There's more to playing basketball than physical prowess.
Every week, coach Sylvia Crawley has to prepare her team for the physical nature of the game, but she also has the job of getting her team mentally prepared.
As a communications major, Crawley said she studies behaviors and knows how to get each individual player motivated by studying their personalities. Before the start of the season, Crawley took her team to a ropes course to get a gauge of each player's personality and amount of determination in each of her players.
That told me everything I need to know about this team for the rest of the year
Crawley said. So much of what I do is motivating them in the locker room before the game and halftime and before practice everyday.
I feel like despite our record, we are trying to break past .500 but I'm trying to build young adults. They are learning everyday lessons through athletics.
Guard Jennifer Bushby who was named the Mid-American Conference East division player of the week yesterday said that Crawley has that extra ability to prepare her team for a win.
I think coach Crawley is a very good motivator, Bushby said. She's very good at getting us prepared for the game and very good at being positive about the game.
Akron is next on Ohio's schedule and with the Zips sitting at 5-13
0-4 in MAC play
it would be easy to overlook them
which Crawley said is one of the biggest challenges.
We have to not take any team for granted, Crawley said. Sometimes on our scouting report we don't even put the other team's record.
Guard Lauren Kohn said that instead of going into games thinking about what the other team has done
she thinks about it what the situation means to her as a senior.
What motivates me personally is going into each game and thinking to myself this is the last time I'm going to get to play Akron at home, Kohn said. They say 'play every game like it's your last' and this is my last in that situation.
Crawley never wants to overlook any teams
including her own
Bushby said.
Every game we go into she knows we're going to win, Bushby said. She's such a positive coach and she's so emotionally there for us. She's always hyping us up, getting us ready to play. How she motivates us shows how great of a coach she is.
Crawley said that she knows preparing the team mentally will
in turn
allow them to play at their best
