Lady Demon volleyball coach Brittany Uffelman believes in seeking outside sources for motivating her players.
So that's why she was giving former Demon football player Matt Slate and Lady Demon basketball assistant coach Mindy Newlee great credit for last night's win over McNeese State.
After a terribly frustrating 4-game loss Tuesday night at Louisiana Tech, Uffelman dialed up Slate, the former Demon linebacker who lives with his wife in Ruston, where he is a regional Fellowship of Christian Athletes director.
He immediately agreed to meet the team on the bus in a parking lot. A few minutes later, there he was, and after a briefing from Coach B, Slate gave a 10-minute talk to the players.
The crux of it: when he reflects back on the magical 1998 football season, with the Southland Conference championship and No. 2 national ranking and three home playoff games, he hardly remembers the details of the games. He remembers the relationships between the players and coaches and the fun they all had.
His advice to the Lady Demons was simple. Have fun. Enjoy your teammates, enjoy each day, treasure the opportunity.
So that made Newlee a perfect followup for Thursday night's pregame talk.
If you've met her, you know her vibrant personality. She completely subscribes to Slate's approach.
She has good cause. When she was 13, she was diagnosed with a form of leukemia. She played her first couple of years of high school basketball in her hometown of Clarksville, Ark., bald from chemotherapy.
The treatment worked.
Her message to the team traced her experience and reinforced the idea that we should maximize the joy in every day.
So during time outs Thursday night, even in the many tense moments, if fans wondered why there were grins from the Lady Demons, now you may understand.
They were having fun.
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