Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The tough lessons are the ones you learn the best

Johnny Dawkins' Stanford team started the season by winning its first 10 games.

Then came a Jan. 2 game against a ranked Arizona State team. In its Pac-10 opener, Stanford lost by 30, the team's worst home loss in more than 20 years.

But just two days later, the Cardinal beat 9-4 Arizona by 16.

According to this story, "explaining the turnaround is difficult, but Dawkins credits a team gathering Saturday evening."

"It was very important that we met (Saturday) night at Maples [Pavilion] with the lights out and just talked," Dawkins said. "I told them about my freshman year at Duke when we lost to Virginia by 43 in the ACC tournament. Sometimes the tough lessons are the ones you learn the best. I learned we have a lot of character."