Stanford Littles Pledge:

"I shall love my BIGS by giving them the ball" 

Get The Ball INSIDE!"

This is the sign you would see upon entering the locker room of the Stanford Women's Basketball team.  Actually there are many signs.  They're posted on the doors of lockers that belong to "Littles."  They're posted on the mirrors in the bathroom.  There is no escaping the signs and there is no escaping the fact that at Stanford, the "Bigs" have their cake and eat it too.  They do easy fun drills at practice, they get gear quicker and without hassle, and the plays are made for them.  In Maples Pavilion, it's a Big's World and Littles and Middles are just squirrels trying to get a nut.

I was initially nervous to write this post, for fear that I might give some of our game plan away.  However, after careful consideration, I decided that if you're an opposing coach, and you don't know we're going inside... you missed the boat.  So...I'll continue.

Think of our team as a mini-civilization.  Who are the Bigs?  They are our big girls, the 6'3 and up club.  They are the caesars, the czars, the emperors, the queens, the presidents, and the pharaohs of the team.  And then there are the peasants.   Introducing the Littles:  a miserly collection of point guards and shooting guards.  The Littles are sometimes combined with a small group of vagabonds, the Middles.  The Middles are a collection of migrant wing players who rotate between the Bigs and Littles as they please.

In any given drill, you can count on the fact that the Littles are given the hardest task.  In one drill the Bigs simply have is to catch the ball, pass it to a frantically hustling guard and then shoot a foul shot or take a layup; whichever option suits their fancy at the moment.  While the Bigs are busy playing tiddly-winks and lay-up drill, the guards are made to go back door hard, sprint to the outlet, make three full speed pull-up jumpers at all sorts of ungodly ends of the gym and make it back in time for their turn in line, only to begin the same ordeal again.  As if our lives weren't already hard enough, the coaches have added new ways to burden the Littles.  We don't just do the hardest parts of drills, now we have a point system.  Each jump shot is worth one point.  A missed lay up is worth minus two points.  Only one guard can win.  This pretty much means that unless you are absolutely perfect for all six reps of the drill, you and the other loser guards will be doing a suicide at the end of the drill.  Don't worry though; the entire group of Bigs is always available to cheer us on as we run.

During practice we often break up to do position drills.  Littles and Middles are on one end of the gym; Bigs are on the other.  Not surprisingly, the Bigs have two coaches work with them, Amy Tucker and Bobbie Kelsey, while the guards only get one, Kate Paye.  Kate says this is because the Bigs aren't that smart and they need the extra attention.   Kate is rarely wrong.

The Bigs have another huge advantage stemming from their cozy relationship with Amy Tucker.  Amy's official title is Associate Head Coach, however, around the locker room she's known as the "sock lady."  Amy controls all the gear.  Amy is the gatekeeper to all that is stretchy: socks and spandex, sports bras and Dri-fits. The Bigs never want for something new to wear.  I see them giggling with Amy and sashaying around the court with their blazingly bright Dri-fit t-shirts and fully padded socks.  Meanwhile, I have been asking for a new pair of white mid-calf length socks since preseason.  It's a crying shame.

The Littles endure harder drills and slow delivery of new gear only to tolerate yet another injustice: the plays aren't for us.  I will recount one example to prove my point.  Sometime during the first week or two of official team practice we began installing plays.  Tara yells out that they've created a brand new play just for our 6'5 freshman, Sarah Boothe. Boothe had been at Stanford for about five weeks and already had plays ran for her. I've been here three YEARS. Without rest, without socks, and without plays.  What's a guard got to do to come off a screen?  

Ha!  Ok, ok, ok.  While the contents of this post are mostly accurate and true (the signs do exist (see above) and I am still waiting on socks...), I've had a little fun with this post.  So please, for those who don't know me well, realize this post was written with love and a smile. 

I hope you enjoyed getting to know more about our team in this week's edition of the Rhetoric of RosGO.  Come back next week to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes! 

Upcoming games: New Mexico @ home, Rutgers @ home, then off to Hawaii for a Thanksgiving tournament!