Going Rogue: An American Life by Lynn Vincent, Sarah Palin Read Free Book Online Page A

Heyde, resented the years we had spent riding the pine. We were determined to make up for it, to show our respected Teeguarden and
    Coach Randall what rhey’d been missing out on, and to seize the opportunity to win. As a captain, I played furiously; I drew
    • 39
    •

    SARAH
    PALIN
    a lot of fouls, but I brought evetything I had to every pracrice and every game. I left everything on the court because I simply wanted rhe team to win.
    I was certain I wanted victory for my team more rhan any opponent wanted it, and that would be the key to reaching my goal of a state championship, even though we were an underdog team. When I have opportunities ro speak ro arhleres today, I always ask rhese kids what I asked myself that season: Who wants it more? Who will work harder for it? And who will be most prepared when the opportunity arises to score and win?
    I was bold but pragmatic. I reminded my teammates that thtough all our years playing the sport together, all our camps, our practices, games, seasons, our obsession with it all, at one time or another we had defeated everyone of our opponents. So there was no reason we couldn’t beat them one more time in that final, shining season.
    Game by game, week by week, our scrappy but determined team surprised everyone by piling up victories. As the season progressed, I recalled my newspaper prediction and thought thar maybe we had a shor at making it come true. We were on a roll. But then I stumbled. It was hard, painful, and very public.
    During a game in the regional tournament a week before state, I came down wrong on my right foot, twisted my ankle underneath me, and felt a sickening pop. Coach Teeguarden carried me off the Boor and the rest of the team carried us to regional victory. I was devastated ro think that my season, my dream, was over.
    It was just days before the state tournament, and I refused to see a doctor because I didn’t want to hear him say something was btoken. I hobbled around and sat on the bench through a week of practices with my foot planted in a bucket of ice. But after all
    . 4°
    .
    Going Rogue
    we’d been through, I decided it would be over my dead body that I’d sit the bench in the state tournament.
    Ar state, we batrled through rhe bracket and made it to the championship game. Our litrle Wasilla Warriors team faced the big Anchorage squad, the Service Cougars. Coach T. knew how badly I wanted to play. I had shown him through four seasons rhar I would give 100 percent effort no mattet the cost, so he took a chance and gave me a shot. He put me in the game. I made it up and down the court, not gracefully but playing as hard as I could. I’d never worked so hard for anything in my life, because I’d never wanted anything so badly. I felt like I couldn’t pull my weight, but I encouraged the team: if we stayed together and played selflessly, I promised them we would win. My teammates were tenacious, intense, and focused, and we never let up. I scored only one point that game, a free throw in the waning seconds. Bur we pulled off the upset.
    That victory changed my life. More than anything else to that point, it proved what my parents had been trying to instill in me all along: that hard work and passion matter most of all. Everything I ever needed to know, I learned on the basketball court. And to this day, my right ankle is a knobby and misshapen thing, a daily reminder of pushing through pain.
    In May 1982, Todd and I walked together during our graduation ceremony in the Warrior gym, dressed in caps and gowns to match our school colors, red and white. Over the next six years, we kept walking together, though we’d be thousands of miles apart.
    Todd headed off to play basketball at a college in Seatrle but eventually felt drawn back to Alaska, to the kind of hard work he thrived on. He earned his private pilot’s license in Prescott,
    . 4 1
    •

    SARAH PALIN
    Arizona, along the way. I kicked off college by taking a semester to thaw out; along