Wisdom From Hall of Fame UNC Basketball Coach: Sylvia Hatchell

​Hall of Fame Coach Sylvia Hatchell has just completed her 33rd season as the Women’s Basketball Coach at the University of North Carolina. December 19, 2017, Coach Hatchell reached the 1,000 win mark in the history of the game.

The University of North Carolina has nine ACC Championships, been to three Final Fours and of course the 1994 National Championship. Coach Hatchell is the only coach in history to have won National Championships on three different levels.

In 2013, Coach Hatchell was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, making the University of North Carolina the only school in the country to have both the women’s and men’s basketball coaches in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Coach Hatchell also has a best-selling book called Fight! Fight! Discovering YOUR Inner Strength When Blindsided By Life-My Personal Battle and Fight with Cancer.

Here is some wisdom from her speech at the T-REX conference in Durham in which she shared her fight with cancer and leading as coach of UNC Basketball:

• Success in life is about the mentality you have. It's not your situation that determines everything. It's the positive attitude you take about your situation that can get you through anything and upward onward. Make that decision to be positive. You control your decision to choose wisely. Stay away from stinkin' thinkin'!
• Give yourself a pep talk! Lift yourself up and be your best cheerleader!
• Exercise! Get out of the bed! Walk the halls. In life keep going even when you don't feel like it. Don't use it you lose it. Keep training and exercising.
• Be a fountain, not a drain. Use a clicker to click through anyone who is causing negative activity. Don't be around negative nay sayer people.
• You can't control some things that happen to you, but you can control your reaction and how you handle it. Focus on what you can control!
  
• Remember the paper story. If you take piece of paper and crush it up, you can't open it up again and see it perfectly flat again. Our words are like that. Once you say something negative that hurt you or someone else, you can't take them back without leaving some damage. So be really smart and careful about what you say.
• When hard things come in and crap hits the fan, get on with it! Deal with it! Put on your big pants and push through it!
• You never understand fully why some things happen to you, but there is always a reason for things that cross our paths and good things can come from it! 
• Be a support to people and be open to being supported in return. Stay away from people who pull you down. Be around people who are up-lifters and not people who are down pushers.
• Life is about Team Work! Not about what we gather, its about what we scatter. Need to reap a good harvest, but you can't have a great harvest unless you plant seeds. We are blessed so we can bless others.
• There is strength in unity and team. Don't be out by yourself. You can be broken on your own, but success is about relationships. Be in a community, a team, a family. Keep your friends and family close and build up your community. This will make you strong. Remember, a single string can easily break, but a three string woven cord is strong.
• When life and God puts opportunity in front of you, take advantage of it! Seize the moment and do, be, give, and live! Bloom right where you are planted. You always have opportunity to make a choice and freedom to make a decision. Choose positive!
• Remember, "A Godly person in the center of Gods will is immortal until God is done"
• Be the kind of person that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, the devil says oh crap she or he is up!

Favorite Sport Quotes:

• "Winners Train Losers Complain"
• "Lead Follow Or Get Out Of My Way"
• "Playing is an honor but winning is a tradition"
• "If it is to be, it is up to me!"
• "Its amazing how much can be accomplished when you don't care about who gets the credit"
• "Team work makes the dream work!"

Thank you Sylvia Hatchell for super inspiring and motivational speech! A special thanks to Vince Beese and Eric Boggs from T-REX for the great event and sponsors like Pendo and Barfield Revenue Consulting for supporting!