The following excerpt is from Bill Plaschke’s article in the L.A. Times (originally posted on March 31, 2013) about Kirsten Moore, the head women’s basketball coach at Westmont College. She recently led her team to the NAIA National Championship. This story is an amazing example of perseverance and overcoming adversity. Kirsten is a first-class individual and is well-respected in the coaching profession. She certainly has a bright future ahead of her in the coaching world, but as you’ll see from Plaschke’s great article, it is her past which fuels her present and future.
For Westmont College women, sadness fueled an ardor on the court
The women’s basketball team at the school south of Santa Barbara rallied around Coach Kirsten Moore and her baby after her husband died unexpectedly. Their crowning gift to her was an NAIA title.
MONTECITO — Her final pep talk wasn’t a pep talk at all. Kirsten Moore was beyond pep.
Her final pep talk, given while surrounded by her Westmont College women’s basketball team before the NAIA national championship game, was her chance to say thanks.
Moore thanked her team for keeping her soul alive. She thanked them for sitting in the third row for her husband’s funeral, for playing with her infant daughter in the third row of the team bus, for sharing her pain and embellishing her joy. She thanked them for their patience when she was weeping at an unseen memory, or staring blankly into an uncertain future, or disappearing just before tipoffs to nurse her child.
By the time Moore finished talking, most of her players were crying so hard they couldn’t see. They couldn’t focus. They couldn’t move.
They couldn’t lose.