These ‘thank you’ messages were read by former players of HHS girls’ basketball coach Brent Kell during a tribute Feb. 1 for the retiring coach:
•Thank you Hiett Gymnasium hardwood floors for holding up the massive amount of stomps coach Kell has given you over the past 30 years
•Thank you metal chairs for giving coach something to kick when we weren’t getting the job done
•Thank you dry erase board for taking a beating when we didn’t run the play like it was drawn up
•Thank you aero dynamically built loafer shoe for your ability to fly across the locker room when coach kicked at an ice bucket.
•Thank you for your apparent complete lack of smell, that allowed you to tape up all our feet and ankles without gagging. Or was it only me that needed that?
•Thank you, clip board factory, for your endless supply to replace thrown clip boards.
•Thank you coach for always being an encouragement and telling me I could when I said “I can’t.” Those suicides were a great reminder for me to believe “I can!”
•Thank you coach for always believing in me even when I didn’t!
•Thank you coach for teaching us to never give up even though we all really knew that there was no way we were gonna win!
•Thank you to the lines on the court for always be there to touch during our many days of conditioning.
nThank you glasses, for allowing coach to always be able to see EVERYTHING bad we did on the court.
•Thank you hair for only turning gray, but not falling out because of all of us.
•Thank you arms for crossing tightly to prevent the hands from strangling any of us.
•Thank you to the Kell family for sharing your husband and dad with all the teams throughout the years.
•Thank you to the free basketball clinics for young players, allowing them to soak up some of your wisdom, and letting us see our daughters being coached by the best.
•Thank you sweater vests for providing MANY outfit completer pieces.
•Thank you for continuing to encourage and support us, no matter how old we get.
•Thank you evil stat keeper for keeping track of how many shots we missed “in the paint.”
•Thank you for making us shoot free throws after suicides to “keep it real.”
•Thank you for making me hate the word TURNOVER. It’s kept me slim.
•Thank you Expo marker company for inventing a pen that never seemed to run out.
And in the early years…before any gray hair…
nThanks for running with us. I was never fast, but never felt like a turtle till he beat everyone but Amber Tottingham.
nThanks for making more 3’s…during daily warm ups…than…well…the entire team…at least till Patti Wright Roberts came along. He was smooth and made it look effortless.
•Thanks for inventing an absolutely insane drill that involved bouncing the ball off the back board… to be caught by the gal behind you… and then running to the other end to be there in time to never let either ball hit the ground. It taught me that sometimes a coach will make you do things just for their own personal amusement purposes.
•And thank you Laaarrry Biiirrrd for giving him a ridiculous sing-song name to shout out as he shot those amazing 3’s
•Thank you Milton Bradley for giving us Win Lose or Draw to play for team bonding.
•Thank you muscles I never knew existed for making your presence known during the first week of practice. You made walking up the high school stairs a no pain no gain reality!
•Thank you evil “hill” for always being there for us. In the off season, preseason, and anytime we just needed to spend some time forcefully propelling our bodies up you with legs burning so much that u think I heard mine screaming sometimes.
•Thank you PMS, hormones, breakups, puberty, and general high school girl drama for always keeping it interesting for coach.
•Thank you for trying..even though I had horrible basketball skills! I did make one basket…it was a surprise to me too!
•Thank you for being a leader in Christ and a role model.
•Thank you for your dinosaur cellphone going off in practice.
•Thank you coach Kell for having the patience of a saint and for never giving up on me.
•Thank you for your seemingly endless patience as we sang (loudly and badly) on those long bus rides.
•Thank you coach for giving everyone a heart attack when you decided to run the last of our 23 suicides with us and pretending to hurt yourself.
•Thank you random pole in Springfield fast food parking lot for not being a car or person when Coach Kell asked us if there were any cars behind us on the way to basketball camp. The abrupt stop and need of a new bumper was worth our honesty that no cars or people were back there!
•Thank you, team Christmas parties and coach’s uncanny artistic ability, for making us realize the game Pictionary should really be called “What was that?”
•Thank you coach, for teaching us that “it’s not about the numbers…it’s about the quantity.”
•Thank you for the many nicknames you gave us over the years. I wasn’t sure if you knew Frank wasn’t really my name.”