The end of USC’s long home win streak stung but is a fresh start for the Gamecocks | Opinion

The University of South Carolina Lady Gamecocks’ 87-58 loss to the University of Connecticut Huskies on Feb. 16 was not only a resounding defeat to a team USC had beaten four consecutive times, but it broke a 71-game home court win streak dating to early December 2020.

I am sure the Gamecocks were devastated. As a former athlete, I can relate to their emotions.

My team, the Wayland College Hutcherson Flying Queens, won 131 straight games and four straight national AAU basketball championships before losing in the semifinals of the 1958 National AAU basketball tournament to a team we had beaten several times. Our 131 straight wins still stands as the longest win streak although most people have never heard of the Flying Queens.

Our eventual loss came in a close, hard-fought game — but none of that mattered. Our 131 straight wins over a five-year span between 1953 and 1958 had been broken and could never be repaired.

Like the Gamecocks, we felt every emotion possible during and after the game.

I had no idea how deeply the loss had affected me until 60 years later, when I was asked how I felt about that defeat during a 2022 documentary interview, and I broke out in unexpected tears.

It was as though I was still in that moment — that small window of time — when everything was possible — but everything would be lost.

Devastating is not a powerful enough word for the emotions that overcame me.

How can sport — a mere game — be so important in someone’s life that it can shake them to the core decades later?

I believe that games invoke hope, for players and fans alike.

There is always the possibility of an upset if the underdog can muster the skills and mental fortitude to fight. All of us — whether athletes or not — yearn for those moments, and silently hope in our hearts that we can escape the valley and reach the mountaintop.

Hard work and skill increase the chance for victory, but they don’t guarantee a win. Sometimes it is the luck of the draw, the bounce of the ball or an injury that turns the tide. It is the element of unpredictability that adds to the excitement and the anticipation that this may be the chance to “win the big one.”

Probably the most valuable part of competition is that sport often makes sense of the confusion of personhood. Trivial things are stripped away as the athlete copes with an environment of many moving parts and many frustrations. The true self — the character of the individual — is on display for all to see. Sport, with all of its pressure and high-speed motion, helps you determine who you are — or who you are not.

Even if they don’t realize it, what most athletes seek is perfection of the whole person — through the coordination of body, mind and spirit while moving full-speed against determined opposition.

Introspection and self-examination are vital, regardless of how painful that might be. The sports environment can aid in the development of character — or reveal the lack of it.

Character is made up of many things — but grace in victory and class in defeat stay with us forever. As painful as the loss to the Huskies was for the Gamecocks, USC coach Dawn Staley showed up for the press after the loss, and admitted: “We just had an embarrassing performance.”

Many politicians need to learn how to show up after a loss and admit the facts.

I will never forget what my coach, Harley Redin, said after calling a timeout when it was evident we were going to have our 131-game streak broken in 1958: “Go out and lose the game the same way you have been winning.”

After that four-point loss, although we felt like the world had come to an end, we shook hands with and congratulated our opponents.

We could have continued to exist in our failure — but the story didn’t end there. The next year, we regained the national AAU championship, defeating the same team that had broken our streak.

As for the Gamecocks, they have won two games by a combined 68 points since their streak ended, and the 2025 NCAA tournament is right around the corner. Personally, I wouldn’t bet against the defending national champions.