Herbert Tarpè
by Paityn Sauro - Middle School -
from Eden Prairie, Minnesota in United States
- Coach Herbert (or Herbert Tarpè) is my hero. I have many reasons for this statement, but before I get into those I will give you a little background.
- Coach Herbert has been my basketball coach since I started playing (3 years ago). He’s seen me play both my best and my worst games. He’s coached both my best and my worst teams, which I applaud him for because sometimes my team makes me want to rip my hair out!
- A reason he is my hero is because he has a TON of patience. When I say that, trust me, I mean it! An example is once a girl on my team started to run the wrong way. My whole team was screaming at her to turn around. Then she stopped and passed the ball over half court, so the referee sensibly called over and back. My whole team was losing their minds! Except for coach. He was just telling her to redeem herself and keep going. Another specific memory I have with Herbert is my very last game of the season. It was our state tournament and we had five girls, which meant no subs. Our whole team was beyond excited. We were determined to win this game, but the odds were against us.
- Before the game, I was talking to Herbert. We were talking about the team we were playing. It’s the normal rivals our city would have, but the only reason we were so against them is because they were against us. Both our teams were determined to win and Herbert knew what was going on. Part of the reason started all the way back at our first tournament, which I will inform you about.
- It was the last game of our first tournament. My team was going into this game with the mind set of winning, the reason being Herbert said before the game because he saw us looking discouraged. He asked us why we said we were fine, but the real reason was because the opposing team was extremely tall and fairly large. Our team had three mildly tall people and two extremely short players. But Herbert told us we were better then them and we would win this game with ease. That got the whole team hyped. We were ready. The game was close in the first half, and they were beating us. We were extremely angry because they would scream at us and were meaning to hurt us. Herbert told us to push back and show them who’s really better! In the second half we won by a basket.
- Now back to the state tournament. Herbert was telling me to be as aggressive as a bull in this game because we knew they were going to push back. So when it came to the actual game, I had to do the jump ball. Coach said to me, “The game depends on you.” This got my adrenaline rushing. If it wasn’t for Herbert I would not have tried as hard as I did that day. We were ahead for the first quarter, but eventually they got ahead by six points (three baskets). During the halftime Herbert was telling our team that we were going to win this game. We just needed to get a basket. He also told us that after all we’ve been through together we came to lose this game. That got our team hyped. We were ready to win. During the second half we were on a roll. We got the game tied. But then they pulled ahead again we kept going back and forth. Then we made a freethrow with two minutes left, we won by one point. After the game Herbert told me he was proud. This made me feel so accomplished and to this day Herbert is still my coach.
Page created on 12/17/2019 8:04:30 PM
Last edited 1/6/2020 10:39:05 PM
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