basketball court as a family is just as important as our relationship on the basketball court as a team.
