In the past years, the Liberty Eagles have been on top of the district for basketball, winning in both 2017 and 2018. But, last year, wasn’t a great season for the Eagles; but I think this year it’s different.

The team this year is looking great and could be a contender for the district title. In their last game against Holt, they were looking really strong. Even though they lost by four, they stuck to it and fought to the end.

Coach Sodemann has a philosophy that doesn’t just go for basketball but it’s for life as well: “Be a brick.”

Now I didn’t know what that meant either, but as I started to be around the program more I realized what it meant. It’s a process to get to where you want to be. He compared it to one of the most famous analogies – “Rome wasn’t built in one day.” It’s a process. To get where we want to be, you have to put the brick down so it can be a finished product. 

Another story that I found to be very interesting is from Coach Sodemann’s dad, “Papa Sodemann.” A well-respected coach of his own, he talks about how you can do everything right in practice and but still not perform when it matters.

He says that if you had a test and one of the questions was what’s 2+2 and the teacher tells you that the answer is 4 and you study all week saying 2+2= 4. But when test day comes and you see the question ‘’what’s 2+2’’ and you put down 5. You’ve been studying the answer all week and now the day comes up and you put the wrong answer. That goes to show that you can be the greatest practice player but when you get in games you freeze and don’t know what to do. 

What matters in the basketball program isn’t winning and losing, but rather about making boys into me. I think the coaches for Liberty’s basketball team is doing a great job of doing that.