Lady Mounties seek higher level of chemistry - 35 feet above the ground

— Coaches will try anything if they think it will work.

No matter how unusual or excessive, if it's believed it can help prepare a team for success, nothing is off limits.

And that's why Preston Early sports bruises up and down his arms and legs. His players do, too.

"They're a reminder," Early jokes.

It has not been a routine preseason for the girls' basketball team at Rogers. Players and coaches exchanged the X's and O's recently for an adventure team-building weekend.

Early, preparing for his 11th year here as head coach, says he wanted to experiment with the technique in hopes of helping the Lady Mounties get over the hump in 2010.

In the 30th season of Lady Mountie basketball, last year's team was just the second to play in a state semifinal game. The Lady Mounties lost to North Little Rock by just one point, 56-55, and finished 23-6.

Rogers should again be one of the state's top teams this year, with several letter winners returning including senior point guard Morgan Hook, the state's Gatorade Player of the Year who will sign with Oklahoma.

"To be honest, I was just looking for something more," Early says. "We have good chemistry, great kids. I was just looking for something more;

to go beyond basketball a little bit.

"We went deeper with our chemistry. It allowed coach (Blu) Green and I to get some valuable time with them off the court." Ultimate challenge

With the help of Deb Walter, Early spent five weeks planning and preparing for the weekend of Sept. 18-19. Walter, who teaches at the Crossroads Alternative School in Rogers, is a nationally recognized specialist in adventure physical education.

She has worked as an experiential educator for close to 10 years and she's been an adventure consultant for schools around thecountry, working with groups ranging from corporate executives to sports teams.

Walter, using responses from surveys sent to players, planned out the team-building events.

Walter, herself an ex-Lady Mountie basketball player and a 1987 Rogers grad, designed a series of sequenced activities that were set up in game-like situations, but also had direct life implications and correlations that could be drawn upon at a later date.

The agenda for the weekend was based on the group's needs. Choosing from hundreds of activities, Walter selected 40, available to pull out at any time during the workshop.

"I have a sequence I would like to follow, but it's really based on the group and their direction," she says. "I ended up doing 13 or 14 from that list of 40."

The Lady Mounties' activities were focused on three central concepts - communication, familyrelationships, and self effi cacy, which Walter defines as a person's belief in their ability to achieve any goal

"It's a team filled with some fantastic talent," Walter says. "There's just some dynamics there as far as just basic girl issues that I helped them work through. From those surveys, it was evident those three areas would really help their chemistry."

Walter, the Lady Mounties, Early and Green spent six hours together on a Friday night at The Annex then ended the workshop the following morning at the Charles McKinney Ropes Course at the Jones Center in Springdale.

For two days, through a series of activities, all of them went through an ultimate mental and physical challenge, Early says.

"There was laughing, crying, frustration, joy : everything," he says. "All that stuff Jim Valvano said you should do every day, all those emotions, we did it." Building Bridges

Walter says the Lady Mounties were tested the most Friday night by the Building Bridges event.

The team had to navigate a series of six transitionpoints while switching sides between one of two box platforms, utilizing only a few boards.

"It took us about two hours to get that done," Early says.

Anytime the boards hit the ground or a team member stepped off a bridge the team was penalized with a blindfold.

The blindfolded team members had to complete the activity with a blindfold, which made other people on the team have to step up and lead with increased responsibility.

It forced the rest of the team to solve problems, listen, and communicate more effectively.

"It's a great activity with real life," Walter says. "And it parallels the activities of their season. It's a long season but everyone has to do their part. And you're going to have to overcome some penalties." The Giant Ladder

Early says that watching several of his players' personalities and confidence levels change was an exciting experience. One of Saturday's activities was attempting to scale a distance of 35 feet known as the Giant Ladder.

"And that thing will beat you up," Walter says. "It's a very physical element and can be pretty mentally draining, too. I usually don't go with that initiative with a lot of groups but these are high-achieving girls who are used to success. I really wanted to push them to the brink of failure to see how they handled it when the going gets tough."

In two-person groups, the goal is to reach the top - by any means - by advancing from one level, or step in the ladder, to the next. The first person would usually climb on their partner's back, head or shoulders or grab onto cables or pegs to get themselves to the next level, then help the partner do the same.

"You'd have thought we were making some of them jump out of a plane," Early jokes. "Kids were scared to death on that climb but as they made each level, confidence grew."

Everyone in the group needed a shot of confidence after the first few teams tried but could not reach the top.

It was then time for the next team to give it a shot - Early and senior guard Sarah Ross.

"Deb kind of pulled usover to the side and told us that these guys really need to see someone do this," Early says. "And you know Sarah. She was saying 'Coach we are going to get to the top. We're going to do this.' And I was the same way."

Their journey to the top platform was an exercise in encouragement. The difficulty increased as the distance between segments grew farther apart.

So, too, did the determination.

"The whole way up coach was like, 'Man we're ballin'; we're ballin'.

We're doing this,'" Ross says. "When we got to the top, coach said, 'We are ballers.' It was great. It was like we had finished a race He calls me 'partner' every day now. It was such an awesome experience."

Their achievement changed the whole atmosphere surrounding the activity, Early says. Once he and Ross reached the top, no one else failed to do the same.

"I was as proud of me and Sarah making it to the top of that climb as anything I've done in sports," Early says. "And not just that we did it but how we did it. The attitude was the difference-maker for us. Making it there was an unbelievable sense of accomplishment." Top 10 experience

Early says Walter's game plan for the weekend was a home run. Some of thetools and lessons that were important parts of the workshop have already been used in practice.

The players, he says, are still buzzing from the experience.

"I had pretty high expectations for it, but it exceeded them," Early says. "Our kids wanted to do it again and for me, the whole weekend was probably one of my top 10 experiences I've ever had."

And the players are a closer group because of it, Ross says. And not because they were all saying "ugh, this stinks" together.

"I had been to a ropes course before and was kind of expecting to just go in and play some games," she says. "But we had a lot of obstacles to get through. It was frustrating sometimes but we really did have to work as a team. It will help our season out."

Early and Walters have started visiting about how, during the course of the upcoming season, to follow up on some of the weekend's main themes.

The experiences, Walter says, have to be nurtured.

"Like I told Preston," she says. "You can't just teach a skill and leave it unattended. I'll work with him on how we can best nurture this and continue to grow from it."

If it'll help the Lady Mounties be a successful basketball team, you can be sure the coach will be all for it.

Sports, Pages 6, 7 on 09/28/2009

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