Decatur girls basketball coach Trudy Tatum doesn’t know her win-loss record since taking over the Golden Gators program in 2014.
Tatum doesn’t know because those aren’t the statistics she cares about. For her, wins and losses are measured by heart and effort, not a final score.
Since 2006, Decatur girls basketball has garnered 39 wins. After its 51-26 loss on Jan. 13 to Auburn Mountainview, the Gators suffered their 13th loss of the season and their 186th loss since 2006.
After the game, however, Tatum didn’t want to hear about numbers. Instead, she broke down the Gators’ performance based on their effort.
“You don’t look at W’s based on a score,” Tatum said. “The wins come when we have a possession where they gel together, communicate and just play together. This is a young program, and those are the wins I look for. The score might say we lost, but the ability to gel and communicate is winning basketball.”
When Tatum took over Decatur basketball at the start of the 2014 season, it was coming off an 0-15 season the year before.
Tatum is 6-61 through three seasons and most of her fourth. To win games as the head coach, however, Tatum must first instill a winning attitude in her players, a message that sometimes requires drastic measures to reiterate.
Last week’s game against the Lions was no exception.
With 1 minute, 40 seconds left in the first half and Decatur trailing by 10, Gator forward Ramona Jagger was called for an offensive foul. The referee rang Jagger up after he felt the freshman pushed off her defender as she made a move to the basket inside the paint.
Tatum was hot. She leaped out of her chair and wasted no time taking issue with the call. She was immediately hit with a technical foul.
She said with her team down 10 and struggling to catch a break, she needed to do something to get the Gators’ energy back.
“That was the attempt,” Tatum said with a smile. “They were a little cold, and we needed to get them fired up.”
Decatur’s lone senior MaKayla Lambert said motivation is one of Tatum’s best qualities.
“That’s coach,” Lambert said of the technical foul. “She does whatever she has to do get us to focus when we might be off and can’t recover on our own.”
While Decatur fell to 2-13 after the loss to Auburn Mountainview, Tatum said the collective effort she got from the Gators was where it should be.
Tatum relies on Lambert to continuously carry on her message of playing with heart and effort, or, as the Gators call it “one heartbeat,” outside of games, as well.
Tatum requires her players to run an inordinate amount of lines during practice, and it’s not unusual for players to grow tired and fall behind.
Lambert, however, is not fazed by Tatum’s expectations. Not only is Lambert routinely one of the first players to finish, she also motivates her players in other ways.
When Lambert sees a teammate struggling, for example, she’ll either run alongside them, offering words of encouragement, or she’ll take their place.
More winning than losing has done a number on Decatur girls basketball over the years. The Gators aren’t the biggest or fastest team in the North Puget Sound League, and their numbers aren’t the highest.
But Tatum can’t begin to change that without its collective heartbeat.
“Basketball is mental,” she said. “We’ll go back and remind them that you play hard together, get back to making sure we communicate on the floor. The opponent doesn’t dictate our game, we do.”
