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Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph by C. Vivian Stringer
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Standing Tall Quotes Showing 1-24 of 24
“if you tell her she can come home just because she’s lonesome, then how is she going to grow up to be a strong individual, to stand on her own two feet as you know she will have to in this life? If you let her come home, how is she ever going to understand that she has to commit herself to fulfilling the responsibilities she’s taken on? She needs to grow up.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“Bring it on. This team is strong enough.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“When I started out as a coach, I never thought for a second that there would ever be so much written or so much said about my work. I had always been driven, but by a love of the game and a sense of responsibility to the teams I coached, not by ambition.

I was going to be a gym teacher, and Bill was going to be a gym teacher, too. We were going to have a white picket fence and two children and a dog, and live happily ever after. That's a pretty decent level for us, I thought - more than what our parents had had, for sure, and enough to make them proud.

The rest of this - well, who would have guessed?”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“I cannot tell you how many people during that time told me: 'I’m so sorry this happened to you—but I am so glad that it was you who it happened to.'

I can't help but think that they're right.

I have been through a lot in my life, and if nothing else, it has made me strong. I wouldn't have wished it on the team for anything. If could go back right now and steal those words out of his mouth, I would do it. But as I have spent a career telling the young women in my care, all you can do is focus on the things you control, and what we controlled in this instance was our response.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“You have to stand tall,' I told them. 'You know who you are and what you've accomplished. Let's remember those accomplishments and take pride in them. We define who we are.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“I'm so glad that I didn't quit,' I told them. 'If I had, I would never have known what it was to coach you. I've never seen better evidence of the resilience of the human spirit. I've never coached a team that has accomplished so much in one year - ever. It seemed that there was no way for you to reach the levels you aspired to. But from you I've understood even more what it means to persevere in the face of adversity. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.'

Championship or no championship, this had been the most rewarding year I'd ever had coaching basketball. The last few months had been a fairy tale. We were the team that had been written off by the world as nothings. There wasn't a single person in America who would have bet ten cents that we'd be the team to go to Cleveland. No one in the world would have thought that we'd be the ones looking up and seeing 'AND THEN THERE WERE TWO' on that JumboTron—and that included me. But nobody knows better than me—a coal miner's daughter from Edenborn, Pennsylvania, a patch with no stop light—that it's not where you start but where you finish that counts. We might have started the season with a forty-point loss on our own floor, but we ended it by playing at the highest level, as one of the two best teams in the nation.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“Life might be unfair; you might be blindsided by bad luck or misfortune. Nobody knows better than a basketball coach that you might not reap the rewards of your hard work, and that you don't always get what you deserve. But with the support of other people, you get through it. We need one another, and if we stick together, we can get through anything.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“When I started out as a coach, I never thought for a second that there would ever be so much written or so much said about my work. I had always been driven, but by a love of the game and a sense of responsibility to the teams I coached, not by ambition.

I was going to be a gym teacher, and Bill was going to be a gym teacher, too. We were going to have a white picket fence and two children and a dog, and live happily ever after. That's a pretty decent level for us, I thought - more than what our parents had had, for sure, and enough to make them proud.
The rest of this - well, who would have guessed?”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“That team might have been badly lacking, but they had the desire to make something of themselves, and that was all I needed. What I'm always looking for is effort, people who are driven to excellence and who will be tireless in their quest to achieve. It is not a sin not to know, as long as I can see that you're willing to learn; I will give you all the guidance you need as long as you'll do what it takes to be prepared. We didn't have strong offensive skills or a lot of talent, but building a strong defense just requires a tremendous amount of hard work, and that was something I could count on from this team.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“As I told my players a hundred times, it doesn't matter where you come from, but where you're going; it doesn't matter where you start, but where you finish. And where we finished was at the NCAA championship game, the very first in women's basketball history.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“Everybody looks for an identity; that's human nature - and it's especially true about young people. But that's why the ultimate sacrifice is to give up your individuality for the sake of the team. We can only be successful when everyone understands that the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts, but we will never get there if everyone is looking to carve out a little place for themselves, to steal her own identity at the expense of everyone else.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“You show that unity by dressing like a team, cheering like a team, by winning and losing together like a team.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“Aimee Mullins, the president of the Women's Sports Foundation, told me recently that 84% of women business leaders in this country say that they were athletes. I'm not surprised: athletics breeds a level of confidence and leadership that can be hard for girls to find elsewhere. Parents act like they want their daughters to be as strong as their sons, but they're much tougher on the boys. Sports, on the other hand, doesn't discriminate. There's no opportunity to cover up anything on the court: you either get it done, or you don't.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“I was so touched by her—all alone out there in Oklahoma, so far from home and everything she knew. When you meet someone really special, you know it right away, as I did with Simone.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“That’s a pretty decent level for us, I thought—more than what our parents had had, for sure, and enough to make them proud.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“I know I’m good enough.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“Coaching is more like chess; it’s about out-thinking and outsmarting the other team.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“This is a story I tell the kids I coach all the time because it’s one of the most important lessons we can learn in life: you cannot compare yourself to others. You cannot concern yourself with the girl next to you. As I always tell them, know thyself.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“My dream for the young ladies I coach is that they never measure themselves with someone else’s yardstick, or simply by wins and losses. I would like them to know that real success is achieved when you set your own worth, fulfill your own destiny, and stand up for what you know to be right. And I want these young women, the leaders of tomorrow, to go forth and multiply: what we have learned, we now must teach.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“I started to think about what life would be like somewhere else. I needed to know that I could be independent.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“My father preached independence for women long before it was fashionable to do so. There was no way any of the Stoner girls was going to marry a man because she was looking to be taken care of; my father would have found that revolting. We had to be in control of our own lives.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“I appreciate the struggle, especially when you’re just getting your independence.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“It’s hard to make and maintain friendships on a coaching schedule, and as a result, it can be a very lonely profession. If anything, I’d like to see more reaching out among the coaches in the women’s game. It means a lot to get a phone call from a colleague remembering a birthday or commemorating a milestone. I try to reach out that way, even if it’s to say, “I know things look bad out there right now, but you’ve got a fan in me.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
“We don’t want you to spend the rest of your life alone. If you found someone great, we would welcome that.” I was so relieved that they had forgiven me, and that I had their blessing. I knew that they’d want what was best for me.”
C. Vivian Stringer, Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph