Belief and Suitcases

In my freshman English class at A&T, I read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” In it, Malcolm said that his wife Betty kept a packed suitcase for him because he was on the road so much.

Well, the A&T women’s basketball team is wearing me out trying to follow them!

They are still winning in their postseason play and the faithful will either need a lot of vacation days, frequent flyer miles or just “have it like that” in order to keep up with them. Miami is next!

But wait, I’ve got to back up.

I want to ask you like George Clinton (Parliament/Funkadelic) used to ask the crowd after he realized that he was getting ahead of himself. So he backed up to the beginning and said, “Do you believe in the Mothership, first off?!”

The crowd, caught off guard, mumbled back “Yeah!”

George, louder this time, said “do you believe in the Mothership?!!!” And the crowd yelled “Yeah!”

And then George went to work knowing that the foundation was there.

This Lady Aggie team reminded me of the A&T/NCCU football game the past year when, during the end of regulation, NCCU was on the A&T 10 yard line and was set to kick a field goal to win the game.

The Aggie Nation started to yell “Defense”… boom, boom …”Defense”, and it swelled and built up around Aggie Stadium. And then, in miraculous fashion, Jarrell Herring broke through the line and blocked it!!! The Aggies would eventually go on to win that game in overtime.

Now in Charlotte last Sunday, the 49ers mounted a comeback on the Aggies and it was crunch time. Our legs were tired, and the ball was getting heavy.

Coach Bibbs said something during the time out, and the Aggies took their time and were facing the greatest defensive pressure that UNC-C could muster.

Meanwhile, their home crowd was chanting, the shot clock was running down, it was in their house. The Aggies worked their reads and Freshman Amber Calvin hit a big shot.

BAM! I think that she bounced up and down like a boxer who just entered the ring on new legs!!

I looked around and the Aggies were bouncing. The pep band, the bench! Wow!

At that very moment, it said that WE BELIEVE!

We believe in the young players. We believe in the team. We believe in the coach and staff. We believe in the school, and we believe in ourselves!

God is a given, in the mixture. This team is still playing. It does not want to go home. It climbs the rough side of the mountain by having to go on the road to win. The Aggies are leading again.

Now, back to the suitcase. I can’t make the Thursday Miami trip with a turnaround to Providence or Maryland for Sunday. I can still believe though. I want those who have a chance to grab an ear of a player or Coach, to say “we are with you”, and put a shoebox layered with wax paper and laden with chicken, in their hands.

Then look in their eyes and say ‘do your best’!

What a journey…Aggie Pride!

The Lady Aggies and History

I have to pick up my pen to write about this team. I am running on fumes after a wild night of not being able to sleep thinking about this team making history.

They won 73-49, beating Wake Forest in the first round of the Women's National Invitational Tournament (WNIT). It was the first postseason win in a national tournament for the program, I've been told. The larger schools have their pick of the best players, and can offer those players TV, radio, web support, etc. But its funny how it pans out.

A&T offers a great education and tradition. Now if you are a star do you want to go to a big school and sit the bench, along with a possibility of your replacement being recruited the next year? Some are changing the model. They want to play now! A&T is making a name for itself; it is getting players.

Now, about last night. The game was in a small gym on the campus of Wake Forest. The Wake men were playing on TV later that night in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Hence, most of the interest and attendance would have been in the dorm rooms and bars around the Triad. The majority of the Wake Forest pep band may have been on the road with the men. In any case, they only had a few members in Reynolds Gymnasium that night.

Their crowd was 1/3 of the gym. A&T packed the house. The game was sold out. The Pep band was at full strength and it blew the roof off of the gym. The Wake Forest crowd looked at one another once A&T finished its first song, with that "what's this?" type of expression. The Aggie crowd was loud and cheered the players who made plays and went to the bench for a rest.

It was electric!

It was like yesterday meeting today. A throwback gym, the secret game between Duke & NCCU (NCC at the time, during segregation), the Woolworth store vs. the four A&T freshmen, the status quo vs. the promise of the new thing.

It was not as Smokey Robinson says in the song 'quiet storm': "butterfly caught up in a hurricane", it was the flower coming up through concrete.

The A&T women's basketball team showed the faithful that we must continue to believe. We must continue to provide for those coming after us.

History springs forth!