Team is dictionary definition of class
Every once in a while, if you’re lucky, you run into people who truly get it. You run into those who bear-hug the bigger picture. You run into a special few who realize joy is, in many cases, a choice.
Know this about the Southwestern College women’s basketball team: They are, objectively, viewed through the lens of the sport itself, awful.
In five games, the Jaguars’ average margin of defeat is 102.2 points. They’ve allowed 100 points to every opponent, losing one game 110-0. In two of the three games where box scores are posted to the team’s website, they finished with more fouls than points.
If you’re trying to measure this bubbly, infectious group with math — the record, the scores, the statistical carnage — you’re missing the point.
“Sports reveal character,” said Ron Valenzuela, Southwestern College’s athletic director. “This is a prime example of that.”
This team, these young women, the whole of what led to a season unlike any other, is the dictionary definition of character. To label them saviors is not hyperbole, but the unvarnished and admirable truth.
At community colleges, athletic churn is a constant thorn. A season after going 15-12, a tsunami of injuries, departures and redshirts pushed the Jaguars to the brink of forfeiting the season.
Then something magical happened.
The women’s soccer team, essentially without a minute of competitive experience, raised their collective hands. Eleven players, currently the entire basketball roster, signed up for a wild adventure, picking up rules and skills in fits and starts along the way.
Though five games were canceled last November and December, they jumped into the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference schedule this month.
And that joy? Endless. Boundless. Flat-out inspiring.
Just ask assistant coach Louie Lingaza, a mail carrier with a downtown route who was running practice Monday wearing his U.S. Postal Service shorts and jacket.
Lingaza bolts from downtown to campus through the maddening traffic knots along the 94 and 805 freeways because he would not miss what’s going on now for a pristine sheet of pre-war stamps.
“This group is unique,” said Lingaza, who has coached 25 years between high schools and Southwestern. “They listen. They try. They never put their heads down, even with the scores being
as lopsided as they are. They’re never frustrated with each other. They never mope. They encourage each other. They always smile.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this.” Then he tells a story. In the last game, at San Diego City College, the Jaguars trailed 72-0 at halftime. The coaches dangled a competitive carrot. If they scored at least 10 points in the second half, the postgame plans would flip.
“I said, ‘We can go to Chili’s or we can go to Jack in the Box. What do you guys want to do?’ ” Lingaza said. “They screamed ‘Chili’s!’ We scored in the first 3 minutes and all of them were jumping up and down.
“We scored 12, so we went to Chili’s.”
Valenzuela tied a heartwarming bow on things.
“They have pure joy,” he said. “That gets lost in today’s competitive world of college athletics, where the end-all, be-all is winning and losing.”
As basketball players, these women are wonderful soccer players. They finished second in the PCAC last season after winning the league the season before.
Shifting from a bountiful success in one sport to the cellar of another would be a jolting change of scenery. This never was about winning or losing, though. This was about something more significant.
Trying. Learning. Weathering choppy water together.
“It’s understanding that we’ve never played the sport, so we can’t let the scores get to us — especially against players who have played for years,” said freshman Ariana Lieras, an allconference midfielder and defender in soccer from Hilltop High School.
“We know this isn’t our sport, but we’re having fun and keeping the season alive.”
Two-sport teammate Gialli Francisco, also an all-PCAC soccer player from Hilltop, said the rewards come in small yet unforgettable packages.
Each moment of success, no matter how fleeting, is celebrated.
“A teammate scoring the first points of the game, everyone is getting hyped and yelling, even if it’s two points and the other team is up 80,” she said. “It’s the best feeling in the world to at least put something on the board. It’s like we just won the game.
“Those memories, being so happy for each other, in something we never thought we’d do, I think I’ll carry that.”
The way the group approaches the whole it offers a master course in maturebeyond-their-years perspective.
“They have no fear of failure,” Valenzuela said. “These games, the outcome is not in question. But these ladies compete. There’s a sense of pride. They had an opportunity to save a season. They jumped at it.”
At a recent practice, the soccer muscle memory is apparent. Players kick and dribble balls between drills. They excel at two-handed, overhead throws rather than bounce passes, as if on the pitch.
Errant shots pound off the backboards with resounding thuds and misfired passes exit the court in all directions.
Then you hear a player tell a teammate, “I love your shoes!”
It’s beyond refreshing. It’s a pitch-perfect symphony.
“The willingness to take risks, the willingness to take on the unknown, the willingness to learn, this experience together as a group, these are memories they’re going to take with them for the rest of their lives,” Valenzuela said.
Scoreboard? What scoreboard?