| This season fans will have the opportunity to see first-hand what it it’s like to be a part of the women’s basketball program at Georgia Tech in a series of online journal entries at Ramblinwreck.com written by freshman Shaday “Day-Day” Woolcock. |
Check out Day-Day’s latest entry below:
Oct. 29, 2007
The first two weeks of practice have been an unexplainable experience. Lots of teaching has taken place, as well as learning, and I’m really beginning to realize exactly what it takes to be a Yellow Jacket competing at the ACC level. Practice is on a whole new level. Everything is much faster and we’re always talking. Coach really stresses the importance of communication while on the court. Along with communication, she also puts a lot of emphasis on defense, offensive boards, and running the floor.
Everyday practice starts off with a “thought of the day” and each quote given to us so far has been one that truly applies. After the quote is explained by a selected player we stack it up and practice begins. From the jump, we are off to a rapid start, doing a bunch of drills to get us going. We have one of the greatest coaching staffs in women’s basketball and they make sure that they are correcting every little thing that we do. At times this can be frustrating but I feel all of my teammates realize that it’s the small things that win big games.
Our first practices consisted of two-a-days and they were thorough. I was trying to take in all of the information but I had been on my Achilles a lot and at times it would hurt really bad and I would find myself zoning out. After running through different spots in our offensive and defensive plays, I realized that just learning the plays and where to go wasn’t the hard part, actually understanding how the offense is made to break down different defenses and understanding exactly how help side defense should be played in certain situations was more challenging. I am pleased to say that my freshman teammates and I have done well with learning the plays and the strategies that come along with them and we continue to learn more and more each day.
As far as academics, I must admit it is tough, but with all the help and support that is available to my teammates and I, we have no choice but to do well. Over the past couple of weeks, I have had to adjust my studying techniques. Time management is another factor that I am really putting a lot of focus into. As a student athlete, there are a lot of things that you have to attend: Study hall, tutoring, classes of course, meetings, community service, and in my case, I also have to add on rehab. In addition, it is very important to have time to eat three meals a day and get the proper rest that the body needs. It can be difficult managing all these things because it’s not like you can just knock one thing off the list and consider it more important than the other. Everything must be taken care of. But when there is a group of women basketball players who have the strong will and desire to be the best, things get done no matter how arduous they may be. I feel this quality will be one of the main reasons we have such a great season this year.
– Shaday “Day-Day” Woolcock
