Looking at Hannah Linz lying exhausted on the court, North Dakota State women's basketball coach Carolyn DeHoff saw an opportunity to teach a basketball lesson. Here, it seemed, was an example of the effort required to make a season successful, personified in the prone form of a player who had to come back from cancer to be on the court at all.
Practice wasn't going particularly well on the day in question, which
is why Linz and her teammates found themselves on the end line waiting
to run. The ensuing din of dozens of pounding sneakers was interrupted
only by a series of squeaks as each player reversed direction, the same
soundtrack heard in every gym in the country in the days before a
season. The sprints completed, the coach called attention to the senior
short on breath.If the others wanted the kind of season to which all presumably aspire, they would be wise to follow Linz's lead.
"I really reflect back on that day because then she got up and she actually had tears in her eyes," DeHoff said. "And I didn't really think about it, what was going on, other than, you know -- here's a kid, again, who has gone through what she's gone through and gets to a certain point and can't go any further. Wants to go further but can't.
"So I just kind of felt it was that."
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