Rock Women United State Marine Style

25 days down and only 6 to go. Preseason has come and flown by for the Rock Women's Basketball team. They have been pushed, tested mentally and physically but they have succeeded with whatever has been put in front of them.

In only the second week of pre-season the team had the honor to participate in a two day boot camp held by the United States Marine Corps. Lets take a quick second to process that. Women's basketball and the Marine Corps? What are they going to teach them? How does that help basketball wise? Well if you ask any of the girls it helped more than you would think. Leading up to the two day camp the girls were not necessary scared but more nervous as they did not know exactly what to expect. Were they going to yell at them? Were they actually going to have to do things the Marines did? All these questions ran through the girls head as they tried to prepare themselves for what they thought would be the two longest days of there lives.

What the girls and coaching staff (yes the coaches actually participated with them!) went through those two days not only pushed them to their physical limits with the many intense activities they did but they were also pushed mentally.

Day one was more individual based. The girls did a number of exercises and were pushed to see what they could do. Day two was more of a teamwork day. The girls were divided into two groups and competed with the coaching staff and a group of Marines. The girls had to learn to work together to complete events and try to do better then there competition. At the end of the two day boot camp the team and coaching staff all stuck together and were just as close as they were before. They fought through adversity and were pushed to their limits but in the end this only made the team stronger. Rock women's basketball can now say they survived boot camp with the United States Marine Corps!

After the girls finished boot camp they were given a t-shirt that said 'I survived' on the back. When one of the girls turned over the shirt to read it, it stated 'I survived', but quickly without missing a beat one of the girls said no 'WE survived'. So if you ask any one of the girls if they survived boot camp they will correct you and say no "we survived as a team". That's team work right there. It's pretty clear to me they all have the same goal on their minds as there season quickly approaches.

The Rock Women began their official season on October 15th and will have less than a month to prepare for the first official game of the season on November 13th!