It’s been a busy season for Mary Grimes, her first as Head Coach for the Binghamton University Women’s Basketball team. She’s had to get to know new players, run practices, scout opposing teams, and travel up and down the East Coast for games in the America East Conference. But in the middle of all that, Coach Grimes still found time to visit West Middle School to speak with students.
“I remember being in their shoes, being in middle school and having an assembly where someone of prestige, I guess you could say, would come in and speak and thinking ‘I could be like them someday,’” Grimes said.
Grimes was invited to speak to students by WMS Librarian Lauren Fitch who is a season ticket holder to the Bearcats Women’s Basketball games. While at games this season, Fitch noticed Grimes wearing shirts with inspiring messages on them; phrases such as “well-behaved women seldom make history,” and “my ancestors’ wildest dreams.” After seeing those powerful words, Fitch thought Grimes would be a perfect speaker to help West Middle celebrate Black History Month.
So, Grimes took a few hours out of her busy schedule to share her story with each grade at WMS. She talked about her time growing up in Detroit: her first love was actually tennis; how she fell in love with basketball, standing along the fence in her backyard waiting to be called over by the neighborhood boys to join them; begging her dad for a hoop to go over the garage (she finally got one in high school); making her first team in middle school, then playing at the high school and collegiate levels; and perhaps most importantly, how she looked for role models that looked like her.
“Representation - of how you could one day go to college, you could play basketball, you could be a coach - matters,” Grimes told students. “Growing up, I wanted to play basketball but I didn’t really have anyone to model after. Any time I would see a magazine and I would see Lisa Leslie or Dawn Staley, I’d rip it out and put it on my wall. I tried to find people who were like me that I wanted to be like.”
That message had an immediate impact. Among the students to hear Coach Grimes, who was also joined by Binghamton University sophomore forward Kendall Bennett, were three members of the Binghamton Patriots Junior Varsity Girls Basketball team.
“The message I got was to just keep going, don’t give up, even when times get hard just push through it because it’s not going to get easier,” said 8th grader Durriyyah Forbes.
“Never giving up because hard work does pay off in the end and it truly inspired me because it showed that it paid off for (Coach Grimes),” said 8th grader London Gresham.
“I think I need to follow my path, take what Coach said and apply it to what I’m doing now and to not give up,” said 8th grader Abigail Okogu.