May 17, 2003

Main 1, a YMCA team composed of seventh- and eighth-graders, was victorious in all nine games it played. The team, from left to right: Dante Henry, Gonzalo Duran, Ricardo Martinez, Joe Sanders, Octavio Reyes, Rosario Aguilar and Brandon Hinton. Team memb Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell

It wasn’t about winning.

At least, not in the beginning.

Basketball was merely a reward for a handful of boys unaccustomed to being rewarded. Then a funny thing happened.

The team of modest means and precious little experience in organized athletics won its first game. Then its next. And another.

By season’s end, "Main 1," so named for the address of the social service agency it represents, was victorious in all nine contests it played in the Rogue Valley Family YMCA league for seventh- and eighth-graders.

"If they hadn’t won any games, I would have been proud because they got out and tried," says coach Tom Cole, the director of Kids Unlimited of Southern Oregon, from which the team sprang. "The amazing thing is, they won every game."

It’s a nice story, a cross between The Bad News Bears and Hoosiers. A patchwork team that persevered.

Members of Main 1 are representative of the 500 or so kids the youth development program benefits weekly. Many come from low-income families and face transitional living conditions.

That they utilize the after-school mentoring program indicates a desire to improve their grades and school behavior and take a more-productive path than others available to them.

On that path was an opportunity to play a sport they love, albeit in a structured setting foreign to nearly all of them.

"I had to teach the rules of the game to a lot of them," says Cole. "A lot of these kids haven’t gone to skills camps or had coaching. They’ve picked up a lot of bad habits just watching games on TV."

Playground ball was one thing.

This was a YMCA league. Games were played in gyms with scoreboards against teams in uniforms that ran set plays and followed their progress in standings.

Cole admits it never dawned on him to form a team. It was the enterprise of one of his players, Gonzalo Duran, that made it happen.

The McLoughlin Middle School seventh-grader first broached the subject and asked Cole to coach. He then brought in applications, made sure all the players signed them and bird-dogged Cole to make sure the coach met necessary deadlines.

"I knew this kid was a leader," says Cole.

Before the first game, the coach bought jerseys and had the team name and numbers printed on them.

The players were so proud of the shirts, some wore them to school, and Cole instituted a rule that they were for games only.

The air was thick the day of the first game.

"Just walking into the gym was such an overwhelming experience for them," says Cole, whose coaching background was limited to Boys and Girls Club basketball in the Midwest a decade ago. "It was kind of a state of disarray. They all clammed up."

Duran admits to being "sort of nervous," but, he adds, "I felt like the whole team had confidence."

In some cases, it was hard to detect.

"I was kind of worried," says Dante Henry. "We hadn’t practiced as a team, and we all had different abilities. It was kind of weird, but we got it together. Every game, we got more and more confident."

It didn’t take long for Cole to see what was evolving from this experience.

Rosario Aguilar scored six points and couldn’t contain his excitement, Cole recalls.

"He said, ‘All the kids on the playground said I couldn’t play. They made fun of me.’ It gave him some self-esteem."

As the games came and went, the feeling of accomplishment climbed.

It seeped into other areas, too.

Duran’s grade-point average went from 1.7 the first quarter to 3.7 the third quarter.

He was recently chosen student of the month at McLoughlin and spoke before the City Council, proudly telling the assemblage he was a basketball player.

Main 1 turned heads as it rolled through the season. That it came off the street and exhibited more teamwork than most of its opponents was surprising.

The YMCA’s Wes Towne, who oversaw the league, says the competition was stiffer this season than in the past because it began after school ball ended.

"They were gritty, man," says Towne. "They played harder than everyone else, I’d have to say. When the game was on the line, they wanted it more. You could see it in their eyes. They had that killer instinct."

That was evident in the season-ending tournament.

In the semifinals, Joe Sanders knocked down a free throw with no time showing.

"Everybody in the crowd was pounding on the bleachers and hitting the chairs and yelling," says Sanders. "I proved them wrong and made it."

Main 1 triumphed, 24-23, then took the finale by 21 points.

By that time, the team’s following ballooned, particularly with family and friends.

Ricardo Martinez’s mother, Bertha, was particularly inspiring and inspired, running up and down the sideline shouting encouragement in Spanish.

"She was like a coach out there," says Brandon Hinton.

After the tournament, Cole celebrated with his players. Instead of a fast-food place, as was the norm during the season, he sprang for a trip to the Olive Garden.

A nice restaurant was a rare treat.

"I told them to order anything they wanted," says Cole. "Their eyes were bigger than their stomachs, but there was nothing left on their plates."

The bill came to $260.

Cole didn’t flinch.

"He’s such a good coach and all," says Hinton. "He does nice things for us. He’s so caring. He goes out and buys us jerseys and celebrates with us."

Next, Main 1 plans to enter a summer AAU league, where the players and teams figure to be better.

Cole doesn’t expect their recent success to go to their heads.

"For this group, I’m not worried about that," he says. "They’ve never been winners before. They know what loss is like. They know what letdown is like. They experience it sometimes on a daily basis."

Not this time.

"For me," says Cole, who has worked with kids for a dozen years, "to see what they’ve done with this, I’ve never had a prouder moment."

As it turned out, it was all about winning.

Reach sports editor Tim Trower at 776-4479

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